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“Senator Katie Britt is a very impressive person,” says conservative commentator Alyssa Farrar Griffin. I wrote to X. “I don’t understand her decision to have her in her *kitchen* for one of the most important speeches she’s ever given.”
“This speech is not what we need.” Said Charlie Kirk is the founder of the conservative youth group Turning Point USA. “Joe Biden just declared war on the American right, and Katie Britt is talking like she’s hosting a cooking show.”
Britt, a 42-year-old freshman senator with years of experience on Capitol Hill, was chosen to represent the next generation of congressional Republicans. She also focused on immigration, crime and the economy, and tried to remind her viewers of Biden’s age.
The Alabama senator and mother was also the obvious choice to send a message to viewers that the Republican Party supports IVF, days after the Alabama Supreme Court’s decision. The ruling sparked a nationwide backlash as it threatened IVF. In his speech, Britt did not defend the ruling and tried to reassure viewers that the Republican Party supports IVF, but dozens of Republican lawmakers said that “pregnancies without IVF protections” He did not mention that he supported a bill that would define “time” in life.
But her dramatic tone and pauses made her seem different from her usual speaking style, making her one of the speakers whose State of the Union speeches go down in history as blunders. In 2009, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal was criticized for his reaction to President Barack Obama’s speech. And in 2013, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) memorably drank a bottle of water during a rebuttal.
“I don’t know whose genius idea it was to have a United States senator stand in the kitchen and respond to this. [State of the Union]” Republican pollster Christine Matthews said on social media. post Friday morning.
Advertisements featuring women talking about health care in their kitchens “just make women voters uncomfortable,” Matthews said during a panel discussion with women voters over the past decade.
“Instead of the relatable look they were going for here, given the rollbacks on reproductive rights and the IVF fiasco, it sends the message that Republicans are literally trying to put women back in the kitchen.” Mr Matthews added.
A spokesperson for Mr. Britt did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Washington Post. Some members of Britt’s party praised her performance, including Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who praised her on Truth Social, writing, “Great job, Katie!”
“Katie Britt was a sharp contrast to the angry and clearly very upset ‘President,'” Trump wrote.
This is the third year in a row that Republicans have chosen a woman for their rebuttal, and showing viewers a young white mother at home appeared to be a clear strategy to target female voters. The New York Times reported that an ally of Ms. Britt sent talking points to conservatives before the speech, suggesting a response to the remarks, and said in a memo that Ms. Britt was “like America’s mother.” “She understands that,” he said.
In his posts, Trump made sure to point out that Britt was “compassionate and considerate, especially when it came to women and women’s issues.” Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) highlighted Britt’s speech will “speak directly to parents and families across the country.”
Many concluded that this tactic was ineffective. Griffin told CNN that this was “confusing” to the women watching.
“Women can be wives and mothers and they can be politicians,” Griffin said. “So I think it would have been a huge stretch to have her in her kitchen rather than in front of her podium or in the Senate chamber where she was so hard-fought elected.”
Democrats, meanwhile, criticized Republican positions on reproductive rights and other women’s issues, which Britt defended in her speech. Many on Thursday denounced the sexual assault and human trafficking of women Britt spoke about in a speech while supporting President Trump, who was found by a jury to have sexually assaulted and raped author E. Jean Carroll. He pointed out the irony of this.
“Senator Katie Britt encourages Americans to vote for a convicted sex offender, saying sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a woman,” said gun control group Moms. said Shannon Watts, founder of Demand Action. I wrote to X.
Democrats also argued that under Alabama’s abortion ban (one of the strictest in the nation, with no exceptions for rape or incest), rape victims must carry their rapist’s baby until birth. Also mentioned.
And while Britt has been highly critical of the Biden administration’s immigration policies, Democrats noted that she was one of the Republican senators who helped negotiate a bipartisan border security agreement, but President Trump In the end, he voted against it, signaling that the immigration policy should not be passed. In an election year.
Some Republicans, however, worried that the speech was not having the intended effect in reaching female voters, especially in suburban battleground states.
Allie Beth Stuckey, host of the conservative Christian podcast Relatable, praised the kitchen environment but called the speech “a real missed opportunity.” She noted that in X, Britt is in the difficult position of having to appear relatable, likeable, and “happy but not too happy…upset but not too emotional.” .
“But the delivery was parody-level bad,” Stuckey said. Said“And I promise you, the suburban moms we’re trying to reach aren’t upset by that.”
Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.
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