NEW YORK — The Vermont state senator involved in the hate-filled Young Republican group chat uncovered by POLITICO announced his resignation Friday.
Sam Douglass, a state lawmaker who represented an area near the Canadian border, said in a statement that “if my Governor asks me to do something, I will act, because I believe in what he’s trying to do,” referring to Vermont Republican Governor Phil Scott’s call for Douglass to step down.
Douglass was the only elected official in the group chat, though four others worked for elected officials at the time the messages were being sent. Those officials include New York’s state senate minority leader and the Kansas attorney general. One member of the chat worked in President Donald Trump’s Small Business Administration.
“I know that this decision will upset many, and delight others, but in this political climate I must keep my family safe,” Douglass said, adding that his resignation will be effective Monday at noon. “Since the story broke, I have reached out to the majority of my Jewish and BIPOC friends and colleagues to ensure that they can be honest and upfront with me, and I know that as a young person I have a duty to set a good example for others.”
His lengthy statement also cites hateful messages he received from others in his state since the story broke.
Douglass’ resignation comes as at least six others in the chat are out of jobs since POLITICO began reporting on the exchanges. He served as the chair of Vermont’s Young Republicans organization.
In one portion of the chat, Douglass refers to an Indian woman as someone who “just didn’t bathe often.” In another instance, Brianna Douglass, Sam’s wife and the Vermont Young Republican’s national committee member, says her husband may have erred by “expecting the Jew to be honest.”
The Vermont state lawmaker initially resisted strident calls to resign from top state Republican leaders — including Scott and the GOP conferences in the state’s House and Senate.
One day after POLITICO published its initial story about the Telegram group, Douglass apologized for the chat, saying “I am weighing all my options.”
Douglass was a first-year lawmaker and said Friday he was proud to pass his first bill on agriculture and begin his work to reform the state’s welfare system.
“I will continue to do what I have done my entire life, the very reasons why I was elected; I will help others in my community, be active, foster communication, and look out for others,” he said.
The nationwide “No Kings” protest movement is back for round two — and after avoiding Washington during the summer, protesters are expected to descend on the nation’s capital Saturday amid an 18-day government shutdown that has no end in sight.
The demonstrations are part of the second national day of action, organized by dozens of liberal advocacy groups to protest what they call “authoritarian power grabs” on the part of President Donald Trump.
Organizers said they expect the more than 2,600 events across all 50 states to surpass the more than 5 million people who attended the first wave of “No Kings” rallies in June. The marches come amid heightened criticism from Republicans about this weekend’s rallies.
“They might try to paint this weekend’s events as something dangerous to our society, but the reality is there is nothing unlawful or unsafe about organizing and attending peaceful protests,” said Deirdre Schifeling of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It’s the most patriotic and American thing you can do, and we have a 250-year-old history of disagreeing in public.”
Amid the heightened tensions of the shutdown, Republicans have repeatedly sought to vilify the planned protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other leading Republicans have referred to the protests as a “hate America rally” and sought to tie it to Hamas and antifa. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also announced Thursday that he would be sending members of the state’s National Guard — as well as state troopers, Texas Rangers and Department of Public Safety personnel — to Austin on Saturday in response to the planned demonstrations.
In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Trump said “some people say [Democrats] want to delay” ending the government shutdown because of the rallies.
Organizers remain undeterred by the response, though. Leah Greenberg, progressive advocacy organization Indivisible co-executive director, called it “part of a broader effort to create a permission structure to crack down” on peaceful protests.
“They are panicking and they are flailing and they are searching for anything — literally anything — to distract from their own governing failures,” Greenberg said of Republicans at a press conference. “And in their desperation, they have decided to go with smearing millions of Americans who are coming out to peacefully, joyfully assert our rights.”
The first wave of rallies that took place on June 14 — the same day as Trump’s military parade in Washington, which coincided with the army’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 79th birthday — were overwhelmingly peaceful, and organizers said then that they intentionally avoided a counterprotest in Washington to avoid the military parade.
The events went off almost entirely without incident, save for one notable exception of volunteer rally “peacekeepers” shooting and killing a bystander at a Utah march because they believed another man with a gun was about to fire on the crowd.
Republicans’ efforts to demonize the rally comes amid a White House push to target left-leaning nonprofits perceived as hostile to the administration’s agenda.
Unlike the June protests, the Saturday slate of events also includes a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. When asked for comment on Saturday’s rallies, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded: “Who cares?”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who is set to address the crowd in Washington, earlier this week criticized the push as an effort to “suppress turnout.”
