Vice President J.D. Vance said the threatening messages sent by Democratic Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones are “far worse’ than the texts sent between Young Republicans in a group chat joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.
Mr. Vance posted a screenshot of a text conversation Tuesday where Mr. Jones acknowledged that he hoped the children of the former Republican Virginia House speaker would die because “only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.”
The vice president wrote, “This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia.”
“I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence,” he said.
Thousands of pages of texts among leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country were released in a Politico report Tuesday.
The chats included members, both men and women, talking about rape, using slurs to refer to minorities and talking about sending their opponents to gas chambers. Other texts talked about driving people to suicide and celebrating people who supported slaverly.
The chat included Young Republican leaders in Arizona, Kansas, New York and Vermont and were sent over a seven-month span as they discussed their campaign to take control of the Young Republican National Federation, an organization of 15,000 members ages 18 to 40, the outlet reported.
“Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber,” one text said.
Others referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people.”
The federation condemned the messages, saying it’s “appalled by the vile and inexcusable language revealed in the Politico article published today.”
“Such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents,” the federation’s board of directors wrote in a statement on Instagram. “Those involved must immediately resign from all positions within their state and local Young Republican organizations. We must hold ourselves to the highest standards of integrity, respect, and professionalism.”
Along with the text exchange that Mr. Vance posted, Mr. Jones made comments about more cops being killed as a way to get them to “move on, not shooting people, not killing people.”
Mr. Jones has apologized for those comments and is still in the race for attorney general despite calls for him to drop out from Republicans, including President Trump.
“Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry,” he wrote in a statement this month.
Mr. Jones is running against incumbent Attorney General Jason Miyares. The election is Nov. 4.
