The Daily Signal - Virginia Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears: Schools 'Not Going to Be Able’ to Keep Mask Mandates

Episode Date: February 18, 2022

Virginia's new law banning mask mandates in schools isn't optional, Lt. Gov. Winsome Sears says.  Schools are “not going to be able" to require students to continue wearing masks, Sears said during an interview Thursday with "The Daily Signal Podcast."  Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed a bill Wednesday that, as of March 1, will prohibit schools across the commonwealth from requiring the wearing of masks because of COVID-19. Although many school districts across the country have ended mask mandates, several counties in Northern Virginia have opted to continue masking children.  Schools have to "allow the parents the opportunity to decide for themselves whether their children will wear a mask," Sears says in the podcast interview. Youngkin and Sears, both Republicans, were sworn in Jan. 15 for four-year terms after winning Virginia's Nov. 2 election. During the campaign, the two committed to returning power to parents in the education of children. On the podcast, Sears discusses why she and Youngkin stand against critical race theory and other far-left policies that have affected children across the state.  We also cover these stories: Secretary of State Antony Blinken warns that the world is in a "moment of peril" because of Russia’s aggression toward Ukraine.  Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, sues the Biden administration over mask mandates for air travel.  A local Black Lives Matter chapter in Kentucky pays the $100,000 bond of the man charged with trying to assassinate a candidate for Louisville mayor.  Enjoy the show! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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This Black Friday, you've got a whole month to catch all the exclusive offers waiting for you. See your local Nissan dealer or nissan.ca for details. Conditions apply. This is the Daily Signal podcast for Friday, February 18th. I'm Doug Blair. And I'm Virginia Allen. Virginia's lieutenant governor, Winsom Sears, made history when she was elected, becoming the first black woman to serve in the role.

And now she is bringing change that the people of Virginia have waited for for a very long time. Sears and Virginia Governor Glenn Yonkin are returning power back to the hands of parents when it comes to issues of education. Lieutenant Governor Sears joins the show today to explain how she's not only furthering conservative values in Virginia, but effectively fighting back against the left's attempt to indoctrinate our kids. But before we get to Virginia's conversation with Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears,

let's hit our top news stories of the day. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken warned on Thursday that the world is in a moment of peril due to Russia's ongoing aggression towards Ukraine. At a UN Security Council meeting arranged by Russia, Blinken condemned Russia and said that their actions threatened global stability. Here's Blinken via CNN. As we meet today, the most immediate threat to peace and security is Russia's looming aggression against Ukraine. The stakes go far beyond Ukraine. This is a moment of peril for the lives and safety of millions of people.

as well as for the foundation of the United Nations Charter and the rules-based international order that preserves stability worldwide. The timing of the meeting is no coincidence. Thursday marks the seventh anniversary of the UN Security Council's unanimous adoption of the Minsk Agreements. The agreement served as a peace deal between Ukraine and Russian-supported separatist forces

in Ukraine's Donbass region. U.S. officials have warned that a recent attack in the contested Luhansk region of Ukraine might be a false flag operation by Russia to justify a larger armed conflict with Ukraine. Blinken added that he thought Russia was on a path to war and detailed how it would likely begin. Here's what the world can expect to see unfold. In fact, it's unfolding right now, today, as Russia takes steps down the path to war and reissued the threat of military action. First, Russia plans to manufacture a pretext for its attack.

This could be a violent event that Russia will bring on Ukraine or an outrageous accusation that Russia will level against the Ukrainian government. We don't know exactly the form it will take. It could be a fabricated so-called terrorist bombing inside Russia. The invented discovery of a mass grave, a staged drone strike against civilians, or a fake even a real attack using chemical weapons. Russia may describe this event as ethnic cleansing or a genocide, making a mockery of a concept that we in this chamber do not take lightly,

nor do I take lightly based on my family history. Russia has claimed it's partially withdrawing some of those 150,000 troops on Ukraine's border, a claim that the U.S. and NATO have pushed back on. Even with many mass mandates being struck down across the country, all Americans are still required to mask up in airports and on airplanes. But Texas Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton is trying to change that. Paxton filed a lawsuit earlier this week against the Biden administration, in which he called the airport mass mandate illegal. The Texas Public Policy Foundation joined Paxton in the lawsuit. The Attorney General filed the lawsuit on behalf of Texas Republican Representative Beth Van Dine.

The case was specifically filed against the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a number of top Biden administration health officials. Paxton argues that it's time to end the air travel mass mandates, saying President Biden cannot continue governing through executive edicts. According to the Texas Public Policy Foundation, the lawsuit argues that Congress, Congress never gave the CDC power to enforce regulations that amount to a blanket preventative measure against people that may or may not carry infectious disease. A local Kentucky-based Black Lives Matter chapter spent $100,000 to pay for the bond of Quintez Brown, the man accused of trying to assassinate a candidate for Louisville mayor. Brown's bond was paid on Wednesday by the Louisville Community Bail Fund, an arm of

Black Lives Matter, Louisville. Brown has been accused of firing multiple shots into the office of mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg. In a statement to local news outlet, W-A-V-E, Black Lives Matter Louisville organizer, Chanel Helm, said, they are calling for this individual, this young man who needs support and help, to be punished to the full extent. It is a resounding message that people are down for the torture that has taken place in our jails and prisons. In a Thursday speech delivered on the floor of the Senate, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican from Kentucky, criticized the move to release Brown. In his speech, McConnell said, my hometown of Louisville was stunned by what appears to have been an assassination attempt against a Jewish mayoral candidate by a prominent far-left activist who previously called for defunding our police department. But guess what? He's already been let out of jail.

