UPDATE 4:45 pm Sunday – YIKES, check this out!
“Hi. I’m John Reid. It’s Sunday afternoon and I had certainly hoped that we could put the bigotry and ugliness of last week behind us and unify our Republican ticket this year. But shockingly, once again, representatives of my campaign have been told by the leader of Governor Younkin’s political organization that the attacks on me will continue unless I drop out of the race for lieutenant governor. What colossal arrogance and abuse to a loyal fellow Republican and like it or not the declared legal nominee of our party just like what we saw against President Trump over the last eight years!
My representatives were shown the same explicit photographs of other people that I’ve got nothing to do with that I was shown last week and they were told that if I dropped out of the race they would purchase the opposition research and the lies and threats against me would suddenly stop. This is extortion and it is illegal in Virginia. And I am more outraged now. I have engaged legal counsel to pursue all options against these people.
The insiders in Virginia politics made a big miscalculation if they thought that I would bow down to anyone or run away scared. I’m a conservative Trump supporter and I’m gay, and everybody knows it because I’ve told you in person and in the media for decades. I’ve not broken any law and I’m not a hypocrite. I do not pretend that I was a saint before I entered into my current 8-year relationship. Personally and politically, I don’t have anything to say about what consenting adults do in private.
I am sickened and outraged at the weeks of veiled accusations and attacks on my family. And I’m not going to continue to answer a never-ending parade of questions and false accusations from people who we now know are solely motivated to stage a coup against a gay man whom they didn’t want to be their nominee but didn’t have the guts to run against. It’s unfair. No one else has to deal with this type of speculation and hyper scrutiny of their past before they were married or engaged and I won’t either.
I’m the Republican nominee for Lieutenant Governor and I’m more transparent and I’m more conservative and I’m tougher than any of my detractors. And I’m not going anywhere – except to get back on the campaign trail, win this election and take these people to court.”
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Does Glenn Youngkin actually think that demanding the presumptive 2025 VA GOP Lt. Governor nominee, John Reid, drop out – but then having Reid NOT drop out, and if anything see many Virginia conservatives rally around Reid! – is going to help him with Trump, MAGA, etc. for 2026 or 2028? If anything, it seems to me that this is only going to HURT Youngkin going forward within the MAG GOP, where looking powerless, pathetic, disrespected, not listened to within your own party, etc. is not exactly an “alpha male” display that’s going to make MAGA/Trumpist hearts swoon! LOL
Meanwhile, what are presumptive VA GOP gubernatorial nominee Winsome Earle-Sears and attorney general nominee Jason Miyares doing? Hiding in their basements? Do they really think it’s sustainable to simply go day after day without saying a word about the whole John Reid controversy, when Reid is the presumptive LG nominee on THEIR TICKET???
Winsome Earle-Sears making lame/ridiculous excuses, while it looks like far-right Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-VA09) is standing by John Reid…
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