Jay Jones and Attorney General Jason Miyares debate at the University of Richmond in Richmond, Va., Oct. 16, 2025. (Mike Kropf/Richmond Times-Dispatch via pool)
"[Miyares is] the only statewide elected official to receive that endorsement."
Jones said Miyares will see the president at "MAGA rallies" but that Jones will see him in court.
When Miyares brought up Jay's reckless driving charge — after a 116 mph speeding ticket on I-64 in New Kent, Virginia — Jones said he was held accountable by the Virginia State Police.
But Miyares said Jones was not truly held accountable because half of his 1,000 sworn hours for his own political action committee."
Miyares claimed three of the four people charged that day with similar offenses in New Kent County, Jones was the only one not to receive a suspended or active jail sentence.
"If you were to apply to be a line prosecutor … you would not pass a background check," he said.
JAY JONES’ ‘TWO BULLETS’ SCANDAL OVER VIOLENT TEXTS EXPECTED TO DOMINATE VIRGINIA AG DEBATE
Jones later responded by invoking crimes by conservatives during the Capitol riot Jan. 6, 2021.
Themes of the debate were Miyares branding Jones "not a prosecutor but a politician" and Jones repeatedly associating Miyares with Trump and Miyares as more beholden to Washington than Richmond taxpayers.
Miyares later touched on his position as the first child of immigrants to hold Virginia’s top lawman’s job. He told a story about helping his mother learn the Pledge of Allegiance for her citizenship test and his uncle Angel Miyares being subjected to a public mock execution by the Castro regime for having the "wrong" ideas as far as the Communist leaders were concerned.
"Every autocratic regime, the people in charge always think ideas are better than people," he said, tying that thought into Jones’ murder texts and how he envisioned violence against a political opponent simply over political disagreements and eulogies about Johnson’s death.
Jones spoke of his namesake father Jerrauld Jones Sr.’s role in the House of Delegates and as an attorney in Hampton Roads and as his other family members who had participated in the Civil Rights movement.
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Moments before the debate, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., became the rare Democrat to speak publicly about Jones’ text scandal.
Jeffries declined to call for Jones to drop out, telling reporters at the U.S. Capitol that Jones "has appropriately apologized for his remarks, and I know his remarks have been condemned across the board by Democrats in the Commonwealth [of] Virginia and beyond," Jeffries told reporters outside the Capitol. "And that’s the right thing to do."
Charles Creitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital.
He joined Fox News in 2013 as a writer and production assistant.
Charles covers media, politics and culture for Fox News Digital.
Charles is a Pennsylvania native and graduated from Temple University with a B.A. in Broadcast Journalism. Story tips can be sent to charles.creitz@fox.com.
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jones-miyares-clash-over-murder-texts-dem-repeatedly-invokes-trump-heated-high-stakes-debate