Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) has been an outspoken critic of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies ― but her latest social media jab was a spectacular misfire.
On Monday, the Republican senator tweeted that “Tennesseans want a wall on our southern border.”
Blackburn’s tweet was, of course, an allusion to former President Donald Trump’s wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. If completed, the wall would have created a fortified barrier between the U.S. and Mexico along the southern borders of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
Her comment drew a chorus of jeers, with many Twitter users pointing out that Tennessee is located more than 1,000 miles away from the U.S. southern border. The Volunteer State’s southern neighbors are Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi ― none of which border Mexico.
“You better not try to keep me from visiting my momma or picking up my white sauce in Alabama, Marsha,” tweeted Jason Isbell, a four-time Grammy-winning singer-songwriter.
Added historian Kevin M. Kruse: “Given the sheer amount of stupidity Republicans are pushing on the state, I’m surprised Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia haven’t already built one there themselves.”
Blackburn, a staunch conservative, is no stranger to social media gaffes.
In March, she appeared to confuse the U.S. Constitution with the Declaration of Independence. And last year, she proclaimed: “We will never rewrite the Constitution of the United States,” somehow ignoring the 27 times it’s already been amended.
Last week, Blackburn came under fire after being asked to define the word “woman,” a question she’d posed to incoming Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Jackson Brown during Jackson’s confirmation hearings in March.
In an email to HuffPost, a spokesperson for Blackburn said her definition of a woman was “Two X chromosomes.” The rep did not say whether Blackburn considers women born with only one X chromosome or men born with two X chromosomes to be women.