Virginia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe on Sunday repeated his talking point about critical race theory being a “dog whistle” and said it is a “made-up” plan by his Republican opponent to “divide people.”
McAuliffe made the comments during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” in response to a question about how he would respond to a former supporter of his who is now supporting Glenn Youngkin, his Republican opponent, over public schools “pushing a radical agenda in which American history is portrayed as racist.”
“This is a made-up – This is a Trump, Betsy DeVos, Glenn Youngkin plan to divide people,” McAuliffe said. “It really bothers me. I try to unite people.”
“I really hate to see what Glenn Youngkin is trying to do to Virginia what Donald Trump did to our country,” McAuliffe added. ” I really hate to see the division, the hatred. We’re putting these children in this horrible position. Let’s just be clear. We don’t teach critical race theory.”
This isn’t the first time that McAuliffe has attempted to dismiss critical race theory concerns. Earlier this summer, Fox News reported that McAuliffe said at a campaign event that critical race theory was a “right-wing conspiracy.”
“That’s another right-wing conspiracy,” he said. “This is totally made up by Donald Trump and Glenn Youngkin. This is who they are. It’s a conspiracy theory.”
As recent as this past week, McAuliffe was grilled on critical race theory during a roundtable discussion with WAVY News, where he claimed, “It’s never been taught in Virginia.”
“It’s not taught in Virginia and it’s never been taught in Virginia,” McAuliffe said. “And as I’ve said this a lot, it’s a dog whistle. It’s racial, it’s division and it’s used by Glenn Youngkin and others, it’s the same thing with Trump and the border wall, to divide people. We should not be dividing people in school.”
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When McAuliffe was asked how he would define critical race theory, he dismissed the question and said, “It doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter,” McAuliffe said. “It’s not taught here in Virginia so I’m not going to spend my time – I’m not even spending my time because the school board and everyone else has come out and said it’s not taught. It’s racist. It’s a dog whistle.”
Fox News’ Sam Dorman and Joseph Wulfsohn contributed to this report.
