Joe Biden has mocked his confrontation with Marjorie Taylor Greene after she interrupted his State of the Union (SOTU) address on Thursday.
“I got my usual warm reception from congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene,” he sarcastically told supporters at a campaign event at Strath Haven Middle School in Wallingford, Pennsylvania.
During the SOTU speech given to lawmakers in the House chamber, Biden addressed the failure of a bipartisan bill to introduce stricter immigration measures, which was rejected by Republicans. However, he was swiftly interrupted by Georgia Rep. Greene who drew attention to the death of Laken Riley, an Augusta University student who was killed by a non-U.S. citizen in February.
Greene, who was wearing a T-shirt with the phrase “Say Her Name” on it, repeated the phrase to Biden as he spoke about the immigration bill. Newsweek has contacted Greene for comment via email outside of normal working hours.
When Biden said Riley’s name, Greene replied that the student was killed by an “illegal”, which the president acknowledged. “But how many thousands of people being killed by legals? To her parents, I say, my heart goes out to you having lost children myself. I understand,” Biden said.
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Riley was found dead near a lake on the University of Georgia campus on February 22. The following day, police said that they had charged an undocumented immigrant, Jose Antonio Ibarra, from Venezuela, with her murder.
Riley was first reported missing by a friend after she failed to return from a run. Arrest affidavits, seen by The New York Times, say that Ibarra allegedly used an object to attack Riley before dragging her body to the wooded area where she was found. The pair are not believed to have been known to each other.
Michael Tyler, Biden’s campaign communications director, said on Friday: “I know it may have been difficult to hear over the incessant heckling of Marjorie Taylor Greene last night, but we should be very clear about what the president was saying when it comes to fixing our broken system and to rejecting the cruelty in the hateful extremism that’s being pushed by people like Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who were actually just trying to demonize immigrants in an attempt to score political points.”
Tyler continued: “We are running this campaign against a man who was promising to rip kids away from their mothers again, who’s promising to erect mass deportation camps, who is promising to end birthright citizenship and is using hate as one of its chief political currencies.”
Following the SOTU address, in a clip that has been widely shared online, Biden can be seen suddenly looking shocked before the camera pans to Greene, who is wearing a Make America Great Again cap. As Biden pulls the face, Greene grimaces before beginning to turn away, when the clip ends.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.