Next week, when President Joe Biden gives his State of the Union speech, Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders (R-AR) will give the Republican response on behalf of the party.
On Thursday, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made the announcement, which was met with widespread approval among Republicans. A rising star in the opposition party is usually tasked with delivering the party’s answer to the State of the Union speech, to provide an alternative policy agenda for the country. The showdown this year, on Tuesday night, will put Biden against a prominent member of former President Donald Trump’s White House.
Sanders said in a tweet, “I’m pleased to have the chance to address the nation following the State of the Union on Tuesday.” A return to common sense and a dedication to the ideas that created America the land of the free and home of the brave is what Republicans are proposing, and what America needs.
McCarthy later revealed that Arizona Republican Juan Ciscomani would deliver the GOP’s rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union address in Spanish.
Sanders was Trump’s adviser throughout the 2016 presidential campaign and then his press secretary for two years in the White House. She left Trump’s government in the summer of 2019, campaigned for governor of Arkansas in 2022 (her father Mike Huckabee had previously held the position), and won.
Sanders wasted no time getting to work after being inaugurated as president last month, issuing an executive order prohibiting the use of “Latinx” in official government publications. She also put an end to the teaching of Critical Race Theory in public schools for children in grades K through 12.
Sanders said on “Fox News Sunday” that she and Trump have a “wonderful connection” and that she believes the United States “would be immeasurably better off if he was in power right now than of Joe Biden,” but she still didn’t back Trump for president in 2024.
Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), who will provide the Republican answer to President Biden’s first speech to a joint session of Congress in 2021, is among the Republicans who are rejoicing over Sanders’s delivery of the GOP reply this year. Let them have it, [Sanders],” Scott said on Twitter. We in the United States are eager to get back to business as usual and use our common sense again. I eagerly anticipate your presentation of the GOP’s strategy for continuing to hold President Biden responsible for his presidency’s many shortcomings.
Last year’s Republican answer was given by Iowa Governor Kim Reynolds (R), who tweeted to Senator Bernie Sanders, “[Sanders,] I can’t wait for your Official GOP Response to Biden’s SOTU Address. My dear friend and fellow Governor, you make me very proud. Republican governors are keeping their word, and that’s only the beginning.
Mike Huckabee joked that he is “TOTALLY impartial” in his judgment of McCarthy’s “great decision” in a tweet.