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Today, Explained

Virginia is for scandals

Today, Explained

Vox

Politics, Daily News, News

4.310.3K Ratings

🗓️ 11 February 2019

⏱️ 22 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

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

Transcript

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0:00.0

Support for today explain comes from aspiration, a financial partner that puts you and your conscience and the planet before everything else.

0:08.0

They got a 1% annual percentage yield, 0 ATM fees, and get this. The option to choose your own monthly fee, even if it is $0.

0:18.0

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0:24.0

Don't 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?

0:33.0

James Town, where do we start? I think we can just go back a couple of weeks.

0:37.0

Okay, let's do that. Take us. A couple of weeks ago, there was a little controversy in Virginia over an abortion bill.

0:46.0

A bill that basically rolled back some of the abortion restrictions that are currently state law.

0:51.0

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.

1:00.0

But Democratic governor Ralph Northam went on a radio show.

1:04.0

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.

1:15.0

And she was pressed by Republican delegate about whether her bill would permit an abortion, even as a woman is essentially dilating ready to give birth.

1:23.0

And she answered that it would permit an abortion at that stage of labor. Do you support her measure and explain her answer?

1:33.0

It's worth noting that he is a pediatric neurologist. And so it speaks about these things in a very sort of medical sense.

1:40.0

And I think it's fair to say his comments on this radio show were in elegant.

1:44.0

It's done in cases where there may be severe deformities or maybe a fetus that's non-biable.

1:50.0

So in this particular example, if a mother is in labor, I can tell you exactly what would happen. The infant would be delivered.

1:59.0

The infant would be kept comfortable. The infant would be resuscitated if that's what the mother and the family desired.

2:06.0

And then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.

2:11.0

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.

2:22.0

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.

2:35.0

And very quickly, the Virginia 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.

2:48.0

There's like one picture of him in a suit. There's one picture of him like sitting in front of his car.

...

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