In a recent discussion on MSNBC, the network’s Alicia Menendez condemned Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) for what many argued was Britt’s deceptive usage of a story of surviving sex trafficking in political jabs at the Biden administration.
Britt, who was delivering the Republican response to President Biden’s recent “State of the Union” address, referenced while going after Biden an experience of trafficking that actually took place when Republican George W. Bush was president.
“That is such a misuse of a survivor’s story,” Menendez said. “It is unfair to the survivor who has been brave enough to come forward, to share their story — because the reason you sit on a panel with lawmakers is so that they can actually do something about it, so that they can understand the root cause of what it is that you have suffered, so that they can then go back to their jobs and actually create legislation that will stop it from happening. Not so that your story can be weaponized on the national stage to the opposite effect.”
Britt was widely criticized for the intensely dramatic tone of her brief address, which even spurred a quick parody on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” in which she was portrayed by actress Scarlett Johansson. She and other Republicans, including party torchbearer Donald Trump, remain intent on trying to characterize Biden and his administration as a failure on border policy, though Republicans are the ones who recently voted down a Senate proposal in that area that would have given the federal government new powers to close the border in periods of extensive strain.
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who has been vocal in discussing accomplishments of Biden’s administration, also addressed the discrepancy between Britt’s comments and GOP inaction. “She’s a United States Senator. And the United States Senate right now could be acting to help secure the southern border,” Buttigieg remarked on ABC.
