WASHINGTON — President Trump savaged Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee Abigail Spanberger for not having the courage to cut ties with the state’s progressive Attorney General contender — as he called on Jay Jones to drop out of the race.
The president’s wrath came after vile text messages Jones sent in 2022 resurfaced on Friday, showing him fantasizing about then-Republican state House Speaker Todd Gilbert being assassinated.
Dems have shamelessly stood by Jones and Spanberger has refused to disavow him.
“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,” Trump raged on Truth Social Sunday.
“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.”
The sickening messages were sent to Republican House Delegate Carrie Coyner in August 2022.
“Three people, two bullets,” read one of the violent texts sent at 8 a.m. on Aug. 8. “Gilbert, hitler, and pol pot.”
“Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,” Jones went on, according to texts first reported by the National Review and subsequently obtained by The Post.
“Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”
At one point, Jones even had a call with Coyner and fantasized about the former state House Speaker’s wife watching her children die. He also called the young children “little fascists.”
Initially, Jones responded to the revelations by refusing to apologize and blasting his foe, incumbent AG Jason Miyares of “dropping smears” against him. Then he claimed to have reached out to Gilbert and his wife to apologize for his “grave mistake.”
Spanberger, the frontrunner in the Virginia governor’s race, denounced Jones’ sickening text messages but declined to call on him to drop out.
“Abigail Spanberger, who is running for Governor, is weak and ineffective, and refuses to acknowledge what this Lunatic has done,” Trump seethed. “Even Democrats are saying it is ‘RESIGNATION FROM CAMPAIGN’ TERRITORY. Democrat Jay Jones should drop out of the Race, IMMEDIATELY.”
Top Democratic brass in Virginia, such as the Virginia Beach Democratic Party, have also stood by Jones amid the scandal.
Spanberger, for her part, condemned Jones’ text messages but stopped short of demanding he drop out of the race.
“After learning of these comments earlier today, I spoke frankly with Jay about my disgust with what he had said and texted,” Spanberger said in a statement.
“I made clear to Jay that he must fully take responsibility for his words. What I have also made clear is that as a candidate — and the next Governor of our Commonwealth, I will always condemn violent language in our politics.”
Spanberger has an 8.3 percentage point lead over her foe, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of the race.A clearly disturbed Coyner pushed back and begged Jones to stop at the time. “It really bothers me when you talk about hurting people or wishing death on them,” she wrote in response to the 2022 tirade.Jones also groused about the “glowing tributes” from Republicans that centrist Democrat Joe Johnson Jr. — a former state legislator who died days earlier — was receiving.“If those guys die before me,” Jones declared in the ranting messages, “I will go to their funerals to piss on their graves. “Send them out awash in something.”
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