U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg called on Rep. Katie Britt (R-AL) to explain herself after repeating a misleading story about sex trafficking by immigrants.
In her response to President Joe Biden's State of the Union address, Britt told a decades-old story about a woman's sexual abuse that happened under George W. Bush's administration.
"In her speech, Britt also falsely implied that the violence encountered by a sex trafficking victim she met with was the fault of Biden administration policies," ABC host George Stephanopoulos told Buttigieg on Sunday. "That's not stopping the senator from standing by the story."
"I will leave it to her to explain the falsehoods, but I think it illustrates the bigger issue," Buttigieg replied. "She's a United States senator, and the United States Senate right now could be acting to help secure the southern border."
The Biden official used Britt's story to make a point.
"And you mentioned that this story that was suggested to be a reflection on President Biden turns out to have dated from the Bush administration and happened in a different country," he explained. "One thing that gets me thinking about is, since the beginning of the Bush administration, there have been three major bipartisan attempts to have comprehensive immigration reform or do something big and meaningful about the border, I think 2006, 2013, and now 2024."
"Will 2024 go down in history as yet another failed attempt at bipartisan compromise, or will congressional Republicans follow the lead of their own negotiators and the president of the United States and actually do something about it?" he added.
