A Republican congressman said Meghan Markle should lose her royal title after she advocated for paid family leave in the US

• Republican Congressman Jason Smith has criticized Meghan Markle for getting involved in politics.
• Markle wrote an open letter to Democrat leaders in support of paid family and medical leave.

Meghan Markle has been criticized by a Republican congressman after she wrote an open letter to Democrat leaders in support of paid family and medical leave.

Missouri lawmaker Rep. Jason Smith told the Mail Online that the royal family should strip Markle of her title after she signed the letter "Meghan, Duchess of Sussex."

"Ms. Markle's latest interference in U.S. politics reignites the question in my mind as to why the Royal Family does not simply strip her and Harry officially of their titles, particularly since she insists on sending this under the pretense of being the Duchess of Sussex," Smith told the publication.

"While her attempts at appealing to working class families by recalling her days of eating at Sizzler were laughable, her comments make crystal clear that the passage of this massive tax-and-spend bill is aimed more at helping global elites get huge tax breaks than helping the working families she claims to have dined with," he added.

Markle's letter addressed an initial proposal in Biden's $3.5 trillion social spending plan to offer workers up to 12 weeks of paid leave, which is at risk of being nixed amid ongoing negotiations to trim the pricetag on the bill, Insider's Lauren Frias previously reported.

In the letter, Markle described feeling "lucky" that her parents could afford the $4.99 salad bar at Sizzler while she was growing up and recalled dining at The Old Spaghetti Factory with her Girl Scout troop, "because that's what those families could afford to do too."

Smith was among a handful of public figures to criticize the duke and duchess for encouraging Americans to vote in the 2020 presidential election. Many argued that royals are supposed to remain politically neutral.

But a spokesperson for the couple told Insider in November 2020 that the couple had no plans to stop speaking about politics after the election cycle was over.

Representatives for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex and Buckingham Palace did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.