“They’re showing us how much they hate free speech,” he said in a Wednesday social media video. “The rhetoric has ramped up from Republican leaders in the last few days.”
The speaker list in D.C. also includes Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Karen Attiah, a former Washington Post columnist who was fired last month after attracting criticism for several social media posts in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.
Bad Bunny recently decided to avoid performing on the U.S. mainland, citing fears that some of his fans could be targeted and deported by ICE.Michael Loccisano/Getty Images for Coachella
Soon after the NFL’s announcement that Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny would headline the Super Bowl halftime show, conservative media outlets and Trump administration officials went on the attack.
Homeland Security head Kristi Noem promised that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “would be all over the Super Bowl.” President Donald Trump called the selection “absolutely ridiculous.” Right-wing commentator Benny Johnson bemoaned the fact that the rapper has “no songs in English.” Bad Bunny, conservative pundit Tomi Lahren complained, is “Not an American artist.”
And yet, as experts on issues of national identity and U.S. immigration policies, we think Lahren’s and Johnson’s insults get at the heart of why the rapper has created such a firestorm on the right. The spectacle of a Spanish-speaking rapper performing during the most-watched sporting event on American TV is a direct rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to paper over the country’s diversity.
It is home to 3.2 million U.S. citizens by birth. If it were a state, it would be the 30th largest by population, according to the 2020 U.S. Census.
But Puerto Rico is not a state; it is a colony from a bygone era of U.S. overseas imperial expansion. Puerto Ricans do not have voting representatives in Congress, and they do not get to help elect the president of the United States. They are also divided over the island’s future. Large pluralities seek either U.S. statehood or an enhanced form of the current commonwealth status, while a smaller minority vie for independence.
Revelers in New York’s Spanish Harlem wave Puerto Rican flags during the neighborhood’s annual 116th street festival. Mario Tama/Getty Images
But one thing is clear to all Puerto Ricans: They’re from a nonsovereign land, with a clearly defined Latin American culture – one of the oldest in the Americas. Puerto Rico may belong to the U.S. – and many Puerto Ricans embrace that special relationship – but the island itself does not sound or feel like the U.S.
Puerto Ricans exist in what we describe as the “alien-citizen paradox”: They are U.S. citizens, but only those residing in the mainland enjoy all the rights of citizenship.
A recent congressional report stated that U.S. citizenship for Puerto Ricans “is not equal, permanent, irrevocable citizenship protected by the 14th Amendment … and Congress retains the right to determine the disposition of the territory.” Any U.S. citizen that moves to Puerto Rico no longer possesses the full rights of U.S. citizens of the mainland.
The xenophobic fervor against Bad Bunny has led political leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson to call for a more suitable figure for the Super Bowl, such as country music artist Lee Greenwood. Referring to Bad Bunny, Johnson said “it sounds like he’s not someone who appeals to a broader audience.”
That global appeal has impressed the NFL, which hopes to host as many as eight international games next season. Additionally, Latinos represent the league’s fastest-growing fan base, and Mexico is its largest international market, with a reported 39.5 million fans.
The Bad Bunny Super Bowl saga may actually become an important political moment. Conservatives, in their efforts to highlight Bad Bunny’s “otherness” – despite the United States being the second-largest Spanish-speaking country in the world – may have unwittingly educated America on the U.S. citizenship of Puerto Ricans.
In the meantime, Puerto Ricans and the rest of the U.S. Latino community continue to wonder when they’ll be accepted as social equals.
The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Yet, the U.S. is different in a meaningful way. Here, abortion has historically been framed as a personal right to privacy. In many other countries I’ve studied, abortion is viewed more as a collective right that is inextricably tied to broader social and economic issues.
Initially, for some of those autocratic leaders, limiting access to abortion and contraception was a strategy to gain the approval of the nation’s religious leaders. The Catholic Church held great power in Italy and Spain, as did the Orthodox Church in Romania. At the time, these faiths opposed artificial birth control and still believe life begins at conception.
Restrictions on reproductive rights also aimed to increasebirth rates following two world wars that had stamped out some of the population, particularly in the Soviet Union and Italy. Many political leaders saw procreation as a national duty. They designated women – white, heterosexual women, that is – specific roles, primarily as mothers, to produce babies as well as future soldiers and workers for their regimes.
