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I'm Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today’s read: 12 minutes.

Correction.

Yesterday, we wrote that “over 10 million unauthorized migrants entered the country under Biden while Democratic leaders told us the border was secure.” The statistic that claim was based on was the number of encounters at the border, not crossings. “Encounters” includes more people than border crossers, those who did cross the border sometimes did so repeatedly, and not all of those who enter the U.S. illegally remain here. The link in yesterday’s email to our previous writing on this topic included this context, but yesterday’s newsletter did not.

This is our 145th correction in Tangle’s 322-week history and our first correction since September 18. We track corrections and place them at the top of the newsletter in an effort to maximize transparency with readers.

October 7.

Today is the anniversary of the October 7 attacks in Israel that launched the region into its largest conflict in decades. Since we just covered the war in Gaza last week, we’re not dedicating an issue to it today. But you can find all our coverage from the last few years . Some of our most viewed stories include:

• Isaac’s interview with Haviv Rettig Gur
• Our first piece after October 7
• Isaac’s piece on questioning his Zionism

Quick hits.

1. A federal judge declined to immediately block National Guard troops from mobilizing to Chicago after Illinois and Chicago sued the Trump administration to stop the deployment. Oral arguments in the case are scheduled for Thursday. (The latest)
2. The Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal on the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking and other crimes related to her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. (The denial)
3. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officially adopted a set of recommendations from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, updating its adult and child immunization schedules and recommendations for Covid-19 vaccines. (The recommendations)
4. Ukraine said that it struck the Feodosia oil terminal, one of Russia’s main factories producing explosives for a wide variety of munitions. (The strike)
5. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced the appointment of Frank Bisignano, who also serves as commissioner of the Social Security Administration, as chief executive officer of the Internal Revenue Service. (The appointment)

Today’s topic.

The Virginia attorney general controversy. On Friday, National Review published text messages from former Virginia House of Delegates member Jay Jones (D) sent to a Republican colleague — House Delegate Carrie Coyner — in 2022. In the messages, Jones expresses disdain for Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R), then says that he would shoot Gilbert in a hypothetical scenario where he could kill either him or dictators Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler. Jones went on to suggest that he wanted Gilbert’s children to die from gun violence because it might prompt the speaker to change his stance on gun control.

The messages, which Jones has apologized for, drew strong rebukes from local and national Republicans, many of whom have called for Jones to drop out of the race for Virginia attorney general. The controversy has also resurfaced discussions about political violence following conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination in September.

You can read the released text messages here.

In a statement on Friday, Jones said, “I take full responsibility for my actions, and I want to issue my deepest apology to Speaker Gilbert and his family. Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach. I am embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry.” He added, “This was a grave mistake and I will work every day to prove to the people of Virginia that I will fight for them as Attorney General.”

In the days following the report, Republicans and conservative influencers said Jones should drop out of the race and pressured Democrats to condemn his messages. Virginia gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears (R) released an ad linking her Democratic opponent, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger, to Jones, while Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) said the texts were “disqualifying” and criticized state Democrats for their response. President Donald Trump also commented on the controversy, posting on Truth Social that Jones’s texts were “SICK and DEMENTED” and saying he should immediately drop from the race.

While Virginia Democrats have denounced the texts, few have called for Jones to exit the race. In a statement, Spanberger said she “spoke frankly with Jay about my disgust with what he had said and texted. I made clear to Jay that he must fully take responsibility for his words” but did not weigh in on his future as a candidate. Several other state and national Democrats condemned the texts in similar terms.

However, on Sunday, Virginia House Speaker Don Scott (D) suggested that voters should not be “distracted” by the story, telling parishioners at a local church that “they want us to get distracted by the text message here or something else. Stay focused.”

Today, we’ll break down the text message controversy, with views from the left, right, and writers in Virginia. Then, my take.

Agreed.

• Most commentators on the left and right condemn Jones’s texts and say they were inexcusable.

What the left is saying.

• The left mostly rebukes the texts, and some call on Jones to drop out.
• Others say the outrage from Republicans is hypocritical.

