Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D) said Wednesday on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” that banning the Confederate flag from state license plates was fine but Confederate statues should be left alone.
McAuliffe told host Andrea Mitchell that he was having the Sons of the Confederacy redesign its Virginia license plate to remove the flag after the mass shooting last week at a historic black church in Charleston, S.C.
The alleged shooter had apparent white supremacist leanings and was shown holding the Confederate flag in photos. The killings spurred debate over the presence of Confederate symbolism throughout the South.
“I am sticking just with the license plates because I do think that is a message that is so hurtful, that flag, to folks,” McAuliffe said.
“But not statues. I mean, Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis, these are all parts of our heritage,” McAuliffe continued. “And the people that were in that battle, the Civil War, many of them were in it obviously for their own reasons that they had for that. But leave the statues and those things alone.”
Watch the video below, from MSNBC. McAuliffe’s comments come at around the 4:20 mark.
h/t The Hill
