President Trump is calling for Democratic candidate for Virginia’s attorney general Jay Jones to drop out of the race after Jones walked back remarks made during a text exchange in 2022.
Republican State Del. Carrie Coyner confirmed to NBC News that Jones sent a series of text messages in August of that year. According to Coyner, Jones said, if he had two bullets for three people and one of those people was then House Speaker Todd Gilbert, “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”
During the exchange, Jones also added, “Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”
Coyner said Jones called her after he sent those messages and suggested he wished Gilbert’s wife could watch her own child die in her arms so that Gilbert would reconsider his stances.
Following news of the resurfaced messages, Jones released a statement, saying “reading back those words made me sick to my stomach” and he is “embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry.”
The statement reads, in part, “I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. […] I cannot take back what I said, I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology.”
In an interview with ABC affiliate WRIC in Richmond on Friday night, Jones said he is “learning and growing from all of this.”
“It’s been an embarrassing situation for me, but we continue to move forward,” Jones said in the interview.
Trump called for Jones to drop out of the upcoming race in November on his Truth Social platform on Sunday. Trump called the texts “sick” and “demented” and in turn endorsed Attorney General Jason Miyares.
“JASON WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!” Trump said in the Truth Social post.
Miyares, who’s seeking re-election, responded to the text messages.
“You’re seeking to be the top law enforcement officer in the entire state, and I think it is disqualifying and I think it is shameful,” he said.
Those remarks join the chorus of political leaders criticizing and condemning Jones’ comments.
Virginia’s Democratic candidate for governor, Abigail Spanberger, said, “After learning of these comments, I 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.”
Virginia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate, Winsome Earle-Sears, also asked for Jones to drop out of the race.
“Take notice, Virginia,” she said. “We can stop this if we choose to. The stakes of this election have never been more clear.”
According to NBC News, Earle-Sears has already started posting digital ads online that are a combination of news reports about Jones’ texts intertwined with Spanberger’s past praise for Jones.
News of the text messages come one month before Election Day in the commonwealth. More than 280,000 Virginia voters have cast their ballots as of Oct. 1, according to Virginia’s Public Access Project.
“We’re talking about votes already cast in Virginia. It seems to me that even if there was an idea that the Democratic Party should change courses, it’s way past mid-stream in this situation. Voting has been going on for a couple of weeks already in Virginia,” political analyst Stephen Farnsworth said.
He says the race comes down to a few factors, should Jones choose to remain in the race.
“I think the big question going forward is how the voters are going to feel about a candidate that said what this candidate said,” Farnsworth said. “This was a really, really horrible moment for a candidate to have made such comments, and it may or may not be disqualifying depending on how the voters react to it.”
from Local – NBC4 Washington https://ift.tt/VI6HZMq
0 Comments