Democratic Virginia House Speaker Don Scott lambasted Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin over his comments slamming a controversial school board member who had endorsed Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger.
Chesterfield School Board member Dot Heffron drew intense criticism and calls to resign last week over a private Instagram story post celebrating the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, in which she reportedly mentioned shooting Nazis. Heffron — who said she posted the Instagram story before she knew Kirk was dead — plans to resign on Dec. 31 in the wake of the controversy, Axios first reported on Sunday, which the school board accepted.
Youngkin criticized Spanberger for not denouncing the member’s endorsement of her campaign in a Tuesday social media post, writing that Spanberger “is no moderate and cowers when confronted with the extreme left in her party who cheer political assassinations.”
Why won’t Abigail Spanberger renounce the endorsement of Dot Heffron and demand her immediate resignation from the Chesterfield County School Board? For the same reason she can’t say whether men should be allowed in girls’ bathrooms: she is no moderate and cowers when confronted…
— Glenn Youngkin (@GlennYoungkin) September 16, 2025
Scott then claimed in a Wednesday X post in response to Youngkin’s comments that the Republican governor had “said nothing” when a sitting GOP member of Virginia’s House of Delegates said that “Democrats killed [Charlie] Kirk.” He also alleged in the social media post that Kirk was assassinated “by a man from a family of Trump supporters.”
Spare us the sanctimonious selective outrage-you should be ashamed of yourself. You said nothing when a sitting GOP member of the Va House of Delegates said “Democrats killed Charle Kirk” -a blatant lie that was never corrected even after learning he was shot by a man from a… pic.twitter.com/JRLOJ7m1kU
— Speaker Don Scott (@SpeakerDonScott) September 17, 2025
Should Abigail Spanberger renounce Dot Heffron's endorsement after the controversy?
“Spare us the sanctimonious selective outrage-you should be ashamed of yourself,” Scott wrote in the social media post. “You said nothing when a sitting GOP member of the Va House of Delegates said ‘Democrats killed [Charlie] Kirk’ -a blatant lie that was never corrected even after learning he was shot by a man from a family of Trump supporters. Thank God, this Governor and his hateful politics will be gone in 120 days.”
Scott did not respond to a request for comment.
Similarly, Republican Virginia Lt. Gov. and GOP gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears wrote in a Tuesday social media post that Spanberger “has a spine of pasta,” adding that “even after Dot Heffron justified Charlie Kirk’s assassination, she [Spanberger] still won’t speak up or renounce her endorsement.”
Earle-Sears’ campaign, Youngkin’s office and Spanberger’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
Scott’s comments about the “sitting GOP member” of Virginia’s House of Delegates are apparently in reference to Republican Virginia State Delegate Nick Freitas, who had claimed in a Sept. 10 statement that “the other side murdered” Kirk. Freitas also said that “the left couldn’t bear the thought of a peaceful man debating them and winning.”
Freitas did not respond to a request for comment.
A court document released on Tuesday said that Tyler Robinson, the man charged with fatally shooting Kirk, told his transgender boyfriend he had been engraving bullets that authorities later discovered with left-wing messages. Moreover, Robinson’s mother told police that he had “become more political” and “started to lean more to the left” over roughly the past year, the document alleges.
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