McAuliffe dismissed the yearbook photo of Northam as a youthful mistake at the 2019 event months after calling her a racist “at any age”

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“Look, even if it had been him in blackface. You know,” the former Democratic governor of Virginia shrugged. “It was a stupid mistake 40 years ago.”

“I grew up in New York. And in all honesty, I didn’t know what blackface was. You know, I hadn’t known, we had no problem with racism, honestly, growing up in Syracuse. “he said at one event. promotion of his book in July 2019.

The interview came just months after McAuliffe, along with other Democratic politicians, called on Northam to step down after it was revealed Northam appeared in a racist photo in his medical school yearbook, showing one person dressed in blackface and another wearing the iconic white balaclava of the KKK.

Northam apologized for the photo at first, although he refused to confirm which costume he was wearing and refused to resign. He then retracted his apology, insisting that neither man was him. A school investigation has not been able to determine whether NorthamNortham supported McAuliffe in the Democratic primary last spring and previously served as McAuliffe’s lieutenant governor from 2014 to 2018.

In a statement, McAuliffe campaign spokeswoman Christina Freundlich told CNN: “Terry has always been clear that what happened in this photo was wrong.

Northam and McAuliffe campaigned together Thursday as Northam voted early in the gubernatorial race. The race between McAuliffe and Republican candidate Glenn Youngkin is tighter than expected. A recent Monmouth University poll shows a stalemate between the two candidates, with each candidate having 46% support among registered voters.

“It doesn’t matter how Terry McAuliffe feels,” he added. “That photo that was in that yearbook was so offensive to the African American community, that I can’t fit into them. And we just have to get over that. I knew, at a young age, blackface, 1985, you just didn’t. ”

In July 2019, McAuliffe would tell the public there for his appearance in his book that it wasn’t Northam in his yearbook photo.

“He didn’t do Ku Klux Klan in fairness,” McAuliffe said. “It was now that he wasn’t one of them.”

While Northam has rejected calls to resign, he has publicly pledged to learn from his racial blind spots and fight racial inequality. By working with black political leaders in the state, he was able to strengthen gun laws, restore the franchise to nearly 70,000 criminals, approve voting rights legislation, and abolish the death penalty. in the Commonwealth.

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