CNN’s Margaret Talev: ‘Clearly a Misstep’ for Terry McAuliffe to Claim No Role for Parents in Education

CNN analyst Margaret Talev said Monday it was a “misstep” for Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe (D) to suggest parents did not have a role to play in their children’s education.

McAuliffe has faced controversy in his campaign to defeat Glenn Youngkin (R) in next month’s election over the issue of parental rights in education. He vetoed legislation during his previous term as governor that would have alerted parents to sexually explicit content in their children’s classrooms while allowing them to opt their own kids out of the content. He also drew renewed attention to the subject when he defended his veto during a candidates’ forum last month, saying, “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decision. So, yeah, I stopped the bill — I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

“Terry McAuliffe would like to clean up his words again,” host John King noted in a panel segment on the topic with Talev. “But it is difficult in a state where a close election will be determined in the fast-growing northern Virginia suburbs where you have a lot of parents and a lot of debate about critical race theory, about what’s being taught in schools. To have a candidate for governor saying, ‘I don’t want to listen to parents or ‘I would go side with teachers over parents,’ [he’s] stepping in it.”

“It’s clearly a misstep,” Talev replied in agreement. “I think for Terry McAuliffe, there are two challenges. One is that Glenn Youngkin is not Donald Trump. If Terry McAuliffe were running against Donald Trump, it would be a completely different race. But Youngkin has a mass appeal to kind of the center, or slightly right of center … so that’s making this a more real race. He has acquitted himself very well as a candidate and he has taken this deliberate step away from Trump, not really talking trash about Trump, but being very careful to make clear he’s not aligning himself as a Trump candidate. And that is giving some assurances to Virginia voters in the middle, and that has got McAuliffe in a more defensive position. And the other is this school issue.”

Watch above via CNN.