Flashback: Biden in 2006 tells MSNBC's Chris Matthews 'illegal aliens' must 'learn to speak English,' 'earn their way' in

Last week, Democrats spent quite a bit of energy criticizing President Joe Biden for daring — amid his State of the Union address — to characterize Laken Riley's suspected murderer as an "illegal."

You know, as opposed to being outraged over the murder itself — and for policies that allowed the suspect to roam across the U.S. border in the first place.

Biden, of course, dutifully walked back his "illegal" characterization during an interview with MSNBC’s Jonathan Capehart over the weekend: "I shouldn’t have used 'illegal.' It’s 'undocumented.'" When Capehart asked Biden if he regretted using the "illegal" term, Biden replied, "Yes."

It wasn't always that way.

Let's flash back to another MSNBC clip that's been making the rounds on social media since left-wing undergarments got in a twist over Biden's ghastly "illegal" utterance.

It's a 2006 video of then-U.S. Sen. Biden telling MSNBC's Chris Matthews that "illegal aliens" need to "learn to speak English," among other requirements for getting to reside in the U.S.

In the clip, Matthews kicks things off with — count 'em — three "illegal" references in one question as he asks Biden if there's "a Democratic Party position which accommodates the need to stop illegal entry, punish people who hire people with cheap wages illegally, and also gives hope to people who live here illegally and people who want to come here right now?"

After some back and forth, Matthews asks Biden if you can "scare an employer in this country, whether he's an agricultural worker or a housewife, into not hiring an illegal because the punishment's so high that if you get caught, it's a huge embarrassment to your family, and you may just ... get hit with a fine that'll kill you?"

Biden replies, "Absolutely you can, and that's what we should do. I think we should do that."

From there, Biden remarks that Democrats understand that "illegal aliens ... have to have a way to earn their way into the deal. This isn't amnesty." He also says that "they pay a fine, they gotta learn to speak English, they gotta pass tests."

Matthews chimes in on the importance of encouraging illegal immigrants to learn English, even adding that "English is gonna unite this country potentially. It always has in the past."

Biden then observes that "I can't think of a country that has two languages as their accepted languages that is doing all that well, including Switzerland and/or Canada."

Matthews says that having multiple languages in the U.S. "divides us. You can't talk to each other."

Oh, how times have changed. Check it out:

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