The Washington Post editorial board wrote about “Jay Jones and political violence.”

“Curbing the epidemic of political violence will require leaders who do not excessively inflame routine partisan conflict. But text messages that Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general, sent to a GOP legislator, which emerged Friday afternoon, cast doubt on whether he has the temperament to become the state’s top law enforcement officer,” the board said. “Jones on Friday initially issued a statement that maligned National Review as a ‘Trump-controlled media organization’ peddling smears… He offered no apology.”

“Former congresswoman Abigail Spanberger, the candidate for governor, said she ‘spoke frankly with Jay about my disgust’ and ‘made clear that he must take full responsibility for his words,’” the board wrote. “The commonwealth has a proud tradition of elevating sensible politicians from both parties. Gentility is the Virginia Way. His texts were the opposite of that. Jones has a month to convince voters that his hateful rhetoric does not reflect how he’d behave if elected as attorney general.”

On X, several commentators on the left suggested that the response to the texts was overblown compared to Republicans’ rhetoric.

Election strategist Rachel Bitecofer shared a video of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaking at Charlie Kirk’s memorial and wrote, “Dear MAGA, If Jay Jones has no business being the LT Gov of Virginia for making crude comments about political violence then Stephen Miller — a taxpayer funded WH Special Advisor — has no business being in the government either.”

Political consultant Ally Sammarco shared a video of President Trump addressing the Navy on Sunday and wrote, “It’s hard to care about Jay Jones when you have [a] sitting president who speaks like this.”

Former Arlington County Chief Public Defender Brad Haywood wrote, “The irony of all of this premeditated, manufactured outrage is that the more Trump’s disciples lose their minds over it — the crazier the conclusions they draw & the more dire the remedies they posit — the clearer it becomes that Jay Jones must win in November.”

What the right is saying.

• The right condemns Jones’s text and criticizes Democrats for the muted response.
• Many call on Jones to exit the race.

In his newsletter, Erick Erickson criticized Democrats’ “but Trump” response to the texts.

“If Jones were a Republican, every major news outlet in America would demand to know what the congressional Republicans think. A few years ago, a local public official who happened to be a Republican made a racist remark, and national reporters were on Capitol Hill demanding that Republican Senators and Congressmen denounce the man none of them had heard of,” Erickson wrote. “After two assassination attempts on Donald Trump, a progressive killed Charlie Kirk for his political views, and a Democrat Attorney General candidate called for the assassination of a politician and the murder of his children, Democrats and the Bulwark crowd stay silent.”

“Jay Jones, in a private text message — so not public hyperbole, but a private conversation expressing candid thoughts — said he hoped the former Speaker, Todd Gilbert, [should have his] wife watch their child die in her arms so that Todd Gilbert might reconsider his political views,” Erickson said. “And the people who hate Trump will find lots of excuses to deflect, scream ‘both sides,’ and do everything possible to avoid condemning the man whom Democrats think is fit for Attorney General of Virginia.”

The Wall Street Journal editorial board asked “will [Jones] withdraw?”

“Does politics still recognize such a thing as a career-ending scandal? Jay Jones is the Democratic nominee for Virginia Attorney General. The question is whether he will remain that for long, after reports on a shocking series of text messages he sent in 2022, months after he resigned a state legislative seat,” the board wrote. “The lawmaker who was sent these messages pushed back, writing that Mr. Jones had made a comment on the phone about hoping Mr. Gilbert’s children died. ‘Yes, I’ve told you this before,’ Mr. Jones replied. ‘Only when people feel pain personally do they move on policy.’”

“These ought to be disqualifying sentiments from someone hoping to be Virginia’s top law enforcer. ‘Reading back those words made me sick to my stomach,’ Mr. Jones said. ‘I have reached out to Speaker Gilbert to apologize directly to him, his wife Jennifer, and their children.’ He said he can’t take back his words, but he can ‘take full accountability.’ That would mean stepping aside.”

What writers in Virginia are saying.

