Trojans coach Lincoln Riley’s name blew up on social media Thursday evening during the State of the Union address after President Joe Biden botched his attempt to say the name of Laken Riley, the Georgia woman who was murdered by an illegal alien on the campus of the University of Georgia.
Coach Riley’s name came up when Joe Biden tried to say Laken Riley’s name but instead blurted out “Lincoln Riley” after Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene demanded from the gallery that Biden “say her name.”
He didn’t say her name. He said coach Lincoln Riley’s name instead.
Oddly, Biden tried to deflect the fact that an illegal alien murdered Laken Riley by saying, “But how many of the thousands of people being killed by legals?”
Worse, Biden then tried to conflate his loss of a son to cancer to the Riley family’s loss of Laken to a murderer, and said, “My heart goes out to you having lost children myself. I understand.”
With the hubbub over the name kerfuffle, Coach Riley suddenly found himself in the spotlight.
Many social media users jumped to their keyboards and phones to blast Biden for muffing the murder victim’s name.
Women’s sports activist Riley Gains, for one, wrote, “This International Women’s Day, we remember Laken Riley. Her death was untimely and preventable. Say her name…& no, it’s not Lincoln Riley. Laken Riley.”
Actor James Woods called Biden’s malapropism “appalling.”
Many others piled on:
Rep. Greene also slammed Biden for the verbal gaffe.
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