Shocking texts sent by the Democratic nominee for attorney general of Virginia back in 2022 could upend the upcoming statewide elections in the Old Dominion.
As reported on Monday’s AM Update, text messages surfaced in which Democrat nominee Jay Jones openly wished former Republican Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert would “get two bullets to the head.” And the exchange only got more vitriolic from there.
The Disturbing Messages
Jones sent the messages, which were first reported by National Review’s Audrey Fahlberg, to Republican House Delegate Carrie Coyner on August 8, 2022.
Jones had recently resigned from his post in the state house and was angry that Gilbert and other Republican lawmakers were paying tribute to deceased former Democrat state legislator Joe Johnson Jr. He apparently considered Johnson too much of a centrist and didn’t like the bipartisan mourning.
The texts were not actually even meant for Coyner. At one point, Jones wrote, “Damn, that was for [M]ark.” Nevertheless, Jones kept texting the disturbing messages. “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.”
As if that weren’t enough, Jones then presented a hypothetical situation in which he had the opportunity to kill Speaker Gilbert or two brutalist dictators and said he would choose the Republican “every time.”
JONES: Three people, two bullets
JONES: Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot
JONES: Gilbert gets two bullets to the head
JONES: Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time
COYNER: Jay
COYNER: Please stop
JONES: Lol
JONES: Ok, ok
COYNER: It really bothers me when you talk about hurting people or wishing death on them
According to National Review, Jones then called Coyner and doubled down on his violent views. He reportedly suggested he wished Gilbert’s wife could watch her own child die in her arms so that Gilbert might reconsider his political views. That prompted Coyner to hang up the phone in disgust.
And yet the back and forth didn’t end there. Jones then resumed texting, claiming he was “simply asking questions.” But Coyner wasn’t buying it. She chastised Jones for “[hoping] Jennifer Gilbert’s children would die.” And he did not push back on the assertion. Instead, Jones responded by saying, “Yes, I’ve told you this before. Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
The Fallout
The Dem hopeful’s initial reaction to the mounting scandal was to attack President Donald Trump. He put out a statement over the weekend accusing president Trump and his Republican opponent, incumbent Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares, of “dropping smears through Trump-controlled media to assault my character.”
But he later changed his tune. Jones put out a second statement saying, “I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I’m embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry… I cannot take back what I said. I can only take full accountability and offer my sincere apology.”
So far, Jones’ fellow Democrats are sticking by him. Democrat gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger condemned the texts but stopped short of calling for Jones to exit the race. Virginia House Speaker Don Scott, meanwhile, urged voters to “stay focused” and not get “distracted” by the scandal. “We can’t get distracted because they want us to get distracted by the text message here or something else,” he told a congregation at a church on Sunday.
Early voting started in Virginia on September 19 and polls show a tight race between Jones and Miyares.
Megyn’s Take
On Monday’s edition of The Megyn Kelly Show, Megyn reacted to vile texts and the left’s reaction to them.
“This is so sick. Tomorrow, Rich Lowry and Charles C.W. Cooke will be on from National Review. I don’t want to get ahead of this, but Charles has a great piece on NR right now concluding that these texts are utterly ‘disqualifying’ for Jay Jones and attorney general… He writes:
“The most alarming of all the words in the Jay Jones text message scandal is ‘yes.’
It comes after Jones’s interlocutor, the moderate Republican House Delegate, Carrie Coyner, reminds Jones that he had been ‘talking about hopping [sic] jennifer Gilbert’s children would die,’ and that this is outrageous. ‘Yes,’ Jones replies. ‘Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.’
Why does this part, in particular, matter? I’ll tell you: Because it was considered, deliberate, malicious.”
He goes on to make the point that sometimes people get carried away. “Here, though, Jones confirms those thoughts, and then calmly explains their logic,” Cooke wrote. “‘Yes’ isn’t a rash indiscretion or a lazy misstatement; it is a confirmation. Of what? Of a worldview — that’s what.”
This is the point I’m trying to make… This is the point of the whole episode. It is a confirmation… of a worldview… They show it to us over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
It is a confirmation of a worldview – one that Donald Trump saw firsthand [in Butler, PA] in July of 2024, as did Corey Comperatore, as did David Dutch, as did Jim Copenhaver; one that [United Healthcare CEO] Brian Thompson, unfortunately, never saw coming when he was shot in the back by that coward Luigi Mangione; one that Charlie [Kirk] never saw coming either.
He predicted they’d be violent. He did. He was worried about his safety. He was more worried about Trump’s. They tried to kill Trump twice. Let’s not forget that guy who tried to take him down the following month at his golf course down in Florida. He just got convicted in court after representing himself.
[It is a worldview] that these ICE agents are having to deal with every day…
I am going to steal a little bit more from [Charles’] article today… He writes:
“I have talked before on my podcast about the two types of bigots. On the one hand, you have the unthinking types, who say awful things about particular sorts of people, but who, having never really thought those things through, will back away or soften when challenged. While I dislike them, these people do not worry me a great deal. On the other hand, you have people whose bigotry is the product of an earnestly held, well-thought-through ideological framework. These people terrify me. In my experience, there is a big difference between the guy at the bar who says ugly things after a few drinks, and the guy with the website who has charts, historical narratives, and an inexhaustible patience for proselytizing. One is a casual idiot; the other is a committed zealot. And it is zealots, not idiots, who tend to change the world for the worse.”
That’s what we’re dealing with here – zealots everywhere supported by a dishonest media who eggs them on, who doesn’t care about truth. They just care about votes, currying favor from their own side, and hatred for the other…
We’ve created a new ecosystem when it comes to media, which is good and healthy and the antidote. But it hasn’t completely eradicated the existence of the other. I mean, I told you before. You looked at the [Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] controversies. At my house, when I get The New York Post, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, all three are ripping on him. All three are totally unsparing in their coverage of RFKJ.
The media is a problem and the left is a problem, but I repeat myself. But the Neera Tandens of the world, not to mention this current Democrat House Speaker in Virginia… Where is the Democratic Party saying, ‘You must step down, sir? Jay Jones, you’ve gone too far. You don’t speak for us.’ Where are they?”
You can check out Megyn’s full analysis by tuning in to episode 1,165 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.