• Some Virginia writers say Jones remaining in the race imperils other Democratic candidates.
• Others suggest that Jones’s candidacy may not be dead in the water.

In his Any D*** Thing newsletter, Robert B. Mitchell argued “Jones must drop out of the race for AG.”

“At a time when Americans crave sanity in government, the Democratic ticket in Virginia features a stark contrast between mature leadership and the incendiary rhetoric that is poisoning our politics,” Mitchell wrote. “[Former Rep.] Spanberger is poised to deliver an early — and welcome — rebuke to the dangerous and venomous conduct of President Donald Trump, which could foreshadow a winning formula for Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections. She deserves to be elected governor. And then there is Jerrauld ‘Jay’ Jones, the Democratic candidate for attorney general.”

“We cannot have politicians — no matter their party — spewing toxic rhetoric about their opponents — in public, as Trump does with some frequency — or in private, as Jones did. There is simply no legitimate place for this kind of language, and any politician who indulges in it deserves public condemnation,” Mitchell said. “A Spanberger victory in the fall would represent a rejection of Trump’s divisive and dangerous rhetoric. She projects responsibility. As for Jones, the most responsible thing he can do now is quit the race.”

In Cardinal News, Dwayne Yancey explored the “political impact” of the texts.

“Is this a fatal blow for Jones?... There are two competing forces at play: We’re in a partisan era where there’s less ticket-splitting; we haven’t had a split result in Virginia in 20 years. On the other hand, in the polls that have asked about the lower-ballot races, the attorney general’s contest has been much closer than the top of the ticket,” Yancey wrote. “Jones has devoted his campaign to tying Miyares to President Trump; will voter antipathy toward Trump outweigh however voters feel about Jones’ texts?”

“If voters don’t seem concerned, and aren’t moved by all the Republican ads that are now coming, then Jones is clear. If voters instantly make up their minds that Jones isn’t fit for office, there may be nothing he can do,” Yancey said. “When the infamous ‘blackface’ photo on then-Gov. Ralph Northam’s medical school yearbook was revealed, Northam had the means with which to show he wasn’t a racist — he made a point of supporting lots of legislation of interest to Black Virginians. Jones isn’t in office, so doesn’t have that opportunity.”

My take.

Reminder: “My take” is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• The conservative pundit Guy Benson summed up why this moment feels so dangerous to the right.
• I personally think the empowered party presents a larger threat.
• Jay Jones presents a great opportunity for everyone to draw a red line at endorsing political violence.

One of my favorite conservative pundits is Guy Benson.

Benson writes for publications like Townhall and Fox News, and has built up a loyal following over the years while generally keeping it pretty classy. While he’s established his conservative bona fides, I suspect Benson has also lost some friends within his own ranks — he hasn’t been shy about criticizing Republican politicians when he thinks they deserve it, and he came out as gay in 2015 when homosexuality was still gaining acceptance among Republicans. Given his track record, Benson has a particular kind of political depth and empathy that, I think, helps him see clearly.

Over the weekend, Benson posted an insightful thread on X explaining a growing sentiment among his conservative friends to his liberal followers. He asked those on the left to consider that, only a few weeks removed from Charlie Kirk’s assassination, conservatives were seeing in the news (among other things) that a major statewide candidate sent these death-wish text messages about a political rival, a Biden-appointed judge handed down a lenient sentence to the person who tried to kill Brett Kavanaugh, and New York University’s law school shut down an event commemorating the October 7 massacre because they were worried about the security situation.

“AND YET,” Benson wrote, “we see many of our leftist friends tweeting and posting about how *their opponents* are the ‘dangerous’ and ‘authoritarian’ ‘fascists.’ I ask you to try to contemplate, even for a quiet moment or two, how this might strike many of us.”

