Olivia Dalton, outgoing White House principal deputy press secretary, said Monday that President Joe Biden did not apologize for calling slain Georgia nursing student Laken Riley's killer an "illegal."
"First of all, I want to be really clear about something: the president absolutely did not apologize," Dalton said aboard Air Force One. "There was no apology anywhere in that conversation. He did not apologize. He used a different word."
"In addition to the fact that the president did not apologize, I want to make another thing clear," she continued. "The president spoke directly to this in the State of the Union address not four nights ago when he spoke passionately about knowing what it means to lose a child and extended his deep grief and condolences to Laken Riley's family in front of the entire country in the House chamber."
She added that "it is unconscionable that there are some people who are playing politics with this young woman's tragic murder" and attacked congressional Republicans for "standing in the way" of a Senate-negotiated "bipartisan border security agreement that is the toughest bill we have ever seen in history."
The Daily Mail reported Dalton was traveling to an event in New Hampshire when she made the comments to reporters.
In an interview with MSNBC on Saturday, Biden attempted to walk back his description of the man charged with Riley's murder, saying, "I shouldn't have used illegal, it's undocumented."
The interview followed the president's remarks on Friday, when he was asked by a reporter if he regretted calling the Venezuelan national an "illegal."
"Well, I probably, uh, I don't regret ... it," Biden responded. "Technically he's not supposed to be here."
Former President Donald Trump ripped Biden, his likely opponent in the general presidential election, for apologizing during a campaign rally in Georgia on Saturday.
"They just told me prior to what I'm doing right now that Joe Biden went on television and apologized for calling Laken's murderer an illegal," Trump said. "He didn't want to call them illegal. He supposed he said he should have called him an undocumented, not an illegal, and he wanted to apologize. He wanted to apologize."
The former president said Riley's alleged killer "was an illegal immigrant," an "illegal migrant" and "he never would have been [in the U.S.] under the Trump policy."
"Biden should be apologizing for apologizing to this killer," he said. "Joe Biden has no remorse. He's got no regret. He's got no empathy, no compassion, or — worst of all — he has no intention of stopping the deadly invasion that stole preciously beautiful American life."