Katie Britt gives the Republican Party’s response to Biden with a smile and menace
Senator Katie Britt of Alabama criticized President Biden as ill-equipped to lead the country in a speech on Thursday that served as both a rebuke of his State of the Union address and an introduction to the nation by a politician many Republicans have seen as an emerging phenomenon. young star.
“Our commander in chief is not in command,” Ms. Britt said in the Republican Party’s official response to Mr. Biden’s speech. “The free world deserves better than a hesitant and diminished leader.”
Ms. Britt, 42, delivered a ragged speech, alternating between a broad, often strained smile and a furrowed brow, paired with a fierce glare as she issued ominous warnings about illegal immigration.
She spoke from the kitchen table of her home in Montgomery, Alabama, an unusual setting meant to underscore her argument that Mr. Biden represents a threat to prosperity for American families. But the background appeared to confuse viewers on social media, where Ms. Britt was mocked by some for using a dramatic, breathy voice to criticize the president.
“Under his administration, families are worse off – our communities are less safe and our country is less secure,” she said. “I wish he understood what real families face around kitchen tables like this.”
Ms. Britt has been mentioned as a potential running mate for former President Donald J. Trump, who has his third consecutive Republican nomination all but within reach.
She won her first elected office in 2022, becoming Alabama’s first female senator and the youngest Republican woman elected to the chamber. Speaker Mike Johnson noted in the announcement that she would answer the State of the Union that she is the “only current Republican mother of school-age children serving in the Senate.”
Her selection was a stark contrast to the 81-year-old Biden, the country’s oldest president, who faces skepticism within his party over whether he is too old for a second term.
She also symbolized the latest Republican effort to broaden the appeal of a party overwhelmingly represented in Washington by white men.
Last year, the Republican answer was provided by Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders of Arkansas, a former Trump White House press secretary who became the nation’s youngest governor when she took office early last year. Previous Republican reactions to Biden’s speech came from Governor Kim Reynolds, the first female governor of Iowa, and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, the only Black Republican in the House.
Ms. Britt repeatedly brought up families and her children in her speech.
“The country we know and love seems to be slipping away – it feels like the next generation will have fewer opportunities and less freedom than we did,” she said. “I worry that my own children may not even have the opportunity to realize their American dreams.”
Ms. Britt is, at first glance, an unlikely vice presidential candidate for Mr. Trump. She rose to the Senate within the business-friendly wing of the Republican Party that he ousted from power.
She was CEO of the Business Council of Alabama, the state’s Chamber of Commerce, and former chief of staff to former Sen. Richard Shelby, Alabama’s longest-serving senator.
But Ms. Britt has been on Trump’s radar since August 2021, when she stood at the end of a receiving line to shake hands with the former president at a Republican rally in Alabama.
Mrs. Britt, then a Senate candidate, introduced the former president to her husband, Wesley Britt, noting that he played professional football for the New England Patriots, whose billionaire owner, Robert Kraft, said two people familiar with the matter with the exchange.
Even though Mr. Trump had already endorsed her main opponent, Rep. Mo Brooks, Ms. Britt reportedly told Mr. Trump that she deserved his endorsement instead.
Seven months later, in March 2022, Mr. Trump withdrew his support as Mr. Brooks fell in the polls. He endorsed Ms. Britt, calling her “an incredible fighter for the people of Alabama,” less than two weeks before her runoff election with Mr. Brooks in June.
Democrats seized on Ms. Britt’s selection as a Republican backlash as they try to make abortion rights and women’s issues central campaign topics.
Last month, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos must be considered children, jeopardizing the state’s access to fertility treatments such as in vitro fertilization. Mrs. Britt, who said that she believes that life begins at conception, came in support of access to IVF after the ruling.
Ms. Britt, along with most Senate Republicans, voted this year against a landmark bipartisan bill to crack down on immigration while providing new aid to Ukraine.
On foreign affairs, she argued that Mr Biden’s “appeasement strategy” had led to chaos and unrest around the world.
Ms. Britt, along with a slim majority of Republicans, voted against an aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan that was ultimately passed by the Senate.