Scarlett Johansson parodies Katie Britt’s SOTU rebuttal in ‘SNL’ cold open

(The Hill) — Actress Scarlett Johansson parodied Sen. Katie Britt’s (R-Ala.) rebuttal to the State of the Union last week in the cold open of “Saturday Night Live” after the response was met with widespread criticism and mocking on social media.

The episode opened with a brief introduction from cast member Ego Nwodim, who was playing CNN’s Abby Phillips, before cutting to Mikey Day, who was playing President Biden delivering his “State of the Union” address.

“Folks, tonight I’m going to cover a lot. There’s going to be a lot of applause. So, Kamala, I hope you didn’t skip leg day, girl. You’re going to be up and down all night,” Day said, before Punkie Johnson, playing Vice President Harris, stood up and applauded.

He was later booed by Heidi Gardner, playing Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) — who had heckled Biden during his address Thursday night. He then introduced Britt to give the Republican response, saying, “I think she’s going to help me more than anything else I could say here.”

Katie Britt defends human trafficking story in State of the Union response amid backlash

Johansson, playing Britt, delivered the mock rebuttal from a kitchen like the junior Alabama Senator did last week.

“My name is Katie Britt and I have the honor of serving the great people of Alabama. But tonight I’ll be auditioning the part of scary mom performing an original monologue called ‘This Country is Hell,’” Johnasson said.

“You see, I’m not just a senator. I’m a wife, a mother and the craziest b—- in the Target parking lot. I’m worried about the future of our children. And this is why I’ve invited you into this strange, empty kitchen because Republicans want me to appeal to women voters and women love kitchen,” she added.

“Saturday Night Live” also took aim at some aspects of her speech that were criticized online, including her telling a story about a woman who was sexually abused in a sex trafficking operation run by cartels to make her points on immigration. However, The Associated Press reported that the incident did not occur in the United States or under Biden’s administration.

“And like any mom, I’m going to do a pivot out of nowhere into a shockingly violent story about sex trafficking. And rest assured every detail about it is real, except the year, where it took place and who was president when it happened,” Johansson said.

Britt has made immigration one of her top issues in her first years in the Senate, and Republicans have seized on a surge of immigrants entering the country during Biden’s term to attack the president. Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination this year, blames Biden for the killing of a Georgia nursing student after an immigrant from Venezuela who entered the U.S. illegally was arrested and charged with her murder.

The Alabama senator, 42 and the youngest woman in the Senate, has said she wants to represent a new generation of leadership in Washington. She was endorsed by Trump in her 2022 election and has remained in touch with the former president, most recently pushing him to support in vitro fertilization after a ruling by her state’s supreme court blocked some IVF procedures.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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