By virtually all accounts, Joe Biden’s State of the Union address was a hit: A majority of viewers had a positive reaction to the speech, and even conservatives admitted that the man they claim is not up to the job of being president was full of energy on Thursday night. “In short, Biden had his game on,” modern American history professor Christopher Phelps told Newsweek. “This was an unequivocal success.” Unfortunately for the GOP, success is not a word people are using when discussing Katie Britt’s response to Biden, which had a vibe that could be best characterized as “low-budget horror movie,” “Handmaid’s Tale–esque,” or simply “creepy as f–k.” In fact, the whole thing was so weird and cringeworthy—from the Alabama lawmaker’s deeply unsettling whispering, to the words “steeped in the blood of patriots,” to the sense that before the director yelled “cut,” Britt was going to go threaten a specific teacher for letting her kid read a book about kindness—that even Republicans are panning her response. And they’re not holding back!
“Everyone’s fucking losing it,” one GOP strategist told the Daily Beast of the response to Britt’s kitchen table rebuttal, which will no doubt be parodied on Saturday Night Live this weekend. “It’s one of our biggest disasters ever.” Said a source close to Donald Trump: “Her performance was the stuff of nightmares.” Speaking to a Business Insider reporter, a Republican Hill staffer opined: “She really thinks she’s killing it. But it’s comical. Like SNL quality.” On X, conservative commentator Allie Beth Stuckey wrote: “…the delivery was parody-level terrible.”
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Seemingly attempting to defend the decision to put Britt in a kitchen—again, it cannot be overstated just how much it felt like she was one second away from pulling out a meat cleaver and saying something like, “Us moms will do anything to protect our families from Joe Biden’s policies”—Senator Tommy Tuberville reportedly said: “She was picked as a housewife, not just a senator—somebody who sees it from a different perspective…. I mean, she did what she was asked to do. I thought she did a good job. And it’s hard when you’ve never done anything like that.” Not exactly a rousing endorsement!
Jokes about Britt’s performance aside, it’s ironic that the lawmaker attempted to paint Biden’s America as a terrifying place when Republicans like her have a much, much scarier vision for the country. As gun control advocate Shannon Watts pointed out, Britt’s recounting of a horrifying ordeal endured by a sex trafficking victim lacked any mention of what Republicans think should happen to sex trafficking victims should they get pregnant.*
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Nor did it acknowledge the fact that the Republican Party is trying to put a man found liable for sexual abuse back in the White House this November.
*In Britt’s home state, abortion is banned, including in cases of rape and incest.
