Right now, our commander in chief
is not in command.
The free world deserves better
than a dithering and diminished leader.
America deserves leaders who recognize
that secure borders, stable prices,
safe streets and a strong defense
are actually the cornerstones
of a great nation.
Republican response
from junior senator from Alabama,
Katie Britt.
She is 42 years old.
She is a former chief of staff
for one of the previous senators
from Alabama, Richard Shelby.
And this is the job that the senators
from the Republican Party
have have given her.
Caitlin Collins,
a fellow University of Alabama graduate.
What can you tell us about Ms..
Britt and what you think of her response?
Well, I'll tell you
why Republicans picked her.
They they picked her
because she is the youngest woman
elected, the youngest Republican woman
elected to the Senate.
They believe that the fact
that she's half Biden's age
would be an effective response
to have her also at her kitchen table
talking about kitchen table issues,
which they feel like President
Biden is the weakest on.
And also the moment in Alabama,
of course,
that no one could ignore Republicans.
Sarah Benson
scrambling to
to protect IVF, to look clinics are open.
I think a question
also is she's on Trump's VP short list.
I think after that, the question
is going to be
if Republicans felt like
she met the moment
in responding to a very fiery Biden
speech and forceful delivery that he had
where he addressed
issues like the border and crime
which you mentioned there.
I think that's going
to be the big question
of whether Republicans feel
that she met the moment.
I'll tell you,
I talked to multiple
Republicans on the Hill today
who were looking forward to this.
And obviously also,
I should note, it's
always a thankless task.
It is indeed a thankless task
and also very difficult to give a speech
basically by yourself in your kitchen.
Much easier for politicians
to do it in a room
where they can play off the crowd
Anderson.
Jake, thanks very much.
Here with the panel in New York.
Melissa, what do you think?
So listen, Katie Brett,
a rising star,
no doubt, among among Republicans.
I think it was a smart choice.
She's somebody who's
an incredibly impressive person.
She ran a smart race in Alabama.
But I've got to say,
the staging of this was bizarre to me.
Women can be both wives and mothers
and also stateswoman.
So to put her in a kitchen,
not in front of a podium or in the Senate
chamber where she was elected
after running a hard fought race,
I think felt very flat
and was confusing to some women
watching it.
I think that was a missed opportunity.
I think her her focus on the border,
on the economy,
that's what Republicans wanted to hear,
the substance of her remarks.
Great.
The staging just very, very bizarre.
I want to play
two sound bites
from President Biden's address where
I think some of the chemo is was
and we talked about this.
He had done this
in the last State of the Union
where he was sort of
trying to elicit a response
from Republicans.
One is on tax out ones on immigration.
Let's play those back to back.
January six lies
about the 2020 election
and the plots to steal the election
posed a great grievous threat to U.S.
democracy since the Civil War.
But they failed.
America stirred,
America stood strong,
and democracy prevailed.
We must be honest.
The threat to democracy must be defended.
My predecessor
and some of you here
seek to bury the truth about January 6th.
I will not do that.
Political violence
has absolutely no place.
No place in America.
Zero place.
In November,
my team began
serious negotiation
with a bipartisan group of senators.
The result was a bipartisan bill
with a tougher set of border
security reforms we've ever seen.
Oh, you don't think so?
Oh, you don't like that, Bill, huh?
That conservatives got together and said
it was a good bill.
I'll be darned. That's amazing.
There was
some that
we played the wrong side first,
but then that was some of his is.
Do you think that was effective, David?
Yeah, I do.
I look,
first of all,
I think he knew that was going to happen
and he was ready to do it.
And he did it
because there's a tremendous
amount of hypocrisy
associated with what happened.
James Lankford
is, in fact,
one of the most conservative
members of Congress.
He spent months assiduously negotiating
what would have been
the strictest border bill in decades.
And then it was tainted.
It was tanked, as the president said,
because Donald Trump wanted it tanked.
So he knew this
moment was going to elicit a response.
And he wanted to say
exactly what he said.
But it has nothing to do
with the current problem
and how we got here
over the last three years on day one,
reversing all of Donald Trump's
immigration policies by executive action,
and the idea that after three years
of telling the American people
the border was secure
after having unleashed this
on the American people on the day
and then saying, well, we didn't pass
this, it's all there.
It's not
you know,
I understand that you feel like you
you feel and you're probably right.
This is a good issue for Republicans,
but the public actually wants
answers to it.
This was an answer and Tronc tanked it.
But do you think the public believes
Joe Biden has the answer?
I think the public believes
that the bill.
I think if they saw the details
of the bill
and its particulars,
they would say, yeah,
those are good things
and we ought to do that.
And in fact,
you would have said that, too,
if you were
if you were asked about this
before it became an issue that
that Trump pulled the the report on it.
The whole time
Joe Biden has been president,
people have been saying
he's cowering to the left.
He's too progressive.
On an issue
that Republicans say they care about,
he presented one of the most
conservative bills possible
in the chamber tonight.
One of your areas of point
most conservative
senators says that's true. Yes.
Which took some courage
because he I'm sure he knew
the camera was going to be on him.
So he's really
discounting what you're saying right now
is that
that bill would have solved the problem.
And if you want to be the
the party
who says
you want to take the future forward,
then you have to solve problems.
But that's not what's happening.
And the person on that.
Know. Wait, let me finish.
The person on the top of your ticket
doesn't solve problems.
He creates chaos.
He tells people not to do their job.
And that is what happened
on the immigration bill.
And the president,
Joe Biden, is allowed to call it out.
So the president
the President Biden created the crisis,
only went to the border because
Governor Abbott
gave some immigrants
options to go to Democratic cities
and elevate
this issue to be a national issue.
And now at the last minute
and right before the fourth quarter,
right before the end of the game,
us, there's a there's a
there's a bill on the table.
You can't get the bill on the table.
If there's a bill on the table
that would solve it
or at least help address it.
Everybody agreed on it
until Trump came in and said no.
I see it somewhat differently in that
there's there
there is a problem there
and there's been a problem
there for a while.
It has gotten worse.
I mean, everybody's got a number
that's too many.
We hit our numbers, Democrats,
and we couldn't find a partner.
And I think that's not good.
You wouldn't take yes for an answer.
And I'm glad that Biden called you
on the.