Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused President Joe Biden of being a slave to a “woke mob” in the Republican response to the president’s State of the Union address that leaned heavily on social conservatism that has animated much of the GOP.
Ms Sanders, who won her election last year, served as former president Donald Trump’s press secretary and touched on her time in that role during her remarks. But for the most part, she said Mr Biden was putting America on poor footing.
She noted how she was the youngest governor in the country while Mr Biden was the oldest president in history, a record previously held by Mr Trump.
“I’m the first woman to lead my state,” she said. “He’s the first man to surrender his presidency to a woke mob that can’t even tell you what a woman is.”
Republicans have frequently pilloried Democrats by asking “what is a woman,” while referencing transgender women as “biological males.”
“Whether Joe Biden believes this madness or is simply too weak to resist it, his administration has been completely hijacked by the radical left,” she said.
“Every day, we are told that we must partake in their rituals, salute their flags, and worship their false idols,” she said. “All while big government colludes with Big Tech to strip away the most American thing there is—your Freedom of speech.”
Ms Huckabee, the daughter of former presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, touted the fact that she banned the teaching of “critical race theory” and the use of the term “Latinx,” a gender-neutral term to describe people of Latin American descent that is meant to be inclusive of LGBT+ people.
“Americans want common sense from their leaders, but in Washington, the Biden administration is doubling down on crazy,” she said. She accused Mr Biden of wasting the accomplishments of the Trump administration.
“Despite Democrats’ trillions in reckless spending and mountains of debt, we now have the worst border crisis in American history,” she said. Similarly, she criticised Democrats for letting crime run rampant.
“And after years of Democrat attacks on law enforcement and calls to ‘defund the police, violent criminals roam free, while law-abiding families live in fear,” she said, despite the fact that Mr Biden and many other Democrats in Congress do not support defunding the police, though some cities and localities have reallocated money from policing to other services.
She also criticised the president for showing weakness on China, Ukraine and Afghanistan.
“President Biden is unwilling to defend our border, defend our skies, and defend our people. He is unfit to serve as commander in chief,” she said.
Ms Huckabee Sanders was one of two addresses that the GOP gave. Representative Juan Ciscomani, a freshman Republican of Arizona and an immigrant from Mexico, delivered the rebuttal to the State of the Union in Spanish.