In the past two decades, countries in Europe and the Americas have been following this recognizable pattern. Nicaragua and Poland have both banned abortion. Hungary, Turkey and Russia have all clamped down on access to it.
Restricting reproductive freedoms has helped Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan stoke lasting political divisions within society that help them consolidate their own power.
These politicians have also taken power away from a significant portion of the population by reinstating earlier, fascist-era restrictions on bodily autonomy. As feminist scholars have pointed out, strong reproductive rights are central to functioning democracies.
Restrictions on reproductive freedoms often necessitate other kinds of restrictions to enforce and maintain them. These might include free speech limits that prohibit providers from discussing people’s reproductive options. Criminalizing political dissent enables the arrest of people who protest restrictions on reproductive freedoms. Travel bans threaten prison time for individuals who help young people get abortion care out of state.
When these civil liberties weaken, it becomes harder to defend other rights. Without the right to speak, dissent or move freely, people cannot engage in conversations, organize or voice collective grievances.
Putting the US in a global context
In 2022, the U.S. joined the likes of Poland and Hungary when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, ending 50 years of federal abortion protections.
President Donald Trump was not in power when this happened. Yet the Supreme Court’s conservative majority was shaped during his first term.
Since then, both the second Trump administration and many states have enacted their own regulations or bans on abortion. This has created a divided country where in some states abortion is as restricted as it is under some of the world’s most autocratic regimes.
Yet, there’s a key difference.
In the U.S., abortion is viewed by the law and the public as a matter of individual rights. The debate often boils down to whether a person should be allowed to terminate their pregnancy.
In many other contexts, reproductive rights are understood as a collective good that benefits all society – or, conversely, harms all society when revoked.
This perspective can be a powerful driver of change. It’s how, for example, women’s and feminist groups in places such as Argentina, Colombia and Mexico have successfully pressured their governments to decriminalize abortion in recent years.
The Latin American feminist activists have also documented how restricting abortion intensifies authoritarianism and worsens both individual and collective rights.
In a region where many citizens remember life under military dictatorship, highlighting the relationship between abortion and authoritarianism may be particularly galvanizing.
This was basically what the mainstream pro-choice movement advocated for at the time. White feminists saw abortion rights as a personal liberty. This framing has real limitations.
As Black and brown reproductive justice advocates have long pointed out, Roe never served women of color or poor people particularly well because of underlying unequal access to health care. Their work has, for decades, illustrated the strong connection between racial, economic and reproductive justice, yet abortion is still largely regarded as solely an individual issue.
When debates about reproductive freedoms are framed as fights over individual rights, it can engender a legal quagmire. Other entities with rights emerge – the fetus, for example, or a potential grandparent – and are pitted against the pregnant person.
Recently, for instance, a pregnant woman declared brain dead in Georgia was kept alive for several months until her fetus became viable, apparently to comply with the state’s strict anti-abortion law. As her mother told the press, her family had no say in the matter.
Narrowly focusing on abortion as an individual right can also obscure why banning it has societal impacts.
Research worldwide shows that restricting reproductive freedoms does not lead to fewer abortions. Abortion bans only make abortion dangerous as people turn to unregulated “back alley” procedures. Maternal and infant mortality rates rise, especially in marginalized communities.
Other kinds of suffering increase, too. Women and their families tend to become poorer when contraception and abortion are hard to get.
Abortion bans also lead to discriminatory practices in health care beyond reproductive health services, such as oncology, neurology and cardiology. Physicians who fear criminalization are forced to withhold or alter gold-standard treatments for pregnant patients, for example, or they may prescribe less effective drugs out of concern about legal consequences should patients later become pregnant.
As a result, abortion bans decrease the quality and effectiveness of medical care for many patients, not just those who are pregnant.
Defending reproductive freedoms for healthy democracies
These findings demonstrate why reproductive rights are really a collective good. When viewed this way, it illuminates why they are an essential element of democracy.
Already, the rollback of reproductive freedoms in the U.S. has been followed by efforts to limit other key areas of freedoms, including LGBTQ rights, freedom of speech and the right to travel.
Access to safe abortion for pregnant people, gender-affirming care for trans youth, and international travel for noncitizens are intertwined rights – not isolated issues.
When the government starts stripping away any of these rights, I believe it signals serious trouble for democracy.
This story is published in collaboration with Rewire News Group, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering reproductive and sexual health.
Seda Saluk does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Throughout modern American history, reporters who cover the Pentagon have played an invaluable role shining a light on military actions when the government has not been forthright with the public.
