Tuberville says GOP leadership should have vetted claims in Katie Britt’s speech 

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said GOP leadership should have more carefully reviewed the claims in Sen. Katie Britt’s (R-Ala.) response to President Biden’s State of the Union address as she faces criticism for sharing a story of sexual violence from two decades ago as an attack on Biden.

Asked by CNN’s Manu Raju about Britt’s decision to share the story in her response, Tuberville said, “Yeah, well, that obviously didn’t go over too well.”

“I would think that our leadership would have vetted that a little bit more, because I would imagine they helped her with that,” he said Sunday on CNN’s “Inside Politics With Manu Raju.”

“You know, and that’s again — that’s a mistake made. But it was a good point of emphasis of what really goes on from the border. And I think that’s what she’s trying to get over, more than anything.”

During her State of the Union response, Britt told the story of a woman she met who experienced human trafficking from between 2004 and 2008. The first-term senator used the story as an attack on Biden’s border policies.

Britt defended the story against criticism, arguing the story represents Biden’s border policy, despite it happening before his presidential term. 

“I’ve said, in [Biden’s] first 100 days he had 94 executive actions, and those executive actions didn’t just create the crisis — they invited it,” Britt said in a “Fox News Sunday” interview with Shannon Bream. “The truth is — and the media knows that they’re not covering it — that human trafficking has gone up under President Biden.” 

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The rest of Britt’s State of the Union response — delivered from her kitchen table — painted a similar, dark portrait of the United States and Biden, whom she called a “dithering and diminished leader.” 

Britt’s rebuttal was described by many as having an unnatural delivery, and the following Saturday, actress Scarlett Johansson appeared on “Saturday Night Live” to mock the senator in the cold open.

When asked about her delivery, Tuberville said he thought it was “good.” 

“She really expressed heart and she’s the type, you know — she gets emotional. It’s not like that wasn’t something that was just brought up. I mean … she’s really emotional about being a mom and her kids.”