Democratic candidate for Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe is denying a local news station's claim that he abruptly stormed out of an interview halfway through.
McAuliffe spokesman Renzo Olivari on Wednesday shared screenshots of his text messages with WJLA-TV reporter Nick Minock, which purport to show the interview was scheduled for 10 minutes, not 20 as the station claimed.
Olivari accused the ABC affiliate station of 'mislead[ing] viewers by saying Terry "abruptly" left an interview that was ALWAYS scheduled to be 10 mins long.'
McAuliffe's campaign went on the defensive as a poll shows GOP rival Glenn Youngkin has closed their once substantial polling gap, crediting chaos at two of the state's woke school boards with helping drive voters to his side.
On Tuesday, the station published the full interviews and transcripts of Minock's sit-downs with McAuliffe and Youngkin, with an anchor claiming that 20 minutes had been allotted for both candidates, but that McAuliffe left early.
The controversy is the latest twist in the closely-watched November 2 election, which is now neck-and-neck, and has major implications for President Joe Biden's agenda and next year's midterms.
Terry McAuliffe, the Democrat running for Virginia governor, is denying that he left a local TV interview 'abruptly', with a spokesman saying it was only scheduled for 10 minutes
The station claimed that reporter Nick Minock (above) had promised both candidate an interview of exactly 20 minutes to give them equal time, but McAuliffe cut his interview short
McAuliffe spokesman Renzo Olivari denied WJLA-TV's portrayal of the interview
Youngkin seized on the controversy, claiming McAuliffe walked out on the interview because of a sense of 'entitlement' stemming from having previously served as governor of Virginia from 2014 until 2018.
Indeed, in its promos for the interview ahead of the November 2 election, a WJLA anchor claimed that McAuliffe had walked out 'abruptly' before the scheduled time expired.
'We do want to point out that the Terry McAuliffe interview is shorter than our interview with Glenn Youngkin, that was not by our doing,' the anchor explained on-air.
Text messages shared by the McAuliffe campaign purport to show that Minock agreed to a 10-minute interview
'Nick offered both candidates 20 minutes exactly to be fair, for the interviews. McAuliffe abruptly ended 7 News' interview after just 10 minutes and told Nick that he should have asked better questions,' the anchor added.
Just over 10 minutes into the interview recorded last week, McAuliffe is heard telling Minock: 'Alright, we are over. That's it. That's it. Hey I gave you extra time. C'mon man.'
'You should have asked better questions early on. You should have asked questions your viewers care about,' McAuliffe continues, as he gets up and walks away.
In his response, McAuliffe spokesman Olivari shared a screenshot of what appears to be an iMessage conversation with Minock, in which he tells the reporter: 'We will have an event in Fairfax County at around 10am so we can do it after that - we have about 10mins for it. Let me know.'
'Let's do it. Thank you!' Minock apparently responded.
Olivari said that it was misleading to characterize McAuliffe's departure as abrupt, writing 'in the video you can see how lighthearted and joking Terry was after the interview.'
Representatives for WJLA, which is owned by Sinclair Broadcast Group, did not immediately respond to an request for comment from DailyMail.com outside of business hours on Thursday.
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Republican gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin (right) slammed McAuliffe over the controversy in an interview with Fox & Friends on Wednesday
McAuliffe's opponent Youngkin, who is backed by Donald Trump, pounced on the interview controversy and said McAuliffe is 'losing it'.
'This is what Terry McAuliffe does, I guess,' Youngkin told Fox & Friends in Falls Church, Virginia. 'I think he might feel entitled because, he thinks, he was governor - but he didn't do a good job - people shouldn't ask him hard questions.'
'These aren't that hard of questions. How are you going to fix our schools' and what are you going to do to make our communities safe? I mean, these are questions I get every day.'
He compared it to spending his Tuesday at a campaign rally with voters in Fairfax County, Virginia.
'We had nearly 1,000 people last
