Top Virginia Republicans are demanding that Democrats police their own side and urge Attorney General nominee Jay Jones to drop out of the race, days after National Review revealed that Jones had fantasized about killing former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert in a series of text messages sent to a former colleague in 2022.
In texts sent to Republican House Delegate Carrie Coyner, Jones entertained a hypothetical scenario in which he had a gun with only two bullets and was presented with two dictators and House Speaker Todd Gilbert. He said he’d shoot Gilbert twice “every time.”
After being admonished by Coyner over text, Jones called her and continued to defend the use of political violence, according to a source familiar with the contents of the call. When Coyner again confronted Jones via text for “talking about hopping [sic] jennifer Gilbert’s children would die,” Jones responded, “Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
Jones also wrote that Gilbert and his wife were “evil” and “breeding little fascists” and that he would “piss on the graves” of Virginia Republicans when they died.
After the story was published, Jones issued a statement in which he did not apologize but instead cast the text messages as an understandable lapse in judgment.
“Like all people, I’ve sent text messages that I regret and I believe that violent rhetoric has no place in our politics,” Jones said. “Let’s be clear about what is happening in the Attorney General race right now: [current Attorney General] Jason Miyares is dropping smears through Trump-controlled media organizations to assault my character and rescue his desperate campaign.”
Yet, despite the revealing nature of the text messages and Jones’s failure to immediately apologize, top Democrats have refused in the days since the article was published to call on Jones to resign.
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger condemned Jones’s comments but did not ask him to drop out of the race, saying in a statement she “spoke frankly with Jay about my disgust with what he had said and texted. I made clear to Jay that he must fully take responsibility for his words.”
Ghazala Hashmi, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, also demanded that Jones “take accountability for the pain that his words have caused,” but stopped short of asking him to drop out. Top Democratic congressional leaders have not responded to the revelations at all.
Jones did later apologize in a statement and in an on-air interview with a local ABC affiliate.
“I sincerely and from the bottom of my heart want to express my remorse and my regret for what happened and for what I said,” Jones said during the interview. “That language has no place in our discourse.”
But the late apology was not enough to satisfy his opponent, Republican Attorney General nominee Jason Miyares, who said during a Saturday press conference that he would not accept Jones’s apology, pointing out that Jones’s first instinct was to brush off the revelations. Miyares stopped short, though, of calling on Jones to drop out.
“He needs to make that … decision himself,” Miyares said.
Miyares did say in a statement that Jones’s conduct was disqualifying for someone running to the top law enforcement official in Virginia.
“Jay Jones wished for the violent death of a political opponent and then fantasized about that opponent’s children dying in their mother’s arms. When confronted, he doubled down, saying that kind of grief and pain would be a good thing if it advanced his politics,” Miyares said in a statement. “And politics aside, one has to be coming from a dark place to advocate the murder of a colleague and their family. This conduct is disqualifying.”
Miyares was joined in his condemnation of Jones by Vice President JD Vance, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R., La.), Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, and Elon Musk.
“The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages,” Vance said on X Saturday. “I’m sure the people hyperventilating about sombrero memes will join me in calling for this very deranged person to drop out of the race.”
Johnson also called Jones’s texts “plainly disqualifying for anyone who aspires to public office.”
Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin suggested that Jones would drop out if he had a stronger character and criticized Virginia Democrats for refusing to call on him to drop out.
“This violent, disgusting rhetoric targeted at an elected official and his children is beyond disqualifying,” Youngkin agreed. “Jay Jones said that ‘Gilbert gets two bullets to the head’ and then hoped his children would die. Read those words again. There is no ‘gosh, I’m sorry’ here. Jones doesn’t have the morality or character to drop out of this race, and his running mates Abigail Spanberger, Ghazala Hashmi, and every elected Democrat in Virginia don’t have the courage to call on him to step away from this campaign in disgrace.”
Earle-Sears, the Republican gubernatorial nominee, urged Spanberger to force Jones out of the race.
“This is horrible to read and should be wholly disqualifying of someone running for an office that protects the people of Virginia,” Earle-Sears said in a statement. “Jay Jones’ horrific comments are a symptom of the entire Democratic Party, and his running mate, Abigail Spanberger, needs to call on him to drop out.”
Elon Musk also called Jones “a horrible person” and described his comments as “evil” in a post on X.
Jones is also embroiled in a host of other controversies, including a reckless driving case and claims that he has exaggerated his legal accomplishments.
Early voting is already under way ahead of Virginia’s November 4 election day. Before the story exposing Jones’s text messages, he was running neck-and-neck with Miyares, with a Friday Washington Post poll showing Jones leading 51 to 45 percent, a statistically insignificant margin.