But free press advocates warn that recent changes in a Pentagon policy threaten journalists’ ability to cover the Department of Defense. That’s because it could curb their rights to report information not authorized by the government for release.
As a First Amendment expert, I believe the Pentagon policy change represents an unprecedented development in the Trump administration’s offensive against the press and a historic departure from previous administrations’ policies.
Attacks on journalism, said once-imprisoned journalist Peter Greste, “are a national security issue, and we have to protect press freedom.” Greste spoke in early October 2025 at the Global Free Speech Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, adding that “anything that undermines press freedom undermines national security.”
Greste was jailed for more than a year in Egypt while working for Al Jazeera in 2013. In Nashville, he drew a direct connection between the public’s access to information under a free press and the stability and freedom that democracies enjoy.
Even President Donald Trump seemed critical of the policy initially, telling a reporter in September 2025 he didn’t think the Pentagon should be in charge of deciding what reporters can cover.
An attempt to control critical coverage
Under the initial Pentagon policy change, journalists covering the Defense Department were required to sign a contract saying that department information must be “approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Fox News on Oct. 5, “The Pentagon press corps can squeal all they want, we’re taking these things seriously. They can report, they just need to make sure they’re following rules.”
The Pentagon revised its initial policy change on Oct. 6 and set an Oct. 14 deadline for journalists to comply. The revised policy says prior approval would not be required to report on the Defense Department, but it suggests that soliciting information from Pentagon sources “would not be considered protected activity under the 1st Amendment.” But journalists who don’t sign and follow the revised policy could be deemed “security risks” and lose their credentials to access the Pentagon.
As the Oct. 14 deadline approached, dozens of media outlets said they would not sign the revised policy. Fox, Newsmax and the Daily Caller – all conservative news organizations – have also rejected the policy. The following day, journalists from dozens of news outlets turned in their press passes rather than agree to the new policy.
The Pentagon Press Association, which represents journalists covering the Defense Department, says the revised policy is “asking us to affirm in writing our ‘understanding’ of policies that appear designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs.”
Conservative commentators have also criticized the policy. Law professor Jonathan Turleytold Fox News: “What they’re basically saying is if you publish anything that’s not in the press release, is not the official statement of the Pentagon, you could be held responsible under this policy. That is going to create a stranglehold on the free press, and the cost is too great.”
This isn’t the first time Hegseth has sought to limit media coverage of the Pentagon. In May 2025 he restricted journalists’ access to large portions of the Pentagon where they’d previously been allowed to go unescorted.
Freedom from government control
It is not unusual for the government to view the press as an adversary. But such direct attempts to control media outlets have been rare in the U.S.
The federal government has rarely been successful in its efforts to censor the media. In the 1930s, the Supreme Court set a high bar for the government to overcome if it wanted to stop the presses.
As Chief Justice Charles Hughes wrote in 1930 in Near v. Minnesota: “The fact that, for approximately one hundred and fifty years, there has been almost an entire absence of attempts to impose previous restraints upon publications relating to the malfeasance of public officers is significant of the deep-seated conviction that such restraints would violate constitutional right.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks during a news conference at the Pentagon on June 22, 2025, in Arlington, Va. Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
In the years since, the high court has reiterated its belief that an adversarial press is essential to democracy. At the height of the Vietnam War, the court ruled the government could not prevent The New York Times from publishing leaked documents detailing U.S involvement in the conflict, despite the sensitive nature of the documents.
President Richard Nixon’s own nominee, Chief Justice Warren Burger, recognized the danger of allowing the government to restrict freedom of the press. “The thread running through all these cases is that prior restraints on speech and publication are the most serious and the least tolerable infringement on First Amendment rights. … The damage can be particularly great when the prior restraint falls upon the communication of news and commentary on current events,” Burger wrote.
Burger acknowledged the role the press plays as a watchdog against the government’s abuse of power in 1976 in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart. “The press … guards against the miscarriage of justice by subjecting the (legal system) to extensive public scrutiny and criticism.”
Whether the Supreme Court’s commitment to these long-standing precedents remains steadfast is anyone’s guess.
Law scholars RonNell Andersen Jones and Sonja West have documented a marked decline in references by the high court to press freedom over the past two decades. They have also noted a dramatic change in the justices’ tone when discussing the press:
“(A)ny assumption that the Court is poised to be the branch to defend the press against disparagement is misplaced … When members of the press turn to the Court in their legal battles, they will no longer find an institution that consistently values their role in our democracy,” Andersen Jones and West write.
