House Speaker Mike Johnson blasted President Biden as an "embarrassment" for seemingly apologizing to Laken Riley's accused killer instead of to the slain student's family. 

"The president is cowering to his base and showing deference to a man who deserves none. This man is an illegal immigrant who brutally murdered Laken Riley. President Biden should be apologizing to Laken’s family. What an embarrassment," Johnson wrote on X on Sunday, responding to Biden's interview with MSNBC's Jonathan Capehart that aired Saturday.

At the urging of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Biden, during an off-script moment in his State of the Union address on Thursday, decried Riley's killing by "an illegal." The president later backtracked during his interview with Capehart, saying he should have instead used the word "undocumented" to describe Jose Ibarra, a Venezuelan national charged with murdering Riley, an Augusta University nursing student who was out for a run on the University of Georgia campus last month. 

The White House said Monday that Biden "did not apologize."

"There was no apology anywhere in that conversation," principal deputy press secretary Olivia Dalton told reporters aboard Air Force One. "He did not apologize. He used a different word."

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement confirmed that Ibarra illegally crossed the border near El Paso, Texas, and was released into the U.S. for further processing in September 2022. He was later arrested and released in New York City for allegedly endangering a child about a year later.