I often find myself agreeing with Benson, but I get the feeling he’s following a thread of political extremism that is less common than he thinks. I’m, quite obviously, deeply concerned about political violence. And I am still deeply shaken up by Kirk’s murder. Yet his post felt like an implication that the left is the actual authoritarian side of the political aisle right now. Personally, I’m much more worried about the president and the federal government’s current power — responding to Kirk’s shooting with some of his most divisive rhetoric yet, declaring war on U.S. cities, and collecting extreme levels of power in the executive branch. When I weigh that kind of force against college protesters pressuring their university to shut down an event or years-old texts from a former state delegate running for attorney general in Virginia, I have a hard time feeling like the two are equal in weight.

Even with that initial reaction, I still found myself moved by Benson’s call for a perspective shift. So I did what he suggested and meditated on what this moment is like for people of all political stripes right now — not just my moderate or more near-the-middle kin.

Benson’s exercise was a genuine reminder that right now, fear is just everywhere. People like me fear the degradation of constitutional norms and the lethargy of the courts, people to the left of me fear a slide towards fascism and Trump cracking down on liberal institutions, and people to the right of me fear political violence from the left and the way it is ignored or dismissed by courts and the mainstream media.

And in all of this, in this everyone-is-afraid-for-different-reasons moment, Jay Jones presents an opportunity. He offers a chance to collectively set and enforce a new red line: Jones should drop out of the race.

Agreeing with this statement is a tremendous opportunity. Every time a new unstable person commits an act of political violence, or some politician sets a new standard for obscenity, we paint their whole party in that person’s colors and lower the bar for what we tolerate in our allies who oppose them. Yet, here we have a powerful and easy centralizing idea that could be seized for the better: Endorse political violence, and you’re done.

If you’re a Republican, the reasoning is simple: Jones’s messages were genuinely obscene, and I doubt many conservatives believe they are anything short of disqualifying. Of course, it’s possible Republicans waited to release the messages until now for optimal political benefit, when Jones dropping out comes with the political advantage of removing an opponent 30 days from a competitive election in Virginia. All of that makes it easier for conservatives to support his dropping out (but he still should).

Democrats don’t have the same incentives, but they should also call on Jones to drop out. Why not enforce this red line? The stakes for the party, nationally, aren’t even that high. We’re talking about a Virginia attorney general race. From a strictly principled perspective, someone who would send a text like this should be nowhere near the attorney general’s office — functioning as an arbiter of morality and criminal prosecution. The upside, meanwhile, is taking a genuine moral high ground. Even if you are cynical enough to think the right would never do the same, the candidate in question is now so politically toxic he might just lose anyway and drag down other Democratic candidates. Democrats are having difficulty coalescing around this position, but why not cut bait and be able to say this is the new standard?

If you promote political violence, you’re out.

That’s not to say it doesn’t matter if Republicans don’t respond in kind — they should.That means when Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) talks about dropping protesters where they stand, he gets condemned and censured. That means when we find out an employee at the Justice Department called on a mob to kill cops, we fire them. That means when Valentina Gomez, a candidate for Congress, uploads campaign videos that simulated her executing migrants for coming here illegally, she is disqualified and widely panned.

How many more opportunities will we get to unify around a message that says political violence, even in private messages, is a taboo so off-limits that it means you can’t run for office? Probably not many. Given everything our country has experienced over the last few years — two presidential assasination attempts, the murder of a Minnesota state representative, the killing of a healthcare executive, arson at the Pennsylvania governor’s mansion, the assassination of Charlie Kirk — we must take advantage of the opportunity and say “no more.” Let’s make it unacceptable not just to commit political violence, but political poison to endorse or incite it. And then let’s enforce that standard for everyone.

Take the survey: Do you think Jay Jones should drop out of the race? Let us know.

Disagree? That's okay. My opinion is just one of many. Write in and let us know why, and we'll consider publishing your feedback.

Your questions, answered.

Q: Is [California] SB771 passed and does it say that if the state deems a post “hateful” you can be charged $500k or more? And if so why is this not being considered censorship?

— Shannon from Florida

Tangle: We’ll take those questions in order.

The California state bill SB 771 has not been enacted yet, though it has cleared both chambers of the state legislature. It is currently awaiting Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) signature.