Yet even Burger was aware that muzzling the press posed serious consequences for a democratic society: “(I)t is nonetheless clear that the barriers to prior restraint remain high unless we are to abandon what the Court has said for nearly a quarter of our national existence and implied throughout all of it. The history of even wartime suspension of categorical guarantees, such as habeas corpus or the right to trial by civilian courts cautions against suspending explicit guarantees,” Burger wrote in his opinion in Nebraska Press Association v. Stuart in 1976.
The new Pentagon policy, however, does just that by threatening reporters who write critical stories with the loss of their press credentials.
Amy Kristin Sanders has served as an expert witness for Fox News. She previously served on the Board of Directors for the Student Press Law Center and was a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
The cost of providing parking – borne by developers and passed on to residents – helps push prices up. Parking minimums may be mandated by city ordinances or demanded by lenders. Some renters prefer apartments that come with dedicated parking.
Structured parking can cost as much as US$50,000 per parking space, according to Denver’s Community Planning and Development office. Off-street surface parking, though cheaper to construct, requires dedicating valuable urban land to parking lots.
We found that cutting minimum-parking requirements would likely boost housing construction in Denver by about 12.5%, translating into roughly 460 more homes per year.
This is a surprisingly high-impact result for a single, relatively simple policy change. We published our findings as a white paper with the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute in July 2025.
Before the policy change, market-rate apartments in Denver were required by law to provide as many as one parking space per unit. In a 200-unit building, parking could add millions of dollars to the developer’s costs.
Parking requirements are often determined by a formula. Based in part on an outdated view that modern cities should be car-oriented, cities around the country, including Denver, passed zoning codes in the 1950s and 1960s that created legal requirements for the number of parking spaces that new housing projects must include.
Land is expensive in high-demand cities like Denver. Dedicating part of a building’s footprint to parking imposes both a direct cost – because developers must pay to build the parking – and an indirect cost, because it leaves less space for housing. These development costs are passed along to renters and owners, decreasing affordability.
Reducing parking requirements lets developers build only the parking spaces that residents want or need.
Eliminating parking minimums
We built a simulator that estimates the total number of apartments expected to be built in multifamily, market-rate rental developments in Denver in one year. It then allows for a comparison of possible outcomes based on changing policy assumptions.
Our predictions factor in:
Building size and allowable unit counts for parcels.
The type of development and corresponding number of units that are likely to be financially feasible.
The probability that parcels might actually be developed in the future based on a statistical analysis of historical Denver development data.
Following guidelines developed by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, we modeled 75 scenarios. They included five potential parking policies tested across five economic environments and three sets of assumptions for developer-driven parking inclusion.
Changes would bring hundreds of housing units
Our prediction that eliminating parking mandates in Denver could result in approximately 460 additional multifamily units per year is based on three assumptions:
Somewhat unfavorable economic conditions, including high interest rates and relatively low margins for developers.
Elimination of all regulatory parking mandates.
Voluntary construction of 0.5 spaces per unit near light rail and 1.0 spaces per unit away from light rail.
We find that eliminating parking minimums creates more options for developers and renters. Developers will still build parking where needed or demanded by city residents.
Eliminating mandatory parking requirements offers several additional benefits.
The city will save labor costs associated with enforcing parking requirements, reducing housing costs.
Removing parking minimums can increase the flexibility to use small undeveloped or underdeveloped parcels for “missing middle” forms of housing, such as duplexes or triplexes. These forms of housing provide “gentle density,” meaning they do not significantly alter neighborhoods but still make them more affordable for lower- and middle-income people and increase the city’s overall housing supply. It can also allow for the adaptive reuse of historic buildings that may have been built before the city required on-site parking.
Susan D Daggett has received a teaching stipend from the University of Denver’s Executive Certificate in Affordable Housing Program, which is partially funded by a donation from the Colorado Housing Finance Authority and the Simpson Family. She serves on the Board of Smart Growth America and Transportation Solutions. She is married to Senator Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado.
Stefan Chavez-Norgaard previously worked as an in-residence scholar at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, an organization mentioned in the article.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is deploying the state’s National Guard to Austin ahead of this weekend’s planned No Kings rally in the Texas capital, he announced Thursday, as top Republicans around the country vilify the protests as Antifa-linked and led by the radical flank of the Democratic Party.
