Katie Britt was dismissed as a ‘lying sack’ and accused of arming a child rape victim as fact-checkers went to work on her State of the Union response.
The junior senator from Alabama chose illegal immigration as her theme after she was selected to deliver the official Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address Thursday night.
Her impassioned 18-minute speech enraged liberals and was ridiculed by Scarlett Johansen, who parodied it on SNL, where she was mocked as the ‘craziest b**ch in the Target parking lot’.
But her emotional story of a 12-year-old rape victim to illustrate the border crisis under Joe Biden sparked outrage after it emerged the girl’s ordeal actually took place in Mexico when George W Bush was president.
“I don’t know what FI saw,” said former Fox host Megyn Kelly, “she embarrassed herself, she embarrassed Republicans, and she embarrassed women.”
Sen. Katie Britt centered the story of a 12-year-old child trafficking victim to illustrate the border crisis under Joe Biden as she delivered the GOP response to Joe Biden’s State of the Union address Thursday
It turned out that the survivor she featured is now a high-profile campaigner who was abused in Mexico years before Biden took office.
Karla Jacinto Romero was just 12 years old when she was kicked out of her home in Mexico City and forced into four years of child prostitution
The GOP rising star chose to focus on the story of ‘a woman who shared her story with me’ after speaking with her in Del Rio, Texas.
“She had been sexually trafficked by the cartels when she was 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped,” Britt told viewers from her kitchen table in Birmingham, Alabama.
“The cartels put her on a mattress in a shoebox in a room and they sent men through that door, over and over, for hours and hours.
‘We would not be okay with this happening in a third world country. This is America and it’s time we start acting like it.’
Former AP journalist Jonathan M Katz was among the first to realize that Britt was talking about the case of Karla Jacinto Romero, who was caught by a pimp after her mother kicked her out of the family home in Mexico City in 2004.
She was forced into prostitution for four years before escaping and becoming a powerful and high-profile advocate for child sex victims, testifying before Congress in 2015 and meeting the Pope.
“Britt tells it as if she was sitting on the banks of the Rio Grande and holding her hand and making her tell the story she doesn’t want to tell anyone else,” Katz noted.
Former AP journalist Jonathan M Katz was among the first to unearth the truth in the story
Britt appeared at times on the verge of tears sitting at her kitchen table as she broke into the policies that President Joe Biden emphatically defended and made an emotional appeal.
At 42, Britt is the youngest female GOP senator ever and is seen as a rising star in the party
Romero testified before Congress as far back as 2015 and has become one of Mexico’s best-known advocates against child trafficking
“This senator has gone around telling the story over and over as if she was describing actions that took place on or even near the US border during Joe Biden’s presidency.
‘It goes beyond misleading.’
‘It just seems like she got on national TV and lied about something really awful and really important for her own personal and her party’s political gain.’
Britt traveled to the Del Rio Sector border in Texas in January 2023 with other Republican Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi, according to a press release issued at the time from Hyde-Smith’s office.
“The senators held a roundtable discussion with former Mexican Congresswoman Rosa María de la Garza, Fox News contributor Sara Carter and Karla Jacinto Romero, a survivor of human trafficking,” the press release said.
‘The senators learned about cartel activity in Mexico and the work being done to rescue victims of human trafficking.’
Britt, 42, has made immigration one of his top issues in his first years in the Senate, and Republicans have seized on a wave of immigrants entering the country during Biden’s tenure to attack the president.
Donald Trump had endorsed Britt in her 2022 primary after flipping on former Rep. Mo Brooks, whom he initially endorsed.
Britt is married to former NFL player Wesley Britt and they have two children, and Speaker Mike Johnson noted that Britt is “the only current Republican mother of school-age children serving in the Senate.”
The youngest Republican woman elected to the Senate received praise from some for her performance, including Texas Sen. Ted Cruz
“Congratulations to my friend and colleague @SenKatieBritt for showing Texans and Americans what Republicans really stand for – a strong economy, secure border and good jobs for every American,” he wrote.
‘She was absolutely top notch and delivered a dynamite response,’ wrote South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
But former GOP congressman Joe Walsh called her remarks ‘despicable.’
“She sat in front of the American people and she lied to us about a very serious problem,” he told CNN.
‘It’s very clear to me,’ Katz concluded, that Britt ‘was trying to make a connection in people’s minds between Joe Biden, the border, Mexicans or people of Latin descent and sexual violence.
Alabama GOP Sen. Katie Britt’s State of the Union response was spoofed by Scarlett Johansson on SNL, parodying the politician’s dramatic tone
‘That’s what she’s going for, and she’s doing it on the basis of what you can only say is an outright lie.’
Katz’s quick rebuttal garnered more than 150,000 likes after he posted it on TikTok.
‘Holy moly. This is worth every minute,’ said author Nick Knudsen.
“Jonathan Katz exposes Katie Britt as a lying sack.”