Audio: Leading VA GOP Lt. Gov. Candidate Tim Hugo Wildly Fearmongers on “Defund the Police,” Immigrants and COVID, Crime, etc.; Falsely Claims Democrats a “Threat to All of Us”

This morning on hard-right talk radio (“The John Reid Show” on WRVA), former Del. Tim Hugo – a leading candidate for the Virginia GOP’s Lt. Governor nomination on May 8 – basically demonstrated why he and others of his ilk should not even be *considered* for public office. Between the wild lying, the fearmongering and disgusting xenophobia, it’s hard to know where to start, but see below for a clip from the show, in which Hugo said:

• “I’m running because, I’ve said this point blank…this ain’t your granddaddy’s Democratic Party…when they’re talking about the ‘defund the police’. they’re talking about the ‘infanticide.” (Note: Both of these claims are 100% false, of course. In fact, just the other day in the Democratic gubernatorial debate, Del. Lee Carter complained that Democrats *increased* police funding. Meanwhile, is there any Virginia Democratic elected official – other than perhaps Del. Carter – who has ever talked about “defund the police?” Uhhhhhh…  As for “infanticide,” again, not a single Virginia Democrat supports that; see here for a debunking of this nonsense, about how this is “the stuff of pulp fiction, and the myth bears little resemblance to reality.” But that’s not stopping Tim Hugo from spewing it. Ugh.)
• “When you talk about ‘defund the police,’ these left-wing prosecutors, Commonwealth’s Attorneys and then parole boards, we’ve got a real danger to our families and to our communities.” (Again, if anything Virginia Democrats voted to *increase* police funding, while *reforming* some aspects of policing, and basically no Virginia elected officials or candidates – other than far-right Republicans like Tim Hugo, who are obsessed with it – are talking about “defunding the police.”)
• “We need to protect our families, I do think there’s a danger out there, because the Democratic Party today is not even close to what it was 5 or 10 or 15 years ago and it’s a threat to all of us.” (This is just bonkers. In fact, Democrats have passed tons of progressive bills that expand healthcare access to Virginians, give teachers pay raises, protect the environment, accelerate the growth of solar and wind power, reform criminal justice in smart and effective ways, etc.)
• As if all that’s not bad/batshit enough, later in the interview, in response to a question about legalized marijuana and people smoking pot together being a COVID superspreader, Hugo fearmongered about immigrants: “I hadn’t thought about the people smoking pot together being the spreader, but what I do worry about is on the border, we have 100,000 people coming across a month…a lot of people haven’t been tested, and now they’re being sent to other parts of the country…the federal government is bringing a lot of folks here…that maybe haven’t been tested.” (Other than the nasty xenophobia, which alone should disqualify Hugo from becoming Lt. Governor, FactCheck.org points out: “The Biden administration has made no changes to COVID-19 testing policies for either U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Patrol. But a claim circulating online falsely suggests that the administration has stopped testing detained immigrants before they are released.” Also, according to Reuters,  “The National Sheriffs Association did not say that ‘upwards’ of 50% of people entering the United States illegally have been testing positive for COVID-19.” And PolitiFact says, a claim by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott similar to Hugo’s, that supposedly the “Biden Administration is recklessly releasing hundreds of illegal immigrants who have COVID into Texas communities,” is “mostly FALSE.”  In sum, Hugo is just being dishonest, irresponsible and bigoted in his comments.)