Sen. Mitt Romney swooped in to defend fellow Republican Sen. Katie Britt from the withering backlash over her State of the Union rebuttal speech — and said it just shows that liberals are afraid of her national appeal.
Britt (R-Ala.) faced mockery on Saturday Night Live and was pilloried online over the cadence of her voice and her decision to criticize President Biden’s border policy with an anecdote about sex trafficking that happened 20 years ago in Mexico.
For Romney, none of that matters.
“In a good way, the delivery was over-the-top, out of character—Biden’s, of course. Katie Britt’s too.” the former 2021 GOP presidential nominee posted on X.
“The media overreaction to hers not his tells us who liberals most fear as VP nominee.”
Britt, a first-term senator, has garnered some buzz about possibly being named former President Donald Trump’s running mate.
Romney, who is set to retire at the end of his Senate term, has been emphatic that he will not back Trump in the Nov. 5 election.
Throughout his time in the Senate, he emerged as one of Trump’s chief adversaries among Republicans. But he’s been sharply critical of President Biden, as well.
Shortly after Biden’s State of the Union address, Romney praised his points on foreign policy but argued that the incumbent pushed “the same old liberal playbook” of excessive spending and taxation.
Romney had been largely quiet on Britt’s speech until Sunday as the backlash deepened.
SNL tapped Scarlett Johansson to parody the Alabama senator this week.
“And I’ll be performing an original monologue called ‘This Country is Hell,’” Johansson deadpanned while trying to mimic Britt’s tone.
“Republicans wanted me to appeal to women voters, and women love kitchen.”
Britt also drew backlash for a story she told about a woman who was sex trafficked, later confirmed to be Karla Jacinto Romero, who was victimized in Mexico between 2004 and 2008.
“President Biden didn’t just create this border crisis. He invited it with 94 executive actions in his first 100 days. When I took office, I took a different approach,” Britt said in her State of the Union rebuttal.
“I traveled to the Del Rio sector of Texas. That’s where I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me.”
Democrats and other critics such as the Washington Post’s fact-checking arm, dinged Britt for not clarifying that harrowing story transpired long before Biden became president.
Britt defended her rebuttal.
“I very clearly said I spoke to a woman who told me about when she was trafficked when she was 12,” Britt insisted on “Fox News Sunday.”
“So I didn’t say a teenager. I didn’t say a young woman. A grown woman, a woman who was trafficked when she was 12.”