“Violence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement Thursday. “Today, I directed the Texas Department of Public Safety and Texas National Guard to deploy all necessary law enforcement officials and resources to ensure the safety of Austin residents.”
In addition to the National Guard, Abbott is surging Texas Rangers, state troopers and Department of Public Safety personnel to Austin, whom he said would be “supported by aircraft and other tactical assets.”
His announcement was sharply criticized by Democrats. “Sending armed soldiers to suppress peaceful protests is what kings and dictators do — and Greg Abbott just proved he’s one of them,” Texas House Minority Leader Gene Wu said in a statement.
More than 2,600 No Kings protests are set to occur across the country on Saturday, according to organizers, including on the National Mall in Washington and in Austin. Its organizers include the ACLU, College Democrats of America and the campaign finance group End Citizens United. The first wave of No Kings protests in June was overwhelmingly peaceful and went on almost entirely without incident.
Abbott’s deployments come as Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, decry the planned protests as “hate America” gatherings, involving radical “pro-Hamas” elements, that have pressured otherwise amenable Senate Democrats to refrain from signing onto Republicans’ continuing resolution to end the government shutdown.
Democrats, including Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who is set to speak at Saturday’s D.C. rally, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, criticized the Republican rhetoric and encouraged disaffected Americans to attend the rallies.
“In two days, be a part of the largest peaceful protest in modern American history,” Clinton wrote on X. “Join No Kings this Saturday at an event near you to push back on Trump’s power grabs and make it clear—we don’t do monarchs here.”
RICHMOND, Virginia — Jay Jones, the Democratic Virginia attorney general hopeful whose violence-themed text messages triggered a nationwide GOP backlash, said during a Thursday debate that his messages should not disqualify him from being elected as the state’s top law enforcement official.
“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, who he characterized as a “willing cheerleader” of President Donald Trump.
Jones, again apologized for his 2022 texts that were first reported by the National Review. In the messages, he opined that former Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert should get “two bullets to the head” and separately that he would urinate on the graves of some state GOP delegates after they died.
In his first extensive comments about the texts, Jones sought to explain his actions as something that he’s already been held accountable for, including by leaders of his party. Jones also said the stakes were too high for Virginia to focus on his past mistakes, and suggested Miyares was playing politics by focusing on his past statements — but not on language by Republicans.
Miyares condemned Jones’ texts and accused the Democrat of being unfit to serve as Virginia’s top lawyer, adding, “Jay Jones is a criminal first, victim last politician.”
“Jay Jones has not had the experience or the judgment to serve as the top prosecutor,” he continued. “We have seen a window to who Jay Jones is and what he thinks that people disagree with him.”
Miyares also slammed Jones for believing laws don’t apply to him — a reference to a recent Richmond Times-Dispatch report reporting that Jones was caught driving 116 mph in a 70 mph zone and struck a deal to forgo jail time by paying a fine and performing community service. He completed some of those hours while working at his own political action committee, the Times-Dispatch also reported.
Jones told the audience he “completed the terms of the community service as outlined and approved” by county officials at that time.
Republicans across the country, including President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, have condemned Jones over the texts and attacked Democrats for supporting him. Republicans have been especially critical of Jones’ violent rhetoric in the aftermath of the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was shot and killed in September while speaking on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Vance in particularspent several days this week attempting to pivot criticism over bigoted messages in a Young Republicans group chat to Jones and his texting scandal. Writing on X Thursday, Vance stated: “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. Oh wait, actually this is from Jay Jones, the Democrat running for Attorney General in Virginia.”
Miyares attacked Jones over the texts throughout the debate, underscoring Republicans’ view that it will be a galvanizing issue for voters in the closing stretch of the campaign. He also criticized Jones over the Democrats’ limited courtroom experience.
Jones countered by returning to Trump, emphasizing that a change was necessary for Virginia to adequately fight back against the president and his policies. He noted that Virginia is on the verge of enshrining a constitutional right to abortion in the state, and should it pass, Virginia needs an attorney general who will protect that right.
Neither candidate, who previously served together in the Virginia legislature, strayed far from their prepared talking points and they avoided talking over each other during the roughly 70-minute debate.
Heading into the debate, Democrats were hopeful they could exploit their party’s anger toward Trumps, his handling of the economy and the ongoing federal government shutdown to win the statewide races for governor, lieutenant governor and attorney general — which are currently held by Republicans.
But Jones’ text messaging scandal is putting that in jeopardy.
