Today, Explained - Virginia is for scandals

Episode Date: February 11, 2019

First it was blackface. And maybe the KKK? Then there was an accusation of sexual assault. Then more blackface. Then another sexual assault. Welcome to Virginia 2019. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Support for today explained comes from Aspiration, a financial partner that puts you and your conscience and the planet before everything else. They got a 1% annual percentage yield, zero ATM fees, and get this, the option to choose your own monthly fee, even if it is zero dollars. Download the Aspiration app to open an account today, save money, and try and save the world. Dylan Scott, Vox, you've been covering Virginia. It's true. Let's go back to the beginning. How far back do we have to go? Jamestown? Where do we start? I think we can just go back a couple weeks. Okay, let's do that. Take us. A couple of weeks ago, there was a little controversy in Virginia over an abortion bill, a bill that basically rolled back some of the abortion restrictions that are currently state law. They were particularly targeted to third trimester abortions, which are only taken and even still under this bill would only be undertaken under the most dire of circumstances.

But Democratic Governor Ralph Northam went on a radio show. There was a very contentious committee hearing yesterday when Fairfax County Delegate Kathy Tran made her case for lifting restrictions on third trimester abortions as well as other restrictions now in place. And she was pressed by a Republican delegate about whether her bill would permit an abortion even as a woman is essentially dilating ready to give birth. And she answered that it would permit an abortion at that stage of labor. Do you support her measure and explain her answer? It's worth noting that he is a pediatric neurologist, and so speaks about these things in a very sort of medical sense. And I think it's fair to say his comments on this radio show were inelegant. It's done in cases where there may be severe deformities.

There may be a fetus that's non-viable. So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered. The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired. And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother. Conservatives took them to basically endorse the idea that even if a child had left the mother's body, that they could be like resuscitated and then we might decide whether

or not we were going to kill it. So a couple of days after he made those comments, a conservative website published a picture from Ralph Northam's yearbook that had one person in blackface and one person wearing KKK robes. And very quickly, the Virginian pilot and the Washington Post confirmed that indeed, this was a legitimate photo from Ralph Northam's 1984 medical school yearbook, and things kind of exploded from there. There's like one picture of him in a suit. There's one picture of him like sitting in front of his car.

Then, very glaringly, there is the picture of two people, one in blackface, one in kkk robes and just going back to our own yearbooks here typically photos on your yearbook page are of you ordinarily your yearbook page has pictures of you that's kind of the purpose and this is like friday february 1st this was two fridays ago yes the implication is r is Ralph Northam is either in full-on blackface or, alternatively, in a KKK robe. One or the other. That night, after these pictures were first publicized,

Ralph Northam came out with a statement effectively acknowledging that he was one of the people in the picture. He did not specify which person that he was. That photo and the racist and offensive attitudes it represents does not reflect that person I am today or the way that I have conducted myself as a soldier, a doctor, and a public servant. I am deeply sorry. So we have the governor of Virginia acknowledging that he was pictured in blackface or a KKK robe in his yearbook in the 1980s. But he doesn't say which one. And then the next day, he very quickly walks that all back. This is Saturday, February 2nd.

Saturday, less than 24 hours after acknowledging he was in the picture, he says, actually, I wasn't in the picture. I've been calling around to my friends from medical school, and we've all decided that that definitely wasn't me in that photograph. But I believe then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo. But he simultaneously acknowledges that he has worn blackface before. That same year, I did participate in a dance contest in San Antonio, in which I darkened my face as part of a Michael Jackson costume. Some intrepid reporter near the end of this press conference asks Northam

if he thinks he can still moonwalk. And for a moment, he seems inclined to demonstrate that he can. Are you still able to moonwalk? Oh. Inappropriate circumstances. My wife says inappropriate circumstances. And so he declines to actually go through with it. Okay, so this is two weekends ago.

We've gotten an apology on the Friday, a press conference on the Saturday, and certainly no commitment to resigning. No commitment to resigning whatsoever. Though there was very quickly a lot of pressure was building for Northam to step down. You had Democrats in Congress, Virginia Democrats. There was definitely a chorus of people saying that this was unacceptable and he would need to step down. But once that picture where the blackface and the Klansman came out, there is no way you can continue to be the governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. We need somebody who can not only address the wrongs of the past, but take Virginia into the future. And I think he's lost the confidence of the people in order to be able to do that.

You know, I know he's determined to go on this reconciliation tour, but he thinks he should do that as a private citizen rather than as the governor. And waiting in the wings was Lieutenant Governor Justin Fairfax, a young black man, actually the second African-American person to be elected to statewide office in Virginia. He had recently gained some national attention for sitting out a Robert E. Lee tribute in the Virginia State Senate. And so there was this thinking that Northam has disqualified himself.

We have a young up-and-coming politician and one who is black, given the nature of this controversy, ready to step into office. But of course, it didn't end up being that simple. Okay, so now we all take a deep breath. And what happens next? So some reports start to bubble up in conservative media, actually in the same outlet that first reported on the Ralph Northam yearbook photo that a woman has accused Justin Fairfax of sexual assault.

