President Donald Trump on Friday evening accused the mainstream media of not covering Mollie Tibbetts’s murder “the way it should be covered” as soon as the media found out that an illegal alien was charged with her murder.

Speaking at a fundraising dinner for the Ohio Republican Party, Trump said the mainstream media “didn’t want to cover it the way it should be covered” when “they found out that it was this horrible illegal immigrant that viciously killed her.”

“Just this week we learned that Iowa authorities have charged an illegal alien in the murder of a college student—Mollie Tibbetts,” Trump said, adding that “everybody was talking about Mollie,” who the president said was a “beautiful, wonderful, incredible person.”

Trump said that “everybody that met her loved her” and added that when he saw Tibbetts’s father hoping that his daughter would come back alive, Trump said he thought to himself while watching television coverage for the last month, “maybe he’s right.”

“This went on for a long time… when they found out that it was this horrible illegal immigrant that viciously killed her, all of a sudden that story went down. They didn’t want to cover it the way it should be covered,” Trump said. “What happened to Mollie was a disgrace and our hearts go out. We mourn for Mollie’s family.”

At a West Virginia rally earlier in the week, Trump said Tibbetts’s murder “should’ve never happened.” The White House also released a video in which Trump said Tibbetts “is now permanently separated from her family.”

Legacy media reporters immediately rushed to downplay the illegal immigration issue. Mainstream media reporters like CNN’s Chris Cuomo, outraged more by Trump’s words than the fact that an illegal alien who never should have been in the country was charged with Tibbetts’s murder, said Trump’s words about permanent separation were “offensive.”

In the White House video, Trump said: “Mollie Tibbetts, an incredible young woman, is now permanently separated from her family. A person came in from Mexico, illegally, and killed her. We need the wall. We need our immigration laws changed. We need our border laws changed. We need Republicans to do it because Democrats aren’t going to do it. This is one instance of many. We have tremendous crime coming trying to come through the borders. We have the worst laws anywhere in the world. Nobody has laws like the United States. They are strictly pathetic. We need new immigration laws. We need new border laws. The Democrats will never give them… So, to the family of Mollie Tibbetts–all I can say is God bless you, God bless you.”