For many Republicans, the problem with Sen. Katie Britt’s response to the State of the Union address was obvious before it was even over. An adviser to Donald Trump, for example, asked during the Alabama senator’s remarks, “What the hell am I watching right now?”
It was not an uncommon question. So many official State of the Union responses have been dreadful that some have raised the possibility of a “curse,” but Britt’s overwrought delivery, wild tonal swings, and kitchen setting were unusually cringeworthy, drawing complaints from GOP officials and their allies.
The fact that the Republican’s remarks were parodied on “Saturday Night Live” helped drive home the obvious point: Britt’s response failed. As a New York Times report summarized, “With a sunny, inviting smile, Senator Katie Britt of Alabama welcomed Americans into her kitchen on Thursday night. Many soon backed away nervously.”
It wasn’t long, however, before attention shifted away from the problem with the senator’s delivery and toward a substantive problem with Britt’s message itself.
Early on in the Alabama Republican’s remarks, she talked about having traveled to Texas, where she spoke to a woman who’d been raped and sex-trafficked by Mexican cartels starting at the age of 12. As my MSNBC colleague Clarissa-Jan Lim explained:
Britt goes on to detail the woman’s horrific experience of daily sexual assault. She concludes by saying, “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and it is past time, in my opinion, that we start acting like it. President Biden’s border policies are a disgrace.” Britt’s phrasing fairly clearly implies that the woman’s sexual abuse had taken place in the U.S.
But it didn’t. The woman Britt referred to was Karla Jacinto Romero, who survived a horrific nightmare that few can even imagine, and who has become a prominent activist. (Former Associated Press reporter Jonathan…
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