Tipsheet

When Winsome Sears Calls for Healing After Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict, It's Believable

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  November 21, 2021 2:00 PM

Virginia's Lieutenant Governor-Elect Winsome Sears, a Republican, made an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, where even she was asked about the "not guilty" verdict in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial. Sears gave quite the powerful response.

As her last question for Sears, host Dana Bash framed the question in quite the particular way.

BASH: Before I let you go. I want to ask about what happened in Wisconsin this past week.

A jury acquitted Kyle Rittenhouse of all charges. And it accepted his argument that he acted in self-defense when he killed two people in Kenosha last year and he wounded another. A number of Republican elected officials and other voices on the right are celebrating Rittenhouse as a hero.

Do you think his actions should be lionized?

SEARS: You know what I think? I think we ought to let the American justice system speak for itself.

And I'm going to quote our current president, President Biden, and he said, it's time to move on. And so let's heal. There's one verse I have used throughout my campaign written by a Jewish politician, King David, Psalm 133. How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in peace and harmony?

Can we allow this scab to finally heal? Can we stop picking up the wounds? Can -- we need a president who comes out and says, let's just get together. Let's figure it out. Let's not label people, that we see that the world is turned upside down. The right is wrong. The wrong is right.

When do we have that where we say, let's just all get along, like Rodney King said? And, by the way, can we have a media that tries to find the good among us, instead of dividing us? Because the media are complicit in this.

President Biden on Friday indeed had indicated to reporters that "the jury system works and we have to abide by it." He also wrote in his written statement that "we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken," but not before he found it appropriate to insert his own opinion, by writing "While the verdict in Kenosha will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included," before pointing out "we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken."

As I also highlighted, Vice President Kamala Harris' tweet communicated the opposite, by claiming "It’s clear, there’s still a lot more work to do."

Sears' appearance also got a lot of attention because of her quick correction to Bash about Critical Race Theory (CRT) being taught in schools. 

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Bash's backtrack involved claiming "I didn't say that. I just said it's not in the curriculum, just to be clear," which one could take as an admittance that it is taught in school. Sears corrected her further by saying "it is part of the curriculum," as it's "weaved in and out of the curriculum."

And, people took. notice that the lieutenant governor-elect declined to disclose her vaccine status. "The minute that I start telling you about my vaccine status, we're going to be down the bottom of the mountain trying to figure out how we got there, because now you want to know what's in my DNA. You're going to want to know this, that and the other," she said as part of her answer.