Trump, Vance call on Dem VA AG candidate Jay Jones to drop out after revelations he fantasized about assassinating GOP lawmaker

President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance have now joined growing calls for Virginia Democratic attorney general candidate Jay Jones to end his campaign after a report revealed violent private messages in which Jones joked about shooting a political opponent.

"It has just come out that the Radical Left Lunatic, Jay Jones, who is running against Jason Miyares, the GREAT Attorney General in Virginia, made SICK and DEMENTED jokes, if they were jokes at all, which were not funny, and that he wrote down and sent around to people, concerning the murdering of a Republican Legislator, his wife, and their children," Trump said in a post to Truth.

"Abigail Spanberger, who is running for Governor, is weak and ineffective, and refuses to acknowledge what this Lunatic has done. Even Democrats are saying it is “RESIGNATION FROM CAMPAIGN” TERRITORY. Democrat Jay Jones should drop out of the Race, IMMEDIATELY, and the People of Virginia must continue to have a GREAT Attorney General in Jason Miyares who, by the way, has my Complete and Total Endorsement — JASON WILL NEVER LET YOU DOWN!" the post concludes. 

In a separate post, Vance said, “The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages,” Vance posted on X. “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.”

Vance’s post was in response to a National Review report that published screenshots of 2022 text messages Jones sent to Republican state delegate Carrie Coyner. In the exchange, Jones joked about killing then–Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert.

“Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot,” Jones wrote in the messages. “Gilbert gets two bullets to the head.”

“Jay,” Coyner responded. “Please stop.”

According to the report, Jones indicated that he did not intend to send the messages to Coyner, but called Coyner to continue the conversation. During the phone call, Jones invoked the death of Gilbert’s child, saying he wished Gilbert’s wife could watch her child die so that Gilbert might reconsider his political views. Coyner reportedly ended the call after those comments.

The revelations have prompted widespread condemnation. In a statement to WRIC, Jones issued an apology, saying, “I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family.”

Despite his apology, pressure for Jones to withdraw from the race has intensified amid a political climate on the left that has grown increasingly tolerant towards political violence, as seen by the murder of TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk last month. 

Virginia Lieutenant Governor Winsome Earle-Sears, the Republican candidate for governor in the state, urged Democratic gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger to call on Jones to step aside. Governor Glenn Youngkin also condemned Jones’s remarks in a statement on X.

“This violent, disgusting rhetoric targeted at an elected official and his children is beyond disqualifying,” Youngkin wrote. “Jay Jones said that ‘Gilbert gets two bullets to the head’ and then hoped his children would die. Read those words again.”

He added, “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.”