Miyares, who is seeking a second term, is looking to capitalize on some Democrats’ unease over Jones by releasing an ad released this week encouraging Spanberger voters to split their tickets and “say no to Jay Jones.”
Chris LaCavita, the former co-manager of Trump’s 2024 campaign, posted on X ahead of the debate: “This is what a smart campaign does” in response to the Miyares ad.
Republican strategists in the state said they have been far more impressed by Miyares’ campaign compared to Earle-Sears at the top of the ticket, whose campaign was plagued by tepid fundraising and staffing shake ups. Trump seems to agree as Miyares is the only of the three statewide GOP candidates that’s received his endorsement.
Jones, a former Virginia state lawmaker, is the son of prominent judges in the state, and had been seen as a potential future governor of the state prior to the unearthing of the texts. Democrats view him as the best candidate to push back against the Trump administration, who they argue has done irrevocable damage to the state, in particular with firings of the federal workforce by the Department of Government Efficiency, which disproportionately impact voters in the northern Virginia suburbs outside the nation’s capital.
Democratic mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani smiled his way through a two-hour debate where Andrew Cuomo and Curtis Sliwa tried to land punches on the frontrunner.
Few of those hits had much of an impact against Mamdani, who effectively pressed his affordability platform without making any significant mistakes. Cuomo needed a moment that he didn’t get. Mamdani had a largely pain-free night.
Here are five takeaways from the first of two general election debates:
Mamdani was smooth
The young assemblymember reminded debate viewers why a 33-year-old democratic socialist is on the cusp of becoming mayor of New York City — he’s a great communicator.
With a double-digit lead in every poll, all Mamdani really needed was not to collapse. He succeeded — and avoided any major missteps. Some Republicans seized on his awkward moment declining to endorse Gov. Kathy Hochul’s reelection, even though she took a big political risk by backing his candidacy … but that’s not exactly going to cost Mamdani the race.
At times, he might have been too smooth — he’s practiced lines on topics like affordability and Israel so many times you can almost see him going into autopilot.
Clinical Cuomo struggled
Cuomo needed a breakout moment against Mamdani. He’s stuck in second place in polls, and even with Mayor Eric Adams suspending his campaign, the ex-governor has not been able to surpass the frontrunning Democratic nominee.
The debate underscored the key problem facing Cuomo who’s running as an independent after losing in an upset to Mamdani in June. In his long career, Cuomo has never successfully run a campaign as the underdog. His sole electoral loss came 23 years ago against Carl McCall. Every election since, Cuomo was the clear favorite.
Cuomo spoke from the podium with a dry recitation of facts. Mamdani appeared well prepared for the ex-governor’s attacks, many of which — like the Queens assemblymember’s past criticism of Barack Obama — was recycled from the primary campaign. That criticism didn’t work then, and it isn’t clear why Cuomo would think it could work now in a general election.
Curtis talked up Trump
One of the quirks of this race is the candidate with the deepest experience with President Donald Trump is Cuomo, who has known him for decades. Mamdani has never met the president. Sliwa, the Republican nominee, has the most strained relationship.
Trump has scoffed at his party’s candidate to lead his hometown as not ready for primetime. The president derisively noted that Sliwa lives with a lot of cats in a small apartment.
Yet it was Sliwa who pledged to have a working relationship with the president, who has tried to exert his will over this deep blue city. The Guardian Angels founder said it wouldn’t be productive to work against Trump or try to be a tough guy with the president.
This stance serves multiple purposes. Cuomo is trying to steal Sliwa’s Republican supporters, and Sliwa needs MAGA New Yorkers to stay in the fold. Sliwa also likely knows Cuomo and Mamdani won’t go out on a similar limb since they can’t afford to lose Democratic voters who loathe Trump.
When you’re explaining …
The former governor spent much of the evening explaining. And explaining. And explaining some more.
Cuomo had to parry attacks on his decade-long record as the state’s chief executive when it came to funding for homeless people and mental health programs. He repeatedly pushed back when Mamdani or Sliwa referenced the sexual harassment scandal that drove him from office, once again denying any wrongdoing.
Those digressions cost him precious time to prosecute the case against Mamdani.
Mamdani’s clear weaknesses
The otherwise strong night by Mamdani had the effect of highlighting his weaknesses on public safety and Israel.
He struggled when talking about his plans for making changes to the Civilian Complaint Review Board — almost sounding like a Wikipedia entry when describing the panel’s job of assessing police misconduct. Mamdani was also on his backfoot when being attacked by Cuomo over embracing the phrase “globalize the intifada.”
