President Biden spoke in a wide-ranging interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart that aired on Saturday, addressing the Israel-Hamas war and the crisis at the southern border. Biden also retracted the “unlawful” description of Laken Riley’s murder suspect.
This is the second time Capehart has met with Biden during his term as president, an unusual feat for someone who was granted multiple interviews. His first interview with Biden was in October 2022.
Asked by Capehart during Thursday’s State of the Union address about using the word “unlawful” to describe the suspect who killed Laken Riley, the president said he should have used the word “unlawful” instead. Ta.
“And I shouldn’t have used illegal language, I should have… It’s undocumented. And look, when I talked about my differences with Trump, one of the things I talked about at the border One was about him, the way he talked. “The way he talked about pests, people contaminating blood. I talked about what I’m not going to do, what I won’t do. I don’t mean to be disrespectful to any of you.”
Asked if he regretted his choice of words, Biden said, “Yes.”
In a sudden moment during the State of the Union address, Biden appeared to mistakenly refer to Riley as “Lincoln Riley,” during which he used the word “illegal” to describe the suspect.
President Joe Biden speaks during the State of the Union address at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, March 7, 2024 in Washington, DC. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Some members of Mr. Biden’s party have criticized his use of the word “illegal,” and he initially defended his choice but ultimately recanted during his conversation with Mr. Capehart. did.
Riley was a 22-year-old student at Augusta University who was allegedly murdered by Jose Antonio, who entered the United States illegally in 2022.
Mr. Biden rarely grants interviews, especially challenging and demanding sit-downs with journalists. So far this year, in addition to Capehart, he has spoken to the Rev. Al Sharpton on his radio show, “Late Night” host Seth Meyers and his friend and biographer Evan at The New Yorker. Osnos talks with North Carolina morning radio host Dede McGuire and others.
The president famously skipped a traditional pre-Super Bowl interview on CBS last month after opting out of an interview with Fox News the previous year. He set an unprecedented record for giving fewer interviews and press conferences than his modern predecessors, although the White House insists he regularly takes questions from reporters in private settings. ing.
Biden’s last formal interview with a journalist was on CBS in October.
On “60 Minutes” on October 15th, CBS Correspondent Scott Pelley focused his questions on Biden’s response to the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas.
Although “60 Minutes” is widely considered a serious news show, the interview itself wasn’t all that demanding. Among the questions Mr. Perry posed to the president was: “Why do you feel so strongly about talking to these families?” [of American hostages in Gaza] “Is the safe return of American hostages your top priority right now?” “Is the dysfunction we’ve seen in Congress increasing the danger in the world?” “Why do you feel so strongly?” ” What does Israel mean to you? ”
The interview was slammed by former President Donald Trump, whom Biden is likely to run against in 2024, who wrote on Truth Social that CBS News had “guided him like a lost child.”
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
Perhaps the last time Biden faced tough questions in an interview was back in February 2023, when he was still in office. Grilled by PBS NewsHour’s Judy Woodruff ABC’s David Muir spoke about the classified documents scandal in two sit-downs. What followed was “The Daily Show” guest host (former Obama aide) Kal Penn, “Today’s” Al Roker, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Stephanie Ruhl, It was a series of friendly interviews, including with Nicole Wallace, CNN’s Fareed Zakaria and the British Wellness Podcast. host Jay Shutt, The Weather Channel’s Stephanie Abrams, and ProPublica’s John Harwood.
Remarkably, since the June indictment by the Justice Department, none of the president’s interviewers have asked him about the growing legal troubles facing his embattled son Hunter Biden. In other words, Mr. Biden was able to avoid the topic in more than a dozen interviews over 10 months.
