In the official Republican response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday night, Sen. Katie Britt highlighted several of the Biden administration’s failings—most notably, its handling of the southern border, which she called “a disgrace.”
The Alabama senator declared, “Biden didn’t just create this border crisis, he invited it with 94 executive actions in the first 100 days.”
Biden signed executive orders that stopped several of the Trump administration’s initiatives to curb illegal immigration, including halting building a wall at the southern border and allowing illegal immigrants to enter the United States while applying for asylum rather than waiting in other countries for the several years it takes to actually get a court determination on whether asylum will be granted.
Britt furthered criticized Biden’s border policies by referencing an increase of deadly fentanyl poisonings in the U.S. The drug is predominantly smuggled across the southern border. Speaking from her kitchen, the senator said, “There are empty chairs tonight at kitchen tables just like this one” due to fentanyl poisonings and “horrific murders.”
She also mentioned Laken Riley, a 22-year-old woman who was recently murdered by an illegal immigrant. “She was brutally murdered by one of the millions of illegal border crossers President Biden chose to release into our homeland,” she said.
The president mentioned Riley during his address, holding up a pin with “Say Her Name” across it. However, Biden mispronounced Riley’s name, saying “Lincoln Riley” instead of “Laken.” He also seemed to diminish the circumstances of her death by saying that people were concerned with her death at the hands of an illegal alien but then asked rhetorically, how many Americans die by the hands of people legally here.
Britt also talked about the high cost of living, which she said was going “through the roof.” She disparaged Biden’s economic strategy, saying, “We have the worst inflation in 40 years and the highest credit card debit in our nation’s history.”
She also lambasted Biden for his foreign policy failures, saying that he has made America “a punchline on the world stage.” The senator called out Biden for his “disastrous” pullout of Afghanistan, saying it made America’s allies unable to trust that the U.S. would adequately back them in the future. She said Biden’s foreign policy weakness has also furthered the world’s various conflicts.
“President Biden has failed,” she said. “We’ve become a nation in retreat—and the enemies of freedom, they see an opportunity. [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s brutal aggression in Europe has put our allies on the brink. Iran’s terrorist proxies have slaughtered Israelis, Jews, and American citizens. They’ve targeted commercial shipping. And they’ve attacked our troops nearly 200 times since October, killing three U.S. soldiers and two Navy SEALs.”
Elected two years ago at age 40, Britt is the youngest female Republican ever elected to the U.S. Senate.
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