A Democrat candidate for Virginia attorney general was grilled about comments he made, pondering shooting a former Republican Virgina House Speaker and allegedly wishing death upon the lawmaker’s children.
In an interview with ABC 8News reporter Tyler Englander, Jay Jones was asked about his comments, and how Virginia could “trust a man who said something so horrific.” Englander’s interview with Jones came after the National Review reported that in 2022, Jones sent messages to Virginia House Delegate Carrie Coyner (R), complaining about his colleagues “eulogizing” a recently deceased Democrat lawmaker, and going on to entertain thoughts of shooting former Virgina Speaker of the House of Delegates Todd Gilbert.
Per the National Review, “text messages” obtained by the outlet showed that Jones wrote to Coyner, saying that, if faced “with a hypothetical situation in which he had only two bullets” and had to pick between shooting either Gilbert or “two dictators,” he would pick Gilbert:
“If those guys die before me,” Jones wrote, referencing the Republican colleagues who were publicly honoring the deceased Johnson’s memory, “I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves” to “send them out awash in something.”
Jones then suggested that, presented with a hypothetical situation in which he had only two bullets and was faced with the choice of murdering then-Speaker of the House Todd Gilbert or two dictators, he’d shoot Gilbert “every time,” prompting pushback from his former colleague:
“A lot of politics is about trust,” Englander said. “I can think of nothing more horrific than a mother having to hold her dying child. How can Virginians trust a man who said something so horrific, so callously?”
“Well again, I am so deeply, deeply, sorry, for what I said, and I wish that it hadn’t happened and I would take it back if I could,” Jones answered.
When asked about the text messages about Gilbert, and what he was thinking, Jones expressed that he “sincerely, and from the bottom” of his heart wanted to express his “remorse and regret” over his words.
Coyner also confirmed to the Washington Post that she had a “text exchange with Jones in which me made comments about” his Republican colleagues. A spokesman for Coyner also told the outlet that Jones and Coyner had a phone conversation and that their “text conversation continued after the call ended,” and that Jones had allegedly “talked about Gilbert’s children dying in the arms of their mother.”
Coyner confirmed in a statement to The Post that she had a text exchange with Jones in which he made comments about Republicans on the House floor eulogizing Joseph Johnson Jr., a longtime Democratic state lawmaker from southwest Virginia who often voted with the GOP and had died three days earlier. Coyner condemned the text messages in a statement.
“What he said was not just disturbing but disqualifying for another who wants to seek public office,” her statement said.
“Following the initial exchange of texts between Jones and Coyner, he called her to explain his reasoning, said Mike Young, a spokesman for Coyner’s reelection.
The text conversation continued after the call ended. In those further texts, Coyner suggested that Jones had also talked about Gilbert’s children dying in the arms of their mother, Jennifer.
In response to the report from the National Review, Jones issued a statement that he took “full responsibility” for his actions, and that “reading back those words” made him sick to his stomach and ashamed.
“I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family,” Jones said in a statement shared by Nick Minock, a reporter for ABC 7 WJLA-TV. “Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry.”
Virgina Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) and Lt. Gov. and Virginia Republican gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears have issued statements criticizing Virginia Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger and other Virginia Democrats for not having “the guts” or “courage” to call on Jones to drop out of the race.
“Jay Jones literally fantasized about killing a man and two children and Abigail Spanberger still doesn’t have the guts to tell him to drop out,” Earle-Sears wrote in a post on X.
“This violent, disgusting rhetoric targeted at an elected official and his children is beyond disqualifying,” Youngkin wrote in a post on X. “Jay Jones said ‘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 doesn’t have the courage to call on him to step away from this campaign in disgrace.”
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