Virginia is not New York or California and we're going to hold you accountable: AG Jason Miyares

Now, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miares. Great to have you with us, Sir. Great to be with you. So we have shown throughout the show a little bit of what happened at UVA yesterday. The protesters there say they had been singing, they had been reading poems, they had been there for days. And then suddenly yesterday, the scenes that we’re watching now on screen, one grad student said. It was completely disproportionate, the response of the Virginia State Police there. Governor Youngkin has said that you all talked in advance about how to handle these issues and support law enforcement. So your response to those who feel like UVA’s removal wasn’t a reaction yesterday. I think that’s good PR spin by those on the other side. But the the reality is what you had at UVA were students that were warned repeatedly they were violating both their student code of conduct, that it was an unlawful assembly, there was trespassing. There were outsiders that were there. And after repeated warnings, when in fact the university police chief at UVA tried to do a Wellness check and make sure there weren’t weapons, these individuals blocked and surrounded them. They had to retreat. That’s when they asked for the state police to intervene. And one thing I want to distress is Virginia is not New York. You have a very different governor. You have a very different attorney general, and we’re not going to tolerate that. But when we had to send in the Virginia State Police, it meant unfortunately they were not dealing with our fentanyl crisis or human trafficking issues that we have a focus on. They had to deal with these students that instead of acting like adults, they acted like coddled children. They were ignoring repeated and I mean repeated request to disassemble. They weren’t allowed to do what they were doing and so they suffered the consequences. But what we’ve actually seen as well, Shannon, in multiple locations and campuses, particularly we saw this at VCU, is we’re receiving intelligence that outside agitators are starting to get involved in these campus protests. We saw that they are showing up with pallets of prefab wooden barriers. We saw this at VCU. We’ve seen folks that are not students show up in riot gear with bullhorns to direct the protesters on how to flank our officers. We even see them taking water bottles, pouring half of it out, putting bear spray in the water bottles and throwing them at these officers, basically using them as chemical agents to try to assault our officers. And so our message is if you think you can get away with assault and battery of an officer, if you think you can get away with threats of violence and acts of violence against those in law enforcement, I got to tell you, you’re going to find out real quickly. Virginia is not New York or California, and we’re going to hold you accountable. All right. I want to make sure that I ask you about another issue that Virginia has been one of the strongest voices on. There are new regulations from the administration on Title 9 and things doing, you know, to do with investigating sexual assaults on campus rights against discrimination, those kinds of things. Here is how Education Secretary Miguel Cardona described what they want to do with this new regulation. These regulations make crystal clear that everyone can access schools that are safe, welcoming, and that respect their rights. No one should face bullying or discrimination just because of who they are or who they love. Sadly, this happens all too often. So is Virginia going to refuse to comply with this new regulation? If so, why? Because does it go against the argument that the GOP is the party of law and order respecting institutions, say the executive branch, for example? Well, first of all, these regulations don’t go in the place of August 1st. We’ve already joined Tennessee and several other states to get emergency injunctive relief on this. But this is a classic case of what the Biden administration does over and over again. They bypass Congress. They totally over interpret, interpret their mandate or statutory mandate and to interpret in a way it’s never been viewed before. This is a radical reinterpretation because they know they can’t get this through Congress and I know Heritage Foundation, others have studied less than 5% of the new laws and regulations Americans have to live through every year are actually passed by Congress. They’re passed by these unelected bodies that try to have a new novel interpretation to impose a real far left view on Americans. And and the response of that last quote there, listen, I’ve met with some of the students that have literally they’re they’re women that have shown these biological males show up in their locker rooms without warning that have to not just compete with them. But I talked to one female student had to find a janitor’s closet to change in in a swimming competition. She felt utterly humiliated with no warning. And that’s what we want to do. We’re going to protect women’s sports. I think Title 9 is a bedrock principle of protecting women’s sport and protecting women in the locker room. And I just think that bite administration is a classic case of being so open minded. Your brain falls right out. Who in their right mind thinks we should have biological males in our women’s locker rooms and on our sports teams right now competing against biological women? And so we’re good at every chance we get. We’re going to stand with our women and we’re going to protect them in our women’s sports. And I I think this is a matter of common sense not being very common in Washington these days. Well, and to be clear, this Title 9 change doesn’t do with athletics yet, but we are hearing the White House is considering that as well. So we’ll track all of these changes. Attorney General, thank you for making time for us. Always a pleasure.