Alabama GOP Sen. Katie Britt, facing backlash over her State of the Union response last week, revealed Wednesday that Speaker Mike Johnson had reassured her before the speech to ignore any “horror stories” and was confident the moment wouldn’t blow up her career.
“The funny thing is that [Johnson’s] “No, don’t worry, you know people will tell horror stories about all the things that happened and people’s careers.” And he’s like, ‘It’s going to be fine,'” Britt told Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and his co-host Michael Knowles. In an episode of the Verdict with Ted Cruz podcast.
The two then joked about the backlash against Florida GOP Sen. Marco Rubio during his 2013 State of the Union answer when he sipped from a bottle of water minutes before the end of his speech. And they recalled Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal’s 2009 State of the Union response. Tagged by Fox News such as “poor performance” and “amateur”.
This year, Britt has come under fire for her performance, but Alabama Sen. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., struck a mostly cheerful tone on the podcast, describing a phone call with Johnson shortly after President Joe Biden offered him the chance to deliver the official GOP State of the Union response. address last week.
Cruz told Britt about the money he raised by selling water bottles after Rubio’s campaign blundered.
“Well, we have to figure out what I can sell,” Britt replied.
Britt has faced criticism for how he described an encounter with a human trafficking victim during a trip to the US-Mexico border in 2023.
In her speech, Britt said she “spoke to a woman who had been sex-trafficked by the cartels since she was 12 years old. She told me not only that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped.”
“We will not like what is happening in a Third World country. This is the United States of America, and I think it’s time we started acting like it,” he added. “President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace.”
Shortly after his speech viral TikTok by journalist Jonathan Katz Britt claimed that the victim in question was trafficked in the early 2000s during the administration of President George W. Bush, not the Biden administration.
Britt did not address the allegations on Wednesday’s podcast with Cruz, but he did accuse the “liberal media” of repeatedly turning against him after his speech.
“I mean, my crime was putting too much passion, too much heart and soul behind issues that I really cared about, and they broke me in the airways,” Britt told Cruz.
He went on to add that the crisis at the border is “not just a national security crisis, it’s a humanitarian crisis that no reporter is talking about… They’re not talking about human trafficking and what’s going on underneath.” [Biden].”
Asked directly about the story he told on Fox News over the weekend, Britt bowedhe said he did not want to give the impression that the story took place during the Biden administration.
“I made it very clear that I was talking to a woman who said she was trafficked when she was 12 years old, so I didn’t say juvenile. I didn’t say young woman, adult woman, young woman. She was trafficked when she was 12,” Britt told “Fox News Sunday.”
Also on Sunday, Britt’s intended victim, Carla Jacinto Romero, Britt told CNN There was a described his story inaccurately he clarified that Jacinto Romero was being trafficked by drug cartels while he was being trafficked by a pimp who would prey on vulnerable young women in Mexico.
“I work as a spokesperson for many victims who don’t have a voice, and I would love for them to be empathetic: all the governors, all the senators, to be empathetic to the issue of human trafficking, because there are millions of girls and boys. It always disappears. People who are really being trafficked and abused, like he mentioned,” Jacinto Romero told CNN.
Elsewhere on Wednesday’s podcast, Britt joked about the backlash she faced after her State of the Union backlash, referring to movie star Scarlett Johansson, who played her on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend.
“I mean, how awesome is that?” Britt asked as Cruz lamented that “a beautiful movie star” never played her on “SNL.”
“Scarlett Johansson, here’s Black Widow. They’re bringing in one of the Avengers to play me in the cold outdoors. That’s what I’m here for,” Britt added.