Youngkin Exclusive: Candidate’s wife addresses CRT, deceptive political ad

Suzanne Youngkin, the wife of Virginia Republican Governor hopeful Glenn Youngkin, is speaking out on the state of education in the commonwealth and on the fight over critical race theory.

In Virginia, and in school board meetings across the U.S., parents have lined up to protest critical race theory, belief that white supremacy exists in the U.S. despite the rule of law. Nearly half of U.S. states have banned critical race theory, as opponents say the practice pits citizens against one another by race.

Last month, a Loudoun County School Board meeting turned unruly. Two protesters were arrested for speaking out against critical race theory and the school division’s policy that requires teachers to call a student by his or her requested pronoun.

“I think parents were sitting in their living rooms [during the pandemic] and were shocked by what they saw their children were reading and learning about,” said Younkin, who was in Woodbridge on July 2 for a campaign event. “Children should be taught how to think, not what to think…and to think that we should be infusing our schools with politics is just misguided.”

In Prince William County, parents have spoken out about critical race theory, saying it has no place in the school division. Many lined up in June to protest the school division’s new equity statement, which calls for teachers and school personnel to identify their implicit biases — an assertion that people base decisions on both past experiences and racial bias.

Last fall, during a joint meeting with the School Board, three Prince William County Supervisors walked out of a joint implicit bias training in protest, linking the training to critical race theory, a practice banned from the federal workplace under the Trump administration.

Youngkin also took an opportunity to address a new TV ad from her husband’s Democratic opponent, Terry McAuliffe. The former governor deceptively edited a video of a panel discussion in 2017 that was moderated by Glenn Youngkin and is now showing the campaign ad on the web.

The edited video makes it appear as if Youngkin praised the former governor, who managed the state between 2014 and 2017.

The bottom line: Contrary to McAuliffe’s ad assertion, Youngkin’s 2017 words do not prove he was a “big fan” of the former governor’s economic policies. But his 2019 words suggest some good things have happened in Virginia over the last eight years – although he did not credit McAuliffe or Northam.

— WCVE fact check

That fact check published June 30 was abruptly pulled from the website the same day. In an unusual event, the organization issued a correction for the fact check piece, noting it had not contacted the McAuliffe campaign, which violated the station’s reporting practices. We contacted the McAuliffe campaign and the TV station about the retraction and did not get a response  from either entity.

“I think the really sad part about all of that is not what the media did or didn’t do, or the fact-checking or the lack of fact-checking. I think what’s really sad is that Terry McAuliffe is just willing to slice and dice to put himself on a level playing field with my husband,” said Suzanne Youngkin. “I mean, this is all very serious stuff to us, and to insinuate that Glenn is the kind of person that has said certain things about him that were taken out of context is a very sad state of affairs…and I think Virginians feel the same way.”

Suzanne Youngkin shares four children with her husband. The couple lives in McLean.

Glenn Youngkin was the CEO of the Carlyle Investment Group until he stepped down in 202o to run for governor.