WaPo: “Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin distanced himself Monday from a tweet mocking a teenager that went out Saturday on his campaign account, calling it “unauthorized.”
The “Team Youngkin” tweet lashed out at a high school student as well as Democrat Ralph Northam on Twitter this weekend, tweeting out the teen’s name and photo after the boy shared a news story about part of the Executive Mansion where enslaved workers once lived.
On Saturday afternoon, Ethan Lynne, 17, retweeted a report from the Richmond public radio station VPM suggesting that Youngkin (R) might be scrapping efforts pursued under two previous governors, Northam and Democrat Terry McAuliffe, to highlight the history of enslaved people at the mansion. The report contained an error, which Lynne noted on Twitter hours later, when VPM issued a correction.
But by then, “Team Youngkin” — the official Twitter account for Youngkin’s campaign — had attacked Lynne, posting a photo of the teen with Northam taken at a Democratic fundraiser in October.
“Here’s a picture of Ethan with a man that had a Blackface/KKK photo in his yearbook,” Team Youngkin tweeted a little before 5 p.m., pairing the October photo with a racist picture from Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook that surfaced in 2019.
The tweet drew immediate backlash from Democrats, who called on Youngkin to apologize to Lynne….Team Youngkin removed the tweet late Sunday morning but offered no apology. On Monday, Youngkin used his personal Twitter account to disavow the earlier tweet.”