The White House through spokesperson Olivia Dalton now says that President Joe Biden did not apologize for calling the alleged killer of Laken Riley an "illegal" during his State of the Union speech on Thursday. 

"First of all, I want to be really clear about something: the president absolutely did not apologize," Dalton told reporters when they asked why Biden "apologized." "There was no apology anywhere in that conversation. He did not apologize. He used a different word."

During the speech, Biden said, "Lincoln Riley [sic]. An innocent young woman who was killed by an illegal, that’s right."

The comment was in response to heckling from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) to say Laken Riley's name (which he botched).

Regrets

On Saturday, Biden said he "regretted" using the term "illegal" during an interview on MSNBC with Jonathan Capehart,

“During your response to [Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s] heckling of you, you used the word ‘illegal’ when talking about the man who allegedly killed Laken Riley,” Capehart said.

“An undocumented person. And I shouldn’t have used ‘illegal.’ It’s ‘undocumented,’” Biden said.

“So you regret using that word?” Capehart pressed him.

“Yes,” Biden replied.

And stands by

But now, the official word seems to be that he both regrets and stands by his original statement.

Never mind that you can't have it both ways, no matter how much you really, really want to.

Did Biden ever think about how he looks when he both apologizes, then says he didn't? Does he really think people don't look down on the politicization of absolutely everything?

The family of Laken Riley has to be furious that Biden didn't even know her name, claimed to "feel their pain" at the loss of a child, and then basically apologized to her alleged killer.

It's one thing that Biden makes gaffes every other day, getting facts wrong, making up stories about his life that are later proven untrue, and generally coming across like a senile old man trying to lead the free world.

It's another thing to use someone's deepest pain to make a political, woke point and try to use it to score political points. That's just not a good look no matter how much Biden tries to spin it.