There’s so much bizarre stuff in this interview with Glenn Youngkin a bit earlier today at the Economic Club of Washington, DC, it’s hard to even know where to start. But see below for a few of the biggest “doozies.” Yikes.
P.S. Note that the guy interviewing Youngkin is none other than David Rubinstein, ” co-founder and co-chairman of the private equity firm The Carlyle Group,” where Youngkin worked for years…
- First of all, the concept that you’d run for governor of Virginia because you’re having a “midlife crisis,” as Youngkin claims was the reason he ran, as opposed to being committed to public service, wanting to make people’s lives better, etc., is very telling. Also note that Youngkin, in addition to (supposedly) having a “midlife crisis,” also was shoved out the door of the Carlyle Group after losing a power struggle and “flam[ing] out,” “rack[ing] up bad bets” and having “little choice but to leave,” etc. But of course Youngkin doesn’t mention any of that. LOL
- Youngkin claimed that Terry McAuliffe “basically admitted what I firmly believe is his political philosophy that, in fact, parents shouldn’t be involved in deciding what is being taught in schools.” Which, of course, is a huge distortion of what McAuliffe believes, and certainly what Democrats believe (which is absolutely that parents should be involved, heavily, in their children’s education, but obviously NOT disrupting school board meetings, harassing teachers/administrators, trying to get books banned, attacking LGBTQ kids and the teaching of America’s full history, etc.).
- Youngkin’s narrative about how, when he decided to run for governor, that supposedly Virginia was in horrible shape, is wildly misleading in almost every way. In fact, Virginia was deadling with the COVID pandemic – the same as the rest of the country was – as well as the disastrous Trump presidency, which culminated in the 1/6/21 insurrection, which led to Gov. Ralph Northam sending Virginia National Guard troops to safeguard the U.S. Capitol. But sure, ignore all that and blame Democrats for everything, if you want to be completely dishonest. Same thing for Youngkin’s ridiculous narrative that he, personally, turned everything around in a year, even though there’s pretty much no way he could have done that, and even though most of the turnaround in the economy was due to recovery measures passed by Congress, smart/effective Biden administration policies, the “infrastructure law” and Inflation Reduction Act, the unwinding of COVID-related supply-chain disruptions, etc, etc. None of which, obviously, Youngkin had ANYTHING to do with!
- On “Criticial Race Theory,” Youngkin’s comments were just bizarre, that supposedly it’s a “trick” to claim it wasn’t taught in Virginia’s K-12 public schools (which it wasn’t), that supposedly it’s “not a class,” but “It’s actually a philosophy of teaching, and, unfortunately, it was embedded in our school system.” WTF is Youngkin even babbling about? Just bizarre.
- Also note Youngkin’s repeated internal contradiction, in which he claims he single-handedly turned Virginia around in a year, even as he simultaneously whines about how Democrats control the VA State Senate and didn’t give him everything he wanted, yada yada.
- On abortion, Youngkin reiterated his view that it should be banned “when a baby can feel pain at 15 weeks,” then repeated the huge distortion of what Ralph Northam – a pediatric neurologist, by the way – was talking about on WTOP, which was what would be done in a specific horrible/tragic case of a baby that was born but had zero chance of survival. This b.s. has been debunked over and over again, including by PolitiFact, but Youngkin clearly doesn’t care about the truth.
- Youngkin kept dodging the question of whether he might run for president, although he clearly left the door wide open for whatever the future might hold politically speaking. He also dodged on whether he’d accept Donald Trump’s offer to be his running mate, saying, “I often dream about being a basketball star…there are great hypotheticals in the world; my job is to be the best governor i can and have never gotten promotion without doing the job.” Notice the complete lack of comment about Trump’s many crimes, trying to overthrow our democracy, threatening to execute Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley, to suppress freedom of the press, to appease Putin, etc? Youngkin simply doesn’t care, because apparently he has no moral core whatsoever – it’s all power and ambition for him.
- Youngkin then spewed out a torrent of lies about the Biden administration, the type of crap you can hear on far-right talk radio, Fox “News,” etc, but which is COMPLETELY false. For instance, Youngkin outrageously/falsely claimed that Putin invaded Ukraine because of – get this – “weakness” by Joe Biden. Not because of Putin’s evil, but…yep, because of Biden! Just totally warped. Youngkin also smeared Biden, who is sharp as a tack and VERY energetic – traveling all over the country and the world, getting more significant legislation passed in his first two years than arguably any other president since LBJ or FDR, dealing effectively with multiple/massive crises he inherited from Trump, etc.
Anyway, the bottom line here is that Youngkin is a smarmy, dishonest, super-ambitious, morally-vacant politician who will say or do whatever he thinks his necessary to gain wealth, power, whatever. And, at this point, he’s decided that the way to achieve his goals is to suck up to/pretend to be part of the far right, Donald Trump, the MAGA movement, etc. Very disturbing.
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