President Donald Trump, like Republicans across Virginia, called for Democratic state attorney general candidate Jay Jones to quit the race over the weekend. The Republican president described Jones as a “radical left lunatic” and sought to link him to former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, Virginia's Democratic candidate for governor.
“Abigail Spanberger, who is running for Governor, is weak and ineffective, and refuses to acknowledge what this Lunatic has done,” Trump wrote on social media.
The clash over Jones' violent rhetoric, shared in a 2022 private text message exchange published on Friday, comes just four weeks before voters in Virginia and New Jersey choose new state leaders.
Jones has apologized repeatedly in recent days for the violent rhetoric he used in text messages he sent to a Republican lawmaker in 2022 about former Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert. The text exchange was published on Friday by the National Review.
In the texts, Jones wrote: “Three people two bullets ... Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot ... Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.” polPot was the leader of the murderous Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.
“What does it say about Virginia when presumably millions of Democrats will go out and vote for the murder of their Republican neighbors’ children?” conservative media figure Benny Johnson asked Jones' Republican opponent, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, in a Monday interview.
Miyares said Virginians are “good and decent people," before charging that Democrats, including Spanberger" have not been held accountable for Jones' rhetoric.
“She’s still willing to campaign with him, he said of Spanberger, noting that she has not asked him to quit the race and is “perfectly happy for him to be the top prosecutor in the state.”
“That is an amazing lack of judgment,” Miyares said.
