Jim Acosta Quips That Virginia Under Glenn Youngkin is a ‘Soviet-Style Police State’
CNN anchor Jim Acosta quipped that Virginia, under Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin, has become a “Soviet-style police state.”
On Tuesday’s Democracy in Peril, a new CNN’s prime time special, Acosta played a soundbite of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) railing at CPAC against the Mr. Potato Head brand becoming just Potato Head (Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head toys and names remain).
“Maybe he shouldn’t be making comments about Mr. Potato Head,” Acosta cracked. “It’s just a thought there.”
“Now, this is not just empty rhetoric,” the CNN host continued, before bringing up the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump. “The new culture wars are impacting our laws and some experts fear they could be weakening our democracy just as badly as the Big Lie.”
Bringing in writer Molly Jong-Fast, Acosta argued Youngkin has also embraced culture war issues in his first week and a half as Virginia’s governor.
The pair discussed Youngkin launching a tip line to allow parents to report their teachers, after Youngkin banned the teaching of critical race theory in the state.
“I seem to remember Glenn Youngkin campaigning in a fleece vest in Virginia,” Acosta said. “He was running as a different kind of Republican. I was told there was going to be a vest, not a Soviet-style police state across the Potomac from Washington.”
Jong-Fast criticized Youngkin over executive orders prohibiting Virginia school districts from mandating masks.
“He’s gone full Ron DeSantis right away,” she said.
Acosta then showed a graphic accusing the Republican Party of pushing, as Acosta put it, “dozens of new proposals opening pathways to punish teachers teaching things that parents don’t like.”
Conservatives argue that Youngkin’s ban of critical race theory in schools is not a matter of ideological censorship, but an effort to prevent taxpayer-funded school from teaching a racist curriculum.
Beyond parents being able to complain about what is being taught in their kids’ schools, it is unclear upon what Acosta is basing his claim that the state of Virginia has been turned into a “Soviet-style police state” in less than two weeks as its governor.
Watch above, via CNN.