And eventually that woman, Vanessa Tyson, a college professor out in California, comes forward, formally accuses Lieutenant Governor Fairfax of forcing her to perform oral sex on him back in 2004. So now suddenly the guy who was supposed to be ready to step in for Ralph Northam is facing a very serious sexual assault allegation. Fairfax has kind of a two-pronged reaction. First, he doesn't deny the encounter entirely, but he insists that it was consensual. And secondly, he makes some vague allusions to the idea that maybe his political enemies, knowing that he's now on the cusp

of becoming Virginia's governor, are peddling these allegations to try to derail him. Does anybody think it's any coincidence that on the eve of potentially my being elevated, that that's when this uncorroborated smear comes out? Does anybody believe that's a coincidence? So this was the beginning of last week. And then by the end of last week, a second accuser comes forward against Fairfax, right? Yes. A second woman, Meredith Watson, said that Fairfax had raped her when both of them were students at Duke University. How does he respond to that one? He once again denied the encounter, called it demonstrably false, that he had never forced himself on anyone

and said that he wanted a full investigation into these unsubstantiated and false accusations. Watson notably has said that she told friends about the incident at the time, and her lawyer has said that they have documentation to prove that this was true. Okay, so you've got number one, the governor, Northam, Democrat. He's got some blackface in his past, potentially dressed up as a member of the Klan once and definitely has a Klan costume on his yearbook page. Number two, Lieutenant Governor Democrat Fairfax, two accusations of sexual assault. Number three, Attorney General Mark Herring, another Democrat. And then he comes out with a statement on Thursday, kind of preemptively acknowledging that he too once wore blackface. In a statement released just moments ago,

Democrat Herring writes, in 1980, when I was a 19-year-old undergraduate in college, some friends suggested we attend a party dressed like rappers we listened to at the time. We dressed up and put on wigs and brown makeup. This was a one-time occurrence, and I accept full responsibility for my conduct. It was really a minimization of both people of color and a minimization of a horrific history I knew well even then. When word reached the statehouse, there were audible gasps and expletives from staffers. Some lawmakers hung their heads in disbelief. The three top Democrats in Virginia politics have now either acknowledged wearing blackface at one point in their life or been accused of sexual assault. It's a mess.

And it gets sort of more complicated once you get down to the fourth person in line, right? What's going on there? It's true. So under the Virginia Constitution, the fourth person in line is the Speaker of the House, who is Republican Kirk Cox. There's a funny backstory to how Kirk Cox became the Speaker of the House. So in the 2017 election, when all was said and done in the House, the seats were evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans, but there was one race that was outstanding because it was literally tied. And so to decide that race under Virginia state law, a name was pulled out of the bowl.

And the name that came out of the bowl was the Republicans, which gave them one more seat than the Democrats in the state house. And that made Kirk Cox the speaker. So you have one, two, three, all Democrats mired in scandal. And then the fourth, a Republican is only in line because someone's name was literally pulled out of a bowl. Pure chance that he's there and the Democrats not. And this is a complicating factor or a complexifier, some might say. You might say. Because obviously the Democrats don't want to turn over the governorship to their opposing party.

But they're also the party that seems to try to be a little more legitimate in these kinds of controversies right now, right? In isolation, I think most Democrats would have agreed that Ralph Northam should step down. Justin Fairfax should step down. Herring didn't quite get the same level of pressure, maybe in part because of how complex this whole situation had already become, maybe because his apology seemed a little better constructed than what we heard from Northam or Fairfax.

But in theory, you know, the Democrats should probably step down. But if that's going to result in Republicans suddenly having full control of the Virginia government again, people start to have some second thoughts because you don't really want to hand your opposition the keys to the kingdom, so to speak. And where does that leave us? So on Friday, Northam confirmed and his his office actually confirmed to me, that he was not going to resign. Virginia needs someone that can heal. There's no better person to do that than a doctor. Virginia also needs someone who is strong, who has empathy, who has courage, and who has a moral compass. And that's why I'm not going anywhere.

One thing you need to know about Virginia is that under the state constitution, governors are not allowed to run for two consecutive terms. So Ralph Northam was not going to face the voters again in 2021. So if he wants to hunger down and ride this out, he's kind of empowered to do so by virtue of the fact that he doesn't have to run for re-election. And this really isn't an impeachable offense per se. And it seems like that's what he's going to do. Between, I think, his own stubbornness and the fact that the two Democrats who would secede him are now mired in their own scandals, it seems like he's content to ride it out and see where we go from here.

Dylan Scott reports on politics at Vox. When to stay and when to go. How do you know? Ahead on the show. What are your bank names? You got your Wells Fargo, you got your Bank of America, you got your Chase, and then there's one out there called Aspiration, which already is, you know, a little bit better. Aspiration's been written about in the Forbes and the Money Magazine and the New York Times. They offer a 1% annual percentage yield, zero ATM fees anywhere in the world, and the option to choose your own monthly fee even if that

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And try and be less bad for the world. That's what they're going for. Laura McGann, you're the politics editor at Vox. The Democrats have recently been taking the high road when it comes to political controversy, but then in Virginia, it seems to be a sort of different story. How do we wrap our heads around it? I'm sitting here imagining this dumpster fire that is Virginia politics right now. And when I stare at it, I just have to step back.

