The Democratic Party’s nominee for Virginia attorney general, Jay Jones, has said he is “deeply, deeply sorry” for fantasizing about killing a Republican lawmaker.
Jones was asked about his disgusting comments in an interview with ABC 8News reporter Tyler Englander.
“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.
Watch the clip below:
WATCH: 8 News grills Virginia Democrat AG candidate Jay Jones who wrote that he wanted to put “two bullets to the head” of the GOP leader: “A lot of politics is about trust. I can think of nothing more horrific than a mother having to hold her dying child. How can Virginians… pic.twitter.com/zZh1NNtAhG
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 4, 2025
The story was first broken by National Review, who published early-morning texts from August 2022 showing Jay Jones in which he imagined shooting his political opponents.
The messages were prompted by bipartisan tributes to the late centrist legislator Joe Johnson Jr., which had been shared in statehouse group chats.
Jones, who had recently left the state House, sent his responses to Republican Delegate Carrie Coyner.
He slammed Johnson as too “moderate” and mocked the “glowing” eulogies in his honor, particularly one made by Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert.
“If those guys die before me, I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves,” adding that he would “send them out awash in something.”
He then said, hypothetically, he would kill then-Speaker Todd Gilbert instead of murderers like Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot — a comment that led Coyner to beg him to stop.
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. pic.twitter.com/8CAjNqqWBI
— Winsome Earle-Sears (@winwithwinsome) October 3, 2025
Jones then escalated his comments during a follow-up phone call with Coyner, insisting that politicians “must feel pain themselves,” comparing it to the anguish of parents who witness their children being killed.
He went even further, saying he wished Gilbert’s wife would experience such a loss so that Gilbert might “move to the left politically.” Outraged by his remarks, Coyner ended the call.
After National Review published the story, Jones accused his Republican opponent, Attorney General Jason Miyares, of orchestrating a “smear campaign through Trump-controlled media organizations.”