Vance again downplays Young Republicans texts, looks to shift attention to Virginia AG race

Vice President JD Vance on Thursday continued to downplay the bigoted messages in a Young Republicans group chat, drawing attention instead to the violent texts sent by Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones.

“A friend shared these truly disturbing messages from a Young Republican group chat. The group’s leader ‘genuinely’ calls for murdering the children of his political opponents,” Vance wrote on X. “Oh wait, actually this is from Jay Jones, the Democrat running for Attorney General in Virginia.”

Vance’s post included a screenshot of Jones suggesting that the death of a Republican politician’s children could cause a “move on policy.”

“I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry,” Jones said Thursday in what will be the only televised debate with incumbent Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares. He has refused to drop out of the race and his texts have Republicans newly bullish about the statewide race.

The news of the texts coincided with a slip in the polls for Jones, dropping from 48.8 percent to 43.1 percent, according to polling published by the Trafalgar group.

Vance’s Thursday post marked the third time in two days that the vice president has waded into the firestorm over the trove of texts obtained by POLITICO and shows how the Trump administration’s strategy, articulated in the Art of the Deal, to never apologize and always hit back, extends well beyond the White House walls.

Vance has not defended the posts, which contained more than 250 racist, homophobic and antisemitic slurs, though he did refer to them as “edgy, offensive jokes.” The vice president has called the response to the posts “pearl clutching” and said “kids do stupid things, especially young boys” even though the chat group included men in their 20s and early 30s who hold local, state and federal government posts.

The messages also had an array of dark jokes, including about rape, slavery and the Holocaust.

Democrats and some Republicans condemned the messages and those who sent them, but some Republicans see the violent texts from Jones as worse.

“We’re not gonna let the Democrats forget about the fact that they have an AG candidate who wanted to put a bullet in the heads of the former House speaker and his two kids,” said one person close to the White House, who, like others in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss strategy and private thinking. “[Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer went out and put out this tweet, ‘disgusting, vile,’ blah, blah, blah. Where are you on the Virginia attorney general candidate?”

Vance is the highest-ranking White House official to comment on the POLITICO report. Hours after that report was published, Vance took to his personal X account, which he is known to operate himself, to call Jones’ messages “far worse than anything said in a college group chat.”

The White House referred questions to the Office of the Vice President, which declined to comment.

During an appearance on “The Charlie Kirk Show” on Wednesday, Vance said he did not want Americans to “grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke — telling a very offensive, stupid joke — is cause to ruin their lives.”

White House allies privately cheered Vance, asserting it’s the latest example of a media double standard.

A second person close to the White House said “everyone agrees,” with Vance’s views in the West Wing.

Although Vance has been the most vocal on the report, the Trump world response has also focused on the texts in comparison to Jones.

“Ultimately everyone thinks that Jay Jones is a way bigger deal, just because he is an adult running for office,” said a third person close to the White House. “That doesn’t necessarily mean the content itself is good, it’s just a matter of holding people to higher standards. Personally, I would hold someone running for office to a higher standard (and also think the content is more targeted and worse) than I would idiot college kids in a group chat.”