SB 771 is aimed at hateful speech online, and it does authorize fines of up to $500,000 for a “reckless violation” of the law (and up to $1 million for an “intentional, knowing, or willful” violation). But a few details of the law differentiate it from the way you posed the question here.

First, the bill references existing California criminal code that prohibits “all persons and entities, including corporations, from engaging in, aiding, abetting, or conspiring to commit acts of violence, intimidation, or coercion based on race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, or other protected characteristics” (emphasis added). The preamble uses the word “hate” three times — particularly against LGBTQ+, Arab, and Jewish people — but it does not define punishable content as “hateful.”

Second, the bill does not regulate posts from social media users themselves but the content that social media platforms share with or promote to others. As the text of the proposed law states, the regulation applies specifically to “a social media platform that violates [existing criminal code] through its algorithms that relay content to users.” If the bill is signed, the platform — not users — would face fines of up to $1 million.

Third, the state would not be surveilling posts itself. An aggrieved party has to bring a civil suit, and a judge would then determine if it represents a violation and award a penalty (though, yes, the judge would be an agent of the state here).

To your last question, many places do consider the bill to be censorship, because it would coerce a third party (social media platforms) to restrict users’ speech. Organizations from FIRE to the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee condemn SB 771 on these grounds and call on Gov. Newsom to veto it. However, even if the bill becomes law the state would not be directly punishing people for their speech, which keeps the issue of how to characterize the bill firmly in a gray area.

Want to have a question answered in the newsletter? You can reply to this email (it goes straight to our inbox) or fill out this form.

Under the radar.

On Saturday, Circuit Court Judge Diane Goodstein’s South Carolina home burned down; three people were injured, and some occupants of the house had to jump out of windows to escape. In September, Goodstein temporarily blocked the South Carolina election commission from releasing voter files to the Justice Department in a ruling against the Trump administration, and some speculated that the fire could have been a targeted attack. However, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division Chief Mark Keel said on Monday that there was no immediate evidence that the fire was intentional, though the investigation is still active and ongoing. The Associated Press has the story.

Numbers.

• 3.The approximate number of years that Jay Jones (D) served in the Virginia House of Delegates.
• 48% and 42%. The percentage of registered Virginia voters who said they would support Jay Jones (D) and Jason Miyares (R), respectively, in November’s election for Virginia attorney general, according to a September 2025 Washington Post-Schar School poll.
• 53% and 40%. The percentage of registered Virginia voters who said they would support Abigail Spanberger (D) and Winsome Earle-Sears (R), respectively, in November’s election for Virginia governor.
• 19%. The percentage of registered Virginia voters who said “Economy/Cost of living/Jobs/Housing” is the most important issue in their choice for Virginia governor, the highest response of any issue polled.
• 12%. The percentage of registered Virginia voters who said “Anti-Republican/Trump/MAGA or pro-Democrat” is the most important issue in their choice for Virginia governor, the second-highest response of any issue polled.
• 7%. The percentage of registered Virginia voters who said “Pro Republican/anti-Democratic” is the most important issue in their choice for Virginia governor, the seventh-highest response of any issue polled.

The extras.

• One year ago today we wrote about the October 7th anniversary.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the Jay Jones texts.
• Nothing to do with politics: The strawberry’s roots in espionage in 18th-century South America.
• Yesterday’s survey: 5,040 readers responded to our survey on National Guard deployments to U.S. cities with 60% opposing deployments. “If the governors did not ask then they should not be there,” one respondent said. “If the local police are not capable of protecting the federal agents just doing their job, I think it’s fair to send troops to protect federal personnel and property,” said another.

Have a nice day.

In the category of nameless and unstudied species scientists call “dark taxa,” insects abound — an estimated four out of five insect species have never been formally identified due to their size, subterranean habitats, and the visual similarity between species. However, a host of new technologies are helping researchers track distinctions faster, and at higher resolutions, than ever before. One team at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research (WSL) feeds drone-collected data into machine learning software to encode and describe insect DNA. “We know a lot more about what’s happening, even if a lot still escapes us,” environmental scientist and WSL team member Camille Albouy said. The Atlantic has the story.