U.S. Senator Eric Schmitt (R-MO), who formerly served as Missouri’s attorney general, said Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general, “has no business” running for office amid the surfacing of remarks he allegedly made calling for the killings of police officers and wishing death upon a political rival and their children.
Schmitt, who served as the 43rd Missouri attorney general from 2019 to 2023 before he began serving in the U.S. Senate, said Jones’ alleged remarks should disqualify him from running for attorney general.
“Being a former attorney general myself, a guy like that – who wants people’s children dead because of somebody’s political beliefs or the assassination of a political opponent – has no business being in that office where you have an immense amount of power and have to show a lot of restraint,” Schmitt explained on Thursday’s edition of The John Fredericks Show.
Schmitt went on to criticize the lack of attention Jones’ alleged remarks have received in the media and by Democrats.
“I don’t think it’s gotten enough national attention, especially on the Democrat side. I think they’ve blacked out the coverage on this because it’s really terrible,” he said.
Schmitt went on to comment on polling data presented by Fredericks, which showed that only 7 percent of Democrats found Jones’ violent remarks disqualifying, while 25 percent said those comments actually made them more likely to support the candidate.
Schmitt described this as “chilling” and used it to highlight a broader issue he sees on the political left.
He also referred to national polling data that showed 25 percent of individuals who identify as “very liberal” believe political violence is justified to achieve political goals while 55 percent of liberal respondents said that the assassination of President Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.”
“Over the last couple weeks and on my X account, I have laid out some statistics over this. It is consistent with some of the other polling, and I’ll throw out another couple statistics for you: 25 percent of those who describe themselves as ‘very liberal,’ this is a national poll, are willing to tell a pollster that political violence is justified to achieve political means,” Schmitt explained.
“Further, 55 percent of those not just ‘very liberal,’ but on the more liberal side of those polls, were willing to tell a pollster that they think the assassination of President Trump would be at least somewhat justified. So there is a real problem on the left right now that is pathological, I think at this point,” he added.
Schmitt went on to point out, in contrast, how only 3 percent of “very conservative” respondents shared a similar sentiment, which he argued is essentially within the margin of error and therefore negligible by comparison.
“This is not a ‘both sides’ thing. For example, that same poll that said 25 percent of ‘very liberal’ think it’s okay, 3 percent of those described as ‘very conservative’ say the same thing. Now, that’s within the margin of error of zero, however, if it is 3 percent, that’s still 3 percent too many. But the difference between those numbers is striking…It is a left wing problem,” Schmitt said.
“There’s this obsession – when you take God out of everything, when politics is everything and you don’t believe in family, you don’t believe in faith, and you don’t believe in your country – where, I guess, nothing’s off the table for many of these people. It’s a real problem,” Schmitt added.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Virginia Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
Photo “Sen Eric Schmitt” by Sen Eric Schmitt and “Jay Jones” is by Jay Jones.
