Newt Gingrich Hangs Up on Reporter Asking About Katie Britt — After Hyping Her as Trump’s Potential VP Prior to SOTU

Screenshot via CNN.

In anticipation of Sen. Katie Britt’s (R-AL) delivery of the GOP response to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, Newt Gingrich touted her as a potential running mate for former President Donald Trump — but the former Speaker of the House was far less effusive in the embarrassing aftermath.

Delivering the opposition party’s response to a president’s State of the Union address is widely viewed as a thankless task, but Britt’s commentary after Biden concluded his speech Thursday night had viewers all across the political aisle eviscerating her performance and questioning the messaging of having a female senator broadcast from a kitchen. The expected Saturday Night Live portrayal featured a guest appearance by Scarlett Johansson skewering Britt’s breathy, overdramatic speech patterns and facial expressions.

A fact check of Britt’s harrowing anecdote about a woman who had been sexually trafficked by drug cartels starting at the age of 12 added further fuel to the fire, when it was reported that the woman had been trafficked in Mexico, nowhere near the U.S. border, and it had happened when George W. Bush was President, years before Biden was president or even vice president.

All in all, Britt’s televised introduction to America does not seem to have gone according to the GOP’s plan, a development that was surprising to those who had followed her political rise from University of Alabama student body president to chief of staff to her predecessor in the Senate, former Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL).

Elaina Plott Calabro, a staff writer for The Atlantic, observed that prior to her disastrous State of the Union response, Britt “had distinguished herself with a reputation for being, well, normal” — and video clips of Alabama’s junior senator using a much more reserved speaking voice went viral in the aftermath of the State of the Union.

In Calabro’s analysis of Britt’s comments and the fallout, she also shared the reaction from Gingrich:

It was just five days ago that Newt Gingrich was imagining the possibilities for Britt’s future, framing the freshman senator from Alabama’s coming rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address as her “big audition.” “It will be interesting to see if Britt rises to the occasion,” the former House speaker had mused to a New York talk-radio host. “If she does, it will be a major step up in her potentially being Trump’s vice-presidential candidate.”

When I called Gingrich this morning and asked if Britt had, in fact, risen to the occasion last night, he sounded flustered. “Ah, well, um, I don’t have any comment right now, thank you.” He hung up.

Gingrich’s comments to radio host John Catsimatidis on 77 WABC Radio’s “The Cats Roundtable” can be heard below, starting around the 1:30 mark:

Listen above, via 77 WABC Radio.