As strong as Mamdani can be on affordability and cost-of-living concerns that are so important to New Yorkers, he still has vulnerabilities on other issues where Cuomo is strongest.
Graham Platner, who is running as an insurgent Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine, once suggested in online posts that violence is a necessary means to achieving social change — comments now drawing scrutiny in an era of increased political violence.
Platner, 41, a former Marine and combat veteran who now raises oysters, made the statements on Reddit in 2018, long before he emerged as a serious candidate to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins in the midterms.
If people “expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history,” he wrote in one since-deleted post. In another, he said that “an armed working class is a requirement for economic justice.”
CNN first reported Thursday on Platner’s participation on the subreddit r/SocialistRA, alongside other Reddit forums where he called himself a “communist” and said that “all” police are bastards. All of the posts have been deleted.
The posts, which were removed three months ago shortly before Platner launched his Senate bid, were obtained by POLITICO and verified using an archive of deleted Reddit comments and by cross-checking other posts by the same user that mentioned biographical details consistent with the candidate’s life.
The posts suggest far deeper ties with socialist groups than were previously known. When he announced in August that he would challenge Collins, Platner said he rejects the label “liberal” but was also running on several progressive tenets – including universal health care and restricted arms sales to Israel. He has hired the Democratic strategist Morris Katz, who also works with Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist running for New York City mayor as a Democrat.
In a statement to POLITICO, Platner did not dispute his authorship of the posts but disavowed their violent rhetoric.
“As I told CNN, I was fucking around on the internet at a time when I felt lost and very disillusioned with our government who sent me overseas to watch my friends die,” Platner said. “I made dumb jokes and picked fights. But of course I’m not a socialist. I’m a small business owner, a Marine Corps veteran, and a retired shitposter.”
Maine’s Democratic governor, Janet Mills, recently joined the crowded race as the establishment favorite for the key midterm election. The revelations may cast a shadow over the meteoric rise of the tattooed oyster farmer in the state.
The existence of the graphic posts comes amid a spiral of actual political violence and violent rhetoric including by Virginia Democratic Attorney General candidate Jay Jones who suggested the former Republican House speaker should get “two bullets to the head.” Jones has since apologized for the texts.
Like the Jones’ exchange, which was from 2022, Platner must now contend with the yearsold posts. They include one from September 2018, when he responded to a Reddit user concerned about what their roommate would say if they purchased their first AR-15. Platner, under the username “P-Hustle,” replied: “Tell them that if they expect to fight fascism without a good semi-automatic rifle, they ought to do some reading of history.”
The reddit thread r/SocialistRA, which describes itself as the “Socialist Redditor Rifle Association,” says it is unaffiliated with the Socialist Rifle Association, a left-wing group that advocates for gun rights.
In a July 2018 post on the same subreddit, Platner said that he “agreed” with a 1914 quote from former socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs that workers should arm themselves unless they are “willing to be forced into abject slavery.”
Platner cited Debs, who ran for president from prison, as an example to counter the notion that the 2nd Amendment only gained salience in the 1970s.
“That’s why this poster and the Debs quote that follows above should be shared far and wide. An armed working class is a requirement for economic justice,” Platner said.
There are dozens instances of Platner engaging with posts on the subreddit r/SocialistRA, which is self-described as the “Socialist Redditor Rifle Association.”
In another since-deleted post from Sept. 2018, this time on the r/politics subreddit, Platner, again using the username “P-Hustle,” wrote: “Get Armed, Get Organized. The Other Side Sure As Hell Is,” in response to a story about a Democratic candidate in Colorado whose truck was shot at with her inside.
Platner, an Iraq and Afghanistan War veteran and political newcomer, said in his campaign launch video that he is “not fooled by this fake charade of Collins’ deliberations and moderation.” He has leaned into his status as a novice, earning the attention of younger Democrats and progressives. He also recently won the endorsement of three influential labor unions including the United Auto Workers.
His posts about arming the working class and fighting fascism take on heightened scrutiny in the era of increased hostilities and concerns over political violence.
Jones, has faced widespread backlash over the 2022 text messages that included a vow to “piss on the graves” of Republican opponents in addition to the violent remarks about former Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert.
Jones again apologized for the texts, which were first reported by the National Review, during a Thursday debate and said, “I’m ashamed, I’m embarrassed and I’m sorry.”