Brown has pleaded not guilty. Now stay tuned for my conversation with Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Sears. President Lincoln once said, elections belong to the people. Here at the Heritage Foundation, we hold these words to be true. However, for elections to truly belong to the people, the people need to trust their results. That's where the election integrity scorecard comes in. We created this tool so that citizens like you can discover the rules, regulations, and overall transparency of voting in your respective state.

Find the Election Integrity Scorecard in the Heritage Foundation's website at heritage.org slash election scorecard. It is my distinct privilege to welcome to the podcast. Virginia, Lieutenant Governor, Winsom Sears. Lieutenant Governor, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. In November, the people of Virginia chose you to be their lieutenant governor, and you were sworn into office in January. and I want to take us back for a moment to that night in November when it was declared that you had won the election alongside Governor Glenn Yonkin, and you delivered a really powerful speech that night. I want to take a minute to listen to just a few of your remarks. I am not even first generation American. When I joined the Marine Corps, I was still a Jamaican. But this country had done so much for me. I was willing, willing.

to die for this country. Lieutenant Governor, in that speech, you talked about the fact that you were born in Jamaica and then came to America. When did you come to America from Jamaica? And why did you ultimately decide to serve your country, to serve America in the Marine Corps? Well, I came in 1970. It was when my father decided, you know, he was stable enough to come back and bring me here. you know, he would come and visit.

But that was the year that I finally came. And it was a traumatic time for me. You know, I was six years old. It was a new country, new culture, new smells, new sounds. The music was different. Even though people were speaking English, it was a different way of speaking English, you know. And then I came in the cold and I came from Jamaica where there's sunshine every day. Everything was different.

But here I am. obviously have adjusted and adapted. And then I had to actually make a decision whether I was going to stay in America or not when I, you know, came of age. And I decided I would want to stay here because for the same reasons my father came, because here is where the opportunities are. Well, I graduated early from high school and I was taking a little bit of time before I went to college, just a few months. And I was all set to start college that August. But then my grandmother died and she was, you know, still in Jamaica. And when she died, I just felt like my world had crashed.

There was no reason to live. And it just so happens that there was a Jet Magazine with an ad for the Marine Corps on my mother's coffee table in Jamaica. And I thought to myself, that's what I need. I need discipline. I need a reason to live. And if anybody can do it, the Marine Corps can't. And so I joined the Marines and, yeah, they gave me a lot of reasons to live and a lot of discipline.

So it was good for me. And, you know, America had always been good to my family and me. And so I was willing, you know, I understood that, no, you're not joining the Corps to get college, you know, credits and whatever else. And that's part of it. But Marine Corps puts a rifle in your hand and tells you the rifle is your best friend and you understand what that means. And so I knew that ultimately I could have possibly be called upon to give that ultimate sacrifice, but I was willing. Thank you for your service, Lieutenant Governor. Thank you.

You know, I think right now we're at a moment in history where a lot of people are wrestling. Even now, as we celebrate Black History Month, so many people I think are wrestling with America's past of slavery and of segregation. do you view America as a good nation? And what would you say to those who argue that the U.S. is fundamentally flawed? There is no country like America. There is none, not one. And there are people who are looking for utopia. And of course, they know it doesn't exist.

And it's not going to exist with anyone who's talking about they're a socialist, Democrat, either. all we have to do is look at all of these other countries that practice this social socialist democratic thing. And they say it doesn't work. It doesn't work. And so this is the best system, the capitalist system. It's working for those who are able to participate. The opportunities are there. I mean, I'm the one who got off the plane. And here I am here in the former capital of the Confederacy, for goodness sake. I am second in command. in command. I'm a black woman. I am not first generation American. I am still the immigrant. I, as I said, I'm a black woman, immigrant. And what else can you say to me that would say, well, you know, racism, racism? How do you explain me? I'm not an outlier. I'm not a one-off.

The opportunities are here. Are we denying that there have been problems, that there has been slavery, that there has been racism, that there's been segregation and redlining and blue codes and all this stuff? No, we're not denying any of that. We just said, I sit here second in command of the former capital of the Confederacy. And while America may not be what she's supposed to be, as we have a saying in church, I may not be what I'm supposed to be, but I ain't what I used to be. That's America. She may not be what she's supposed to be. be, but she ain't what she used to be. It is not, as I've said before, 1963 when my father came at the height of the civil rights movement. By the way, the Mexicans have been coming, and other people

have been coming who are black to America since the 1900s, when it was way worse for us. But we understood that we could make the best of what we had, and we've been doing that. I like to look at life as being half full. That is the glass is half full because you know what that means we can keep filling and filling. I am an overcomer. Many black people are overcomers. We could say to ourselves, they threw this in our path, but we've overcome that. They threw that in our path, but we overcome that.

