Trump blasts Biden over Laken Riley’s death after Biden says he regrets using term ‘illegal’

ATLANTA — President Joe Biden said Saturday that he regretted using the term “illegal” during his State of the Union address to describe the suspected killer of Laken Riley, as his all-but-certain 2024 GOP rival, Donald Trump, blasted the Democrat’s immigration policies and blamed them for her death at a rally attended by the Georgia nursing student’s family and friends. “What Joe Biden has done on our border is a crime against humanity and the people of this nation for which he will never be forgiven,” Trump charged, alleging that Riley “would be alive today if Joe Biden had not willfully and maliciously eviscerated the borders of the United States and set loose thousands and thousands of dangerous criminals into our country.” Trump, who had made immigration a centerpiece of his campaign, has repeatedly vowed to mount the largest deportation in the nation’s history if he wins. Among those who attended the rally was Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who represents Rome in Congress and yelled at Biden during Thursday’s State of the Union to “Say her name!” The phrase was popularized by civil rights activist Kimberlé Crenshaw in 2015 following the death of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Black woman who was found dead in a Texas jail cell a few days after she was arrested during a traffic stop. “He should be apologizing to the family as opposed to apologizing for the word that he used which is an accurate description,” he told reporters before Trump took the stage, blasting the response as “tone deaf” and highlighting the candidates’ “two very distinct differences in approach on the border invasion.” Biden’s expression of regret was a shift from a day earlier, when Biden had hesitated when asked by reporters if he regretted using the term, saying, “well I probably,” before pausing and saying “I don’t” and appearing to start saying “regret.” ___ Price reported from Rome, Georgia.