Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.) on Wednesday revealed the advice that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) gave her before her widely derided Republican rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.
Britt became one of the memes of the night with her overly dramatic delivery of her speech from a kitchen table. It inspired a mocking portrayal by Scarlett Johansson on “Saturday Night Live.” Britt also faced criticism for her misleading use of a sex trafficking story in her comments.
Britt, appearing on Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Texas) “Verdict” podcast, recalled Johnson telling her about the speech: “Don’t worry about, you know, people are going to tell you horror stories about all of these things that happen and people’s career being blown up over it.”
“It’ll be fine. It’ll be fine,” Britt added of what Johnson told her.
Johnson was “so kind and really welcoming,” she claimed. “I think it was a great conversation. But the irony that he’s like, ‘Don’t you worry.’”
The “SNL” skit was “the coolest thing” because Johansson “is hot,” said Cruz.
“I am genuinely jealous because, look, ‘SNL’ has come after me a bunch of times. They don’t ever have Tom Cruise play me,” he continued. “How come you get a gorgeous movie star? That is a real compliment that you ought to be pretty psyched with.”
Britt said she was “pretty pumped” about Johansson’s interpretation of her.
“You wonder who in the world is gonna play you, right?” she said. “And I’ll be honest with you, a bingo card of 2024 for Katie Britt, I did not have this on it, right? And so certainly didn’t have Scarlett Johansson playing me.”
She added, “We were talking to the kids about all of it, and they were like, ‘Oh my gosh, mom,’ and ‘da da da,’ and I said, ‘Look, it could be worse.’ I mean Scarlett Johansson. Here you have ‘Black Widow.’ They bring in someone from ‘Avengers’ to play me in the cold open. I’m here for it. I’m here for it.”
“At least you were played by a woman,” said Cruz, who Aidy Bryant jumped into character as in the aftermath of his Cancun controversy. However, he said Bryant was “really funny,” adding that the skit was “hysterical.”