Legacy media outlets appear to have absolutely zero curiosity when it comes to the text-message scandal building around Jay Jones — the current Democratic nominee for state attorney general in Virginia — as evidenced by the glaring lack of coverage they gave it on the Sunday morning political talk shows.

For those who don’t spend their Sunday mornings glued to the television — and their Sunday afternoons attempting to dig through a week’s worth of network and cable news media spin — The Daily Wire has compiled a short summary of what you may have missed.

This week, what was most notable about media coverage across the networks was not where the spin was so mush as where it wasn’t. Less than 48 hours had passed since the texts — sent by Jones in 2022 and containing overt statements advocating for the assassination of a political opponent — went viral, and in that time, not one national Democrat had publicly condemned Jones or called for him to to step out of the race. Despite all that, not one host of one show — “This Week” on ABC, “Face the Nation” on CBS, “Meet the Press” on NBC, or “State of the Union” on CNN — raised the question with their guests.

The topic did come up once — on “Meet the Press” — but it was one of the guests who mentioned it during a panel discussion. Marc Short, who served as former Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, mentioned Jones in the context of the many Democrats who had spent days in a public group meltdown over a few memes featuring House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) with a fake mustache and a sombrero.

BONKERS. Neera Tanden excuses Virginia Democrat AG candidate Jay Jones calling for the assassination of a Republican leader and his kids as just merely just a “private conversation.”

Utterly disgraceful. ????????????????
pic.twitter.com/N5KEyFZHPU

— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) October 5, 2025

“Can we stop with the pearl-clutching about the mean tweets and the sombrero tweets?” he asked. “This week it came to light that a Democrat candidate for attorney general in the state of Virginia called for the assassination of a political opponent, called for the assassination of that political opponent’s family, and there’s not one national Democrat calling for him to step aside — not one! It’s disgraceful.”

Host Kristen Welker conceded that the text scandal was likely to become a bigger story — but gave no insight as to why, if she believed that to be true, she had not raised the question herself. She then pivoted to Neera Tanden, who worked in former President Joe Biden’s White House, to address the situation.

“I mean, I absolutely think people should criticize that, 100%,” Tanden began, but then almost immediately attempted to turn the argument back on President Donald Trump. “I think it was a private conversation he had, but still awful and disgusting … it should be condemned, but then we should condemn that, but then you should condemn when the president calls the Democratic Party the ‘party of satan.’”

After some cross talk from both Short and Tanden, Short once again stressed his original point: that not one national Democrat had come out to condemn Jones or call for his resignation.

“The fact that not one Democrat has stood up when he called for a political assassination in this moment of political violence is crazy,” he said.

Jones had sent the texts in question three years earlier, in 2022, calling for former state House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R-VA) to be murdered. “Three people, two bullets. Gilbert, Hitler and Pol Pot. Gilbert gets two bullets to the head,” Jones texted to Del. Carrie Coyner (R) at the time. “Spoiler: put Gilbert in the crew with the two worst people you know and he receives both bullets every time.”

In other messages, he’d also claimed that Gilbert would not change his political positions unless he and his wife had to watch one of their children die — and that he’d attend the funerals of Republican lawmakers in order to “piss on their graves.”

Vice President JD Vance also noted the lack of Democrats distancing themselves from Jones and his vile text messages, saying, “The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages. I’m sure the people hyperventilating about sombrero memes will join me in calling for this very deranged person to drop out of the race.”

The Democrat candidate for AG in Virginia has been fantasizing about murdering his political opponents in private messages. I’m sure the people hyperventilating about sombrero memes will join me in calling for this very deranged person to drop out of the race. https://t.co/ZapsWc9VFG

— JD Vance (@JDVance) October 4, 2025

President Trump also called for Jones to exit the race “immediately,” endorsing his opponent Attorney General Jason Miyares (R-VA) and adding, “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, 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.”

And in the state of Virginia, the situation is even worse — in addition to not condemning Jones, a number have either remained entirely silent on the issue or have come out and said that no matter what he’d said in the past, the current race was too important to allow a Republican to win.

Louise Lucas, president pro tempore of the Virginia Senate and a marijuana dispensary co-owner, said in a statement, “There is no place for political violence or violent rhetoric in our public discourse, and Jay must take accountability for his actions. But we will not allow this moment to overshadow the stakes of this election. … The choice before us is far bigger than this mistake.”