Pelosi: Biden Should’ve Said ‘Undocumented’ Referring to Laken Riley’s Story

TAPPER: “Dana?”
BASH: “Madam Speaker, one of the clearly ad libbed moments was during the section about immigration. And I’m sure you saw the buttons that your colleagues across the aisle had, and he had one of those buttons, we believe it was given to him by Marjorie Taylor Greene, and when she said something to him during his speech, he responded, I think we have that. Let’s listen to it.”
Pelosi: “I didn’t see any Republican buttons — “

[Clip starts]
Biden: “Lincoln — Lincoln Riley, an innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal. That’s right. But how many of the thousands of people being killed by illegals? To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you, having lost children myself, I understand.”
[Clip ends]

Pelosi: “Now, he should have said ‘undocumented,’ but it’s not a big thing, okay? What’s the big thing about that?”
BASH: “I was — I actually wasn’t even going to ask about that. I was just going to ask more about the moment. But you do think that he should have said undocumented? That wasn’t going to be my question.”
Pelosi: “Well, we usually say ‘undocumented,’ he said ‘illegal.’ I don’t think it’s a big deal.”
BASH: “Okay.”
Pelosi:” I don’t think it’s a big deal.”
BASH: “But more broadly — “
Pelosi: “Because I think that his focus was on the sympathy for the family.”
BASH: “Yeah.”
Pelosi: “It’s a terrible tragedy.”
BASH: “That was going to be the sort of the basis of my question about it, which is, as you well know, maybe you didn’t know about the buttons, there’s been a lot of talk, a lot of news about this, this young woman who was a student at University of Georgia, and she died and apparently it was an undocumented immigrant. And the fact that he was ready with that, with the button, with the response, what do you make of that when it comes to not just the substance, but also the performance?
Pelosi: “Well, I think that it was that spontaneous. See, I don’t know about the buttons, and you’re telling me that they had buttons. I didn’t see it. I didn’t do too much schmoozing with the Republicans before. Usually we do, and we had some conversations, but None of the ones that came over to converse with us had those buttons on, so I didn’t see the buttons. Son we won’t make a thing of the button. The president, I think, handled it very well.”
BASH: “Yeah.”
Pelosi: “I think he handled it very well. It’s a terrible situation, anybody losing a child or a family member, it’s a terrible situation. But I think he handled it well.”
BASH: “And you well know that one of the questions that people were looking at, they were wanting to see how he performed when it comes to his age.”
Pelosi: “Yeah. I think he handled that well, too.”