In an interview with BuzzFeed News later in the day, Burr credited his staff for showing him the meme and getting his approval to include it in his closing statements.
"I was cool with it," Burr said. "It summed up extremely well what we were trying to say, which is that though this may have been acceptable either some period ago or it may have been acceptable for something else that somebody's done against the United States, this is not fine."
"I think to educate America we need visuals and we need visuals for every generation, and that one's a generational visual," Burr said. He also said that the meme "was funny."
Wednesday's hearing was the first of two public hearings the Senate Intelligence Committee is holding on social media as part of the Russia investigation. The next one will take place in early September and include executives from Twitter, Facebook, and Google.