Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov - The Texting Scandal Disrupting the Virginia Election (ft. Don Scott)

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Virginia voters will elect its new governor in less than a month — and the race has big national implications. Jessica is joined by Don Scott, Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, to talk through what’s at stake. They also discuss the rhetoric of political violence, why Democrats are standing their ground in government shutdown negotiations, and how we can start saying the Emperor has no clothes. Plus — Don Scott’s unconventional road to elected office includes serving seven years in federal prison. Should the Democrats recruit more “damaged goods” candidates? Follow Jessica Tarlov, @JessicaTarlov.  Follow Prof G, @profgalloway. Follow Raging Moderates, @RagingModeratesPod. Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@RagingModerates Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You assign the task, your Notion agent does the work. Try Notion and Notion agent for free at Notion.com slash box. Is peace finally within reach in the Middle East? No one had approached it this way, and I think that was a major, a major contributor. I'm Preet Bharara, and this week, political advisor and podcast host, Dan Senor, joins me on my podcast, Stay Tuned with Preet, to discuss the new ceasefire in Gaza and what comes next for the war-torn region. The episode is out now. Search and follow, stay tuned with Preet, wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Raging Moderates. I'm Jessica Tarlov, and my guest

today is Speaker Don Scott. He's the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates. That's the 100-member lower house of the Virginia State Legislature, the General Assembly, which calls itself the oldest continuous English-speaking representative legislative assembly in the Western Hemisphere. Speaker Scott, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you for having me, Jesse. I appreciate it. Looking forward to having so fun this morning. Okay. All right. Fun it is. I want to get into your personal story, which is so fascinating. But Virginia is a news of the day hot spot because there's a big governor's race coming up in a little bit less than a month. You are supporting Democrat Abigail Spanberger in the race against the current Lieutenant Governor, wins some Earl Sears. Abigail has a pretty

hefty lead at this point. The average is about six points, but some polls have her up 10. A recent poll had it much closer in a neck and neck, a dead heat. Why are you supporting Abigail Spanberger for this? And what are your thoughts on the race? Well, these elections are fine. I choices and we have Winston-Barrell Sears on one side and we have Abigail Spanberg on other side. It's a real easy decision. Winston-Meryl Sears is a deranged candidate. She's un-endged. She said some crazy things over the last few weeks of her entire career, especially, but just recently as we lead up here. And Abigail Spanberger is focused on the issues that Virginia's care about. She's focused on affordability, making housing, energy, food, groceries.

She's dealing with the everyday kitchen table issues. You know, the stuff that folks used to care about, you know, we're trying to make America boring again here in Virginia. We want to go back to just worrying about the everyday issues that folks care about, while Winston Stairs are still focus on, you know, where kids pee and poop. I call them the P and Poop Caucus. That's all they focus on which bathroom they go through or whatever else they're doing. I mean, and we're focused on what kids are learning in school. And I think that's what Abigail Spanberger is focused on, making sure how we improve teacher pray, how we improve our public education system. And I think voters will choose Abigail because she is the adult in the room, focusing.

on the issues that most parents are focused on. Most voters are focused on. You see the impact that the government shutdown is having on Virginia. I mean, it's devastating our workforce. It's not just the government workers that are being impacted. It's all of the ancillary folks that support them. It's the restaurant owners. It's the daycare centers. It's the transportation services. It's the tourism. I mean, you have a million industries that are being impacted by this. And then Abigail is on the right side of fighting for health. care right now. You know, Winsome Sears is saying that she backs the president's plan to continue to kick

people off of health care and kick people off of Medicaid, people who are working every day who need those stipends to make others the ends meet. She supports that, and Abigail does not. So I think when you add up, the go down the checklist of things that matter to voters, from energy to transportation, to health care, to education, to public safety, Abigail's on the right side of issues. The Police Benevolent Association here in Virginia. They hadn't endorsed a Democrat in probably the last four elections.

They endorsed Abigail Spanberger because they know they can trust her to keep us all safe. And so that's why I'm supporting Abigail. It's real easy. Yeah. I remember then Congresswoman Spanberger was one of the loudest and most prominent voices in the Democratic Party coming out against the whole idea of even talking about defunding the police during the 2020 summer after George Floyd was murdered. She and whip Clyburn, or the two. voices that I certainly heard the loudest on that. And I'm sure that weighed heavily on the Benevolent Association when they were thinking about getting into this race and endorsing her.

I had also never heard the P& Poe and Poe Caucus, which I will be using. I'll credit you for that one. I do want to ask you as well about the Attorney General's race in Virginia, which got a little bit more complicated in the last week or so. There were old text messages from the Democratic candidate, Jay Jones, who's a former colleague of yours from 2022, which are very violent in nature, talking about putting two bullets in the head of the former speaker, a Republican, also speaking about, you know, being violent towards his children. You have condemned the text messages. Jay Jones has apologized. You've also said that there's a double standard at play here in request for him to drop out. Can you talk about that further, especially in this moment when

political violence is such an important topic in this country? Well, political violence is an important topic and just the racism and the hatred that you've heard just yesterday in a political article that came out around the young Republicans, and I hadn't heard anybody condemn that. You know, I've known Jay Jones since he was in high school. His father, who was a judge in my community, was a mentor to me. His father set one pew in front of me at my church. he and his grandmother and Jay's grandmother. And so I've known him for a long time. Those comments were deplorable. He knows it. They're reprehensible. He said it. He said they made him sick to his stomach when he reread those. He has apologized profusely. I know Todd Gilbert. Todd Gilbert is a friend of mine. We both end up being speakers of the house and we both were born in Texas. So we both get along very, very well. I talked to Todd yesterday, in fact. We get along Todd and his family. He told me.

me, he told Jay he has forgiven him for those comments from three years ago. And so when I talk about a double standard, you know, we know that this was a cynical use of politics. I mean, imagine if your house was on fire and then you rated three years to call 911. That's what this is. You know, Jay was so dangerous that in three years, they waited to drop these texts the week before the election. It's the cynical use of politics. It's the politics that Obama called the politics of personal destruction. Jay has apologized. We've moved on. And I think we all have to move on and let him run his race. And I think the issues right now are so important. We know that Attorney General Jason Mierrez, he will probably, if he will do win, he will probably be suing me, Abigail Spanberger, bringing criminal trial. These people who are following Donald Trump right now, they are literally doing exactly whatever he says in prosecuting Letitia James and James Comey. And Todd Gilbert, my friend, who was the subject of those texts, he was fired in the Western District of Virginia, according to the New York Times story yesterday, but not prosecuting FBI agents, you know what I mean, who were involved with the Russia investigation. So I think it's important that we move on and look at this in a more global perspective. I think it's a double standard. And I've said that. And I think right now we just have to move on and let both of those folks run on their own issues. The other thing I was going to say about the double standard, when Governor Yonkin asked John Reed, the lieutenant governor candidate for the Republicans to step out because he had saw evidently some photos, some compromising pornography or something with John Reed, and they asked him to step down.

Wentham Sears made a Facebook post when asked whether he should step down. She said, I'm not going to get involved. That has nothing to do with me. I'm going to run my race. He has to run his race. Now, all of a sudden, you know, when it's politically convenient,

that's not the case anymore. She's trying to make sure that, you know, asking, you know, Abigail to take ownership over Jay's stuff, and I don't think that's fair. Yeah, that was definitely the moment that Winston Sears was looking for in the debate last week, asking her about it, I happen to think the moment where she said that getting rid of gay marriage wasn't discrimination was the more salient moment. But, you know, I'm glