Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said states should decide interracial marriage; this isn’t ignorance, it’s racism.

Question

BREAKING: Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said Loving v. Virginia—legalizing interracial marriage—should have been left to individual states. That’s not misunderstanding, it’s blatant racism. Now he’s “walking it back.” We see your game, Gov. Watch this space, don’t let anyone forget.

Answer 1

From the Bluesky app, a post went up by Capital Politics saying that the Indiana Governor spoke on interracial marriage in a very "racist" way. They claim that he said that interracial marriage should have been left up to the discretion of the states themselves. (https://bsky.app/profile/capitolpolitics.news/post/3lwmpail6s22i) 

Going off of this claim, I searched the headline to verify with other trusted sources. From CNN, they include the exact question that was asked and the exact response he gave. The question was deemed to be: "would you "be ok" with the US Supreme Court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states?" He then replied with "Yes I think thats something if you aren't wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that you aren't going to be able to have your cake and eat it too." So to clarify, he essentially did say that it should be left to the individual states, but the Bluesky app post is very misleading because he did not directly say that. He then made a statement saying that he misunderstood the question, either a way of apologizing genuinely or just getting the public likes back. (https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/mike-braun-interracial-marriage-comments) 

These other sources confirm that the Bluesky app is exaggerating what he actually said vs. what they want people to believe. They clarify that he condems racism in any form, and misunderstood the questions asked. (https://www.thestatehousefile.com/commentary/mike-braun-says-the-quiet-part-aloud/article_ca652380-86b4-11ef-8ea3-031ddbe79a17.html) (https://apnews.com/article/ketanji-brown-jackson-us-supreme-court-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-lifestyle-091656750d8685dbe19d3d5493785595) 

Answer 2

Claim: Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said states should decide interracial marriage; this isn’t ignorance, it’s racism.

On youtube, you can listen to the full interview, and his claim is that “the supreme court should not be activists” and implies that the supreme court weighs in on things that should be states rights, and then the interviewer asks the loaded question of “you would be ok with the supreme court leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states” his answer in short was “yes, If you are not wanting the supreme court on issues like that, then you cannot have your cake and eat it too” Meaning if you do not want political activism from the SCOTUS, then this ruling cattegoricly falls into that. 

The statement is also seen here on AP News, restating the senators position and their own take on it. 

According to HuffPost Latest News, “When the senator was asked directly if he supported the Supreme Court “leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states,” Braun responded, “Yes.”

“I think if you’re not wanting the Supreme Court to weigh in on issues like that, you’re not going to be able to have your cake and eat it, too. I think that’s hypocritical,” Braun said. “You can list a whole host of issues. When it comes down to whatever they are, I’m going to say they’re not going to all make you happy within a given state. But we’re better off having states manifest their points of view, rather than homogenizing it across the country as Roe v. Wade did.”

Answer 3

The claim that Indiana Gov. Mike Braun said states should decide interracial marriage is overall true. A CNN article https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/23/politics/mike-braun-interracial-marriage-comments supports this as it says that he was asked by local news reporters if he was ok with the idea of The Supreme Court leaving the idea of interracial marriage up to the states and he ultimately replied saying yes he was okay with it. The article later states that once people started calling him out for how racist his comment was, he quickly attempted to reframe it as he did not understand the question correctly and never condones any type of racism.

Differently an article by Politico https://www.politico.com/minutes/congress/03-22-2022/clean-up-for-braun/ gives more context to him saying this. Buran was in a press conference , he stated a general statement that The Supreme Court legalized too many things that should be up to the states. After that allegedly a reporter listed many cases, Loving v. Virginia being one of them, and he claimed to have not realized it and just wanted to get a quick answer out. 

Although the article from APNews https://apnews.com/article/ketanji-brown-jackson-us-supreme-court-race-and-ethnicity-racial-injustice-lifestyle-091656750d8685dbe19d3d5493785595 gave details that Politico left out claiming that he "was asked directly if he supported the Supreme Court “leaving the question of interracial marriage to the states,” Braun responded, “Yes.” which would be inconsistent to what he had said about all the cases being listed at once and him not realizing the case about interracial marriage was in play.

This makes me overall believe that the claim is true an Buran is not owning up to what he said and he simply got caught and he was trying to take the easy road out.