Biden botches name of migrant-murdered ‘Lincoln’ Riley in Trump-bashing State of the Union speech
WASHINGTON — President Biden stunned listeners Thursday as he veered from his highly partisan State of the Union address script to call out Georgia nursing student Laken Riley’s murder last month by an illegal immigrant — erring twice by calling her “Lincoln.”
Biden, 81, began his campaign-style speech by highlighting his best-polling positions — railing against former President Donald Trump on issues such as abortion, NATO and the Capitol riot — but was derailed by Republicans’ persistent heckling, finally responding to their demands that he say Riley’s name hours after the House passed legislation in her honor to require that migrants who commit certain crimes be sent to federal custody.
The president then held up a pin bearing Riley’s name, which Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) had handed him on his way into the chamber, with Biden telling the congresswoman, “I know how to say her name.”
“Lincoln — Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal,” Biden said, both botching her name and using a term considered politically incorrect by most Democratic officeholders.
“That’s right, but how many of thousands of people are being killed by legals —” he began as Greene interrupted him with continued heckling over his border policies.
The president did not correct himself after botching Riley’s name before adding: “To her parents, I say my heart goes out to you. Having lost children myself, I understand.”
Biden pivoted quickly to arguing for a stalled bipartisan Senate bill, which conservatives balked at last month over provisions they say bless rather than counter the current White House policy of quickly releasing most migrants who request asylum after illegally crossing the border.
The president emphasized the bill also had funding to boost the processing of asylum claims, as Senate GOP negotiator James Lankford (R-Okla.) nodded along and mouthed “That’s true” — and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) shook his head and rolled his eyes.
“Look, if we change the dynamic at the border — people pay the smugglers $8,000 to get across the border because they know if they get in the country, it’s six to eight years before they have a hearing … But if it’s only six weeks, the idea is it’s highly unlikely that people will pay that money and go all that way, knowing that they’ll be able to be kicked out quickly,” Biden said.
Republicans had hounded Biden for not addressing Riley’s murder since her body was found Feb. 22 on the University of Georgia’s campus.
Authorities say Riley was killed by 26-year-old Venezuelan migrant Jose Antonio Ibarra, who was released near El Paso in September 2022 pursuant to Biden administration policies and subsequently busted by police but not held in jail for allegedly endangering a child in New York and shoplifting in Georgia.
Republicans accuse Biden of unleashing the border crisis by terminating former President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy that required most asylum seekers to await rulings on their claim while staying south of the border.
Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), who represents Staten Island, pressed Biden to use his existing presidential authority to reverse course on border policy shortly before his speech, pulling him aside as he walked down the central aisle of the House chamber.
Malliotakis “told him to secure the border, Americans are dying. He used his authority to dismantle it, he can use it to put it back together,” her spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre told The Post.
Republicans note that Biden largely ignored the border issue until recently — with the White House initially insisting that a surge in crossings that coincided with Biden taking office was simply seasonal or a reflection of global issues and not US policies.
December saw an all-time monthly record with more than 302,000 people arrested for illegally entering from Mexico — equivalent to the population of Pittsburgh.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in January that more than 85% of those detained for illegally crossing the border were being released into the US — up from 71% in October and 74% in November.
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Asylum seekers are entitled to work permits after an initial 180-day wait period, and a massive asylum processing backlog means that an actual adjudication of their claims could take nearly a decade.
A record of about 2.5 million people — nearly the population of Chicago — were apprehended after illegally crossing the US-Mexico border in fiscal 2023, which ended Sept. 30, in addition to an estimated 670,000 “gotaways” who evaded authorities.
Fiscal 2022 previously set a record with nearly 2.4 million apprehensions along the border — up from 1.7 million in fiscal 2021, which Republicans at the time had considered a crisis.
The House impeached Mayorkas on Feb. 13 for allegedly failing to enforce the country’s laws and for allegedly misrepresenting the degree of border security in congressional testimony.
The Senate trial of Mayorkas, who attended the State of the Union, has not yet been scheduled.
Trump-bashing
Biden kicked off his 68-minute speech by declaring: “My purpose tonight is to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment.”
“Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been more under assault. What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack both at home and overseas,” he added.
Biden addressed the country’s political elite — and what in most years is tens of millions of TV and online viewers — by emphasizing matters on which polling shows he has an edge over his presumptive Republican opponent.
At one point, Biden got a standing ovation — including from some Republicans — by vowing to stand up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, as House GOP leadership resists booking a vote on a Senate-passed foreign aid bill that includes $60 billion in aid for Kyiv.
“Assistance to Ukraine is being blocked by those who want to walk away from our world leadership. It was not long ago when a Republican president named Ronald Reagan thundered, ‘Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall.’ Now my predecessor, the former Republican president, tells [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, ‘Do whatever the hell you want,’” Biden said.
“That’s a quote, a former president actually said that, bowing down to a Russian leader. I think it’s outrageous. It’s dangerous and it’s unacceptable.
“My message to President Putin, who I’ve known for a long time, is simple: We will not walk away. We will not bow down. I will not bow down.”
Biden immediately segued to 77-year-old Trump’s unfounded claims of voter fraud, saying: “History is watching, just like history watched three years ago on January 6, when insurrectionists stormed this very Capitol and placed a dagger to the throat of democracy.”
“Many of you were here on that darkest of days. We all saw with our own eyes the insurrectionists were not ‘patriots.’ They had come to stop the peaceful transfer of power, to overturn the will of the people,” Biden said.
“January 6, lies about the 2020 election and the plots to steal the election posed the gravest threat to US democracy since the Civil War, but they failed, America stood.”
He added in a jab at Trump supporters in the room: “My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth of January 6 … Here’s the truth: You can’t love your country only when you win.”
Biden wasn’t the only politician who treated Thursday’s event like an election-year rally.
Greene wore a pro-Trump “Make America Great Again” hat, in defiance of House chamber rules, and Rep. Troy Nehls (R-Texas) wore under a sports coat a T-shirt with a photo of Trump’s mug shot in his election interference case in Georgia, captioned “Never Surrender.”
The 45th president himself lashed out on Truth Social, saying Biden had delivered the “Angriest, Least Compassionate, and Worst State of the Union Speech ever made.
“It was an Embarrassment to our Country!”