So there's a couple reasons why they're a bit different. I would say in the case of blackface, both of those politicians have said this is what happened and they have apologized. Yeah. In the case of Justin Fairfax and sexual assault, he has not apologized. And in fact, he denies the accusations. Well, let's start with Fairfax because his situation is potentially criminal, right? Right. That means he can't just say sorry.

No. You know, and he wants to be a politician. He's a rising Democratic star. So he would give up his political career and possibly go to jail or get sued. So he's not going to apologize. And he has not apologized. And he's really been not only not apologetic, but pretty defiant. This was not the first time this was brought up. It was a year ago. This was brought up, you know, and yet the post who investigated it for three months dropped the story, did not do it. And they did not do it because it was uncorroborated. And it's uncorroborated because it's not true. Did the second accusation against Fairfax change his tone at all or did he just double down? No, not at all.

So here's now what's happening is the second accusation was from a woman who immediately told people about it. And she emailed talked about it contemporaneously. So when this second accuser came forward with a very similar story, two women who do not know each other, who are totally disconnected, and one of them is presenting corroborating witnesses, Democrats came out against Fairfax and said he needs to resign. It seemed that the Democratic Party was shifting away from pressure on Northam, and now the pressure has shifted to Justin Fairfax. How is what's going on with Fairfax right now

and the way it's being handled different from what went down with Senator Al Franken some time ago? So the Al Franken case is super interesting. He was accused of touching women inappropriately in photos and events and the like. He was under pressure from Democrats, particularly Senate Democrats, led by Kirsten Gillibrand, to step down. We need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is okay, none of it is acceptable, and we as elected leaders

should absolutely be held to a higher standard, not a lower standard, and we should fundamentally be valuing women. And that is where this debate has to go. The situation then seemed like Democrats were drawing a line in the sand. However, at the exact same moment that they were forcing out a popular Democrat, they were in a tight race in Alabama to actually win a Senate seat there because they were running against a candidate named Roy Moore, who you might remember. Alabama Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore is facing accusations of sexual misconduct. The Washington Post is now reporting that several women have come forward with claims against the former Alabama chief justice. One accuser says that Moore initiated

a sexual encounter back in 1979 when she was just 14 years old. The paper also interviewed three other women who recently say that Moore pursued them when they were between the ages of 16 and 18, and he was in his 30s. So it positioned Democrats to say, we are the party of morals. And Democrats won in Alabama. And there is a sense that it was a helpful thing to do to have Al Franken gone. Meanwhile, Al Franken stepping down didn't cost the Democrats that seat because he was immediately replaced by a Democrat. Now imagine, say Al Franken hadn't resigned. What would Democrats have done in 2018 as he's running against a Republican? Would they have still been banging the drum for him to step down, for him to leave,

if it meant that a Republican would take that Senate seat in Minnesota? Right. I don't think so. I think it would be a different moment. And that's not the moment that we lived through. We lived through a different one where politically it made a lot of sense

for Democrats to turn on Al Franken. But now there's a real political threat. They have to make a choice. Do they clean house, clean sweep, get rid of all of these guys? They've said they would like all three of them to go at different times. It's just that now that it's happening all together, they are dealing with the question of whether to just get rid of one of them, which seems to be the way that the party is leaning to avoid a Republican taking the governorship.

This feels very much like a Virginia thing, and yet so many national political figures have weighed in on it. How come? The governorship of Virginia is really important to Democrats in a lot of ways. I mean, it is a big state. And who controls the governor's mansion affects national elections as well. That if you have a governor on your side in a state, that can actually be helpful by a few points. And that could be the difference between a Democrat winning the state in 2020 and not. And Democrats are weighing those two things. Is zero tolerance really the right way to go when there's so much at stake? Beyond the political circumstances that dictate whether it's expedient to resign or good for the party, is there just any way to know when,

oh, yeah, that guy should resign for that. Oh, like, he should maybe apologize. I think that as much as we think about this as being politicians and what we do and do not accept from them, it's also about ourselves. And we're looking at Northam thinking, no, my conscience should not be clear if that is what I've done. But what if he'd done something a little bit less?

I don't know what that would be. He attended a party where those things were. He laughed at a racist joke once. Exactly. But I don't see how you draw it. Ultimately, the way that people are going to watch these things is through the context of, I voted for a Democrat, and I would rather have a Democrat who maybe has done some terrible things than a Republican. That's what parties want to do. They want to hang on to power. And in our polarized country, it's the same.

I think in the context of politics, it's uniquely hard to grapple with these questions of what was acceptable in the past and what is not acceptable now. Lauren McGann runs the Politics Desk at Vox. I'm Sean Ramos-Verm, and this is Today Explained. Thanks again to Aspiration for supporting the show today. Aspiration's like a bank, but that cares more about you and the planet. They want to skip the ATM and account fees. They want to give you a little money back and not use any of your money to fund oil pipelines or drilling that might hurt the planet.

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