And we're going to keep overcoming. We're going to keep striving. We're going to keep. But, you know, the constant black versus white. White versus Asian versus Hispanic. Who wants to live like that? No. So we need to teach our children all of history, the good, the bad, the ugly.

Because, you know, one thing we learn from history, as someone said, is that we don't learn from history. But then we're going to keep going. We're going to keep striving because our children need a hope and a future. And to keep looking back, there is nothing back there. The future is ahead. Well, and you have been so strong. that point of education and talking about how important it is that we are making sure our kids are getting the best education possible. And you've been very vocal in your opposition to things

like critical race theory in the schools. How do you and Governor Glenn Youngkin plan to get critical race theory out of Virginia schools? Well, as I said, we're going to just teach history. We are going to teach what we know to be true. We are, we're not going to sugarcoat anything. none of us wants that. In fact, some of us are saying, why don't we make black history the whole curriculum? You know, why is it just a month? So we don't want to bet.

The other side of the political aisle, some of them, they like to keep people up in arms always at each other's throat because it helps whatever agenda they have. And so they use the grievances that we as black people have historically faced, to pit us against each other. Well, we're not falling for that trick any longer.

There are enough of us who are saying, no more, we need a good education. We need it now because that's what's going to get us out of the woods. You see what's happening overseas. We've got the Ukraine. We've got the Russian situation. We've got China and wanting to dominate over on that side of the world. They're claiming parts of the South Pacific.

theirs and wanting to encroach even more. We don't have time to teach critical race theory. What we need is critical reading theory, critical math, critical science theory, so that we can compete, our children can compete on a global scale at the global marketplace because America isn't on this planet by herself. So while we're doing this internal struggle, the rest of the world is out there. And we have to be prepared. Well, I think so many parents heard that message that you're speaking right now during the election, and they locked on to it. And they said, yes, we want change in our schools. And even this week, we saw that Governor Glenn Yonkin, he signed a bill banning mass mandates in schools in Virginia.

Another very controversial issue for many people and something that parents for months and months and months have been saying, let's get masks out of schools. But even as he has signed this bill banning mass mandates, we've seen that some schools in northern Virginia have been saying, we want to keep our mass mandates. Does that surprise you? Well, they're not going to be able to because the law is going to be effective March 1st. So we gave them that bit of cushion to begin to adjust to the law is happening. It's coming. The House of Delegates passed it. the Virginia Senate passed it.

It is in an emergency mode, which means, you know, he could have, the governor, when he signed it, could have made it effective immediately upon signing, which was yesterday, the 16th. But instead, he decided to give that some, give the school some leeway to adjust. So March 1st, it's the law of the land. And they will have to do what the law says, which is allow the parents, the opportunity to decide. decide for themselves whether their children will wear a mask or not. Now, I think when we think back to your election, a lot of people were surprised to see Virginia go red in this election because for a long time, Virginia has been trending blue. Do you think that Virginia is representative of the rest of the country and that we'll begin to see other states embrace conservative principles? I think what the people began to see in Virginia and elsewhere, which, by the way, coming back to masks is why you saw all those Democratic governors begin to change what they were saying about masks.

Suddenly, you want to have masks gone. Suddenly you want to give parents that opportunity. We're talking about truly blue places like New Jersey, Delaware, for going to say, California. For goodness sake, California, California. And then Washington, D.C. and Oregon, and said, it was shocking, shocking that in one day, on a Monday, suddenly all these Democratic states with their Democratic governors decided, not so happy about masks anymore. So they see that the people are unhappy. when you see, for example, in San Francisco, very liberal place, nobody has to tell us that, very liberal place, and they got rid of three school board members because they said, we're tired of the schools not being open, you're focusing on renaming schools for what reason and these masks and all these things and our children aren't learning.

So it's coming. You're seeing the people are fed up. There are enough Democrats who are fed up. There are enough independent-leaning Democrats who are fed up. And, of course, you know, the Republicans and independents are fed up. So, yeah, you're going to see a sea change, I do believe. Virginia, Lieutenant Governor, Winsem Sears. Lieutenant Governor, thank you so much for your time today.

We so appreciate you joining the show. Yes, and we want businesses to relocate here to Virginia because there's a new sheriff in town and we are open for business. We're building megasites. Come down and check us out. Thank you so much, Lieutenant Governor. Thank you very much. And that'll do it for today's episode.

Thank you so much for listening to the Daily Signal podcast. You can find the Daily Signal podcast on Google Play, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and IHeartRadio. Please be sure to leave us a review and a five-star rating on Apple Podcasts and encourage others to subscribe. Thank you again for listening. Be sure to tune in tomorrow morning for a special bonus Saturday edition of the Daily Signal podcast. Richard Reinge is talking with Chris DeMuth about the National Conservative Movement, and then, of course, we will be back with you all on Monday. The Daily Signal podcast is brought to you by more than half a million members of the Heritage

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