Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) got some backlash after President Joe Biden's State of the Union speech when she went on CNN to criticize him for calling the alleged killer of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley an "illegal" instead of "undocumented."

Madam speaker, one of the clearly ad-libbed moments was during the section about immigration,” CNN anchor Dana Bash said, then played a clip of Biden's remarks.

“Now he should have said undocumented, but that’s not a big thing, OK? What’s the big thing?” Pelosi responded.

Bash didn't really ask a question about the remarks, but she invited comment while saying she wasn't going to ask.

"Terrible tragedy"

Pelosi took the bait and said, “Well, we usually say ‘undocumented.’ He said ‘illegal.’ I don’t think it’s a big deal. I don’t think it’s a big deal because I think his focus was on the sympathy for the family. It’s a terrible tragedy.”

Her remarks kind of damned Biden with faint praise, but what else can a fellow Democrat do these days without coming across as completely fake in the face of all Biden's flaws?

Still, she got her point across, even though Bash didn't directly ask her because mainstream media reporters don't generally ask questions they don't want to hear the answers to.

“It’s a terrible situation that anybody losing a child or a family member. It’s a terrible situation, but I think he handled it well,” she added.

"Monster"

Pelosi and Bash were referring to the murder of Laken Riley on the UGA campus, for which illegal immigrant Jose Ibarra has been arrested.

Ibarra came into the country in 2019, but was arrested in 2023 and let go without being deported or punished in any way.

If immigration laws had been followed, Ibarra would not have been in the country to kill Riley, as many conservatives have pointed out.

While Biden did express condolences to Riley's family, he mispronounced her name as "Lincoln Riley" and he pointed out that more "legals" murdered people in the country than "illegals."

His comments had to be deeply offensive to Riley's parents, who were invited but declined to attend the speech.

Social media users called her a "monster" for caring more about Biden's word usage than about Riley's murder, and that seems about right.