Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Monday said he regretted a post to his campaign's Twitter account over the weekend that lashed out at a 17-year-old high school student.
The Republican governor, sworn into office just over three weeks ago, stopped short of apologizing for the exchange.
“On Saturday night, an unauthorized tweet came from a campaign account. I regret that this happened and it shouldn’t have,” Youngkin tweeted Monday morning from his personal Twitter account. “I have addressed it with my team. We must continue to work to bring Virginians together. There is so much more that unites us than divides us.”
The original tweet, sent from the official Team Youngkin campaign account, attacked Ethan Lynne — a high school senior involved with Virginia Teen Democrats — who tweeted a story from a Virginia-based NPR affiliate which detailed the resignation of a historian at the governor’s mansion. The story reported that an area of the mansion which once housed enslaved workers was being transformed by the Youngkin administration from an educational space into a family room. After that story's publication, a spokesperson for the governor told Virginia Public Media that the space would not be used for a family room.
When VPM issued a correction, Lynne likewise tweeted an update.
Youngkin's campaign responded to the initial post by tweeting out a photo of Lynne — who identifies himself in his Twitter bio as a high school senior — posing with former Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam. “Here’s a picture of Ethan with a man that had a Blackface/KKK photo in his yearbook,” the account tweeted along with a racist photo from Northam's medical school yearbook of two people — one wearing blackface and another in Ku Klux Klan robes. Northam has denied that he is either of the people in the photo but conceded in 2019 that he once wore blackface in 1984 at a different event.
The tweet was deleted Sunday morning, but no statement came from the Youngkin administration until Monday morning.
Virginia Democrats were quick to criticize the governor. “@GovernorVA disappointed you would use your official twitter account to bully a teen for nothing more than retweeting an article about you,” state Sen. Adam Ebbin (D-Alexandria) tweeted Saturday. “I've learned you need a thick skin in this biz, and you need to learn that too. You owe@ethanclynne an apology.”
Lynne has emerged as a frequent critic of the Youngkin administration since the governor’s inauguration last month, and his tweets are frequently shared by prominent Virginia Democrats. Though Youngkin responded to the situation Monday, Lynne said the governor’s statement was not an apology.
“While he acknowledged the situation, Governor Youngkin did not apologize and did not condemn what happened over the weekend,” Lynne tweeted Monday. “I still hope he does, and that he will take time to recognize the culture of toxicity he has created within his first month of office.”
