Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that parents should not be picking school books because “we have experts who actually do that.”
Anchor Chuck Todd said, “Governor, I want to start with an excerpt from this debate that I was moderating at that had one line clipped out. You said it’s out of context. I want to play the exchange more fully and ask you about it on the other side. Here it is.”
In a video, McAuliffe said, “Parents had the right to veto books, not to be knowledgeable about it, also take them off the shelves. I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision.”
He added, “So yeah, stopped a bill that I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they teach.”
Todd said, “Governor, what about that that you feel as if you were taken out of context? Do you feel as if anything you said there should reassure parents that they have some say in their kid’s schooling?”
McAuliffe said, “Listen, that was about a bill I vetoed which people were very happy that I vetoed the bill, that literally parents could take books out of the curriculum. I love Billy and Jack McAuliffe, my parents, but they should not have been picking my math or science book. We have experts who actually do that. He is closing his campaign on banning books. It’s created a controversy all over the book. He wants to ban Toni Morrison’s book, ‘Beloved.’ He’s going after someone who won a Nobel Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom. He wants her books banned. In all the hundreds of books, you could look at, why the one black female author? Why did you do it? He’s ending the campaign on a racist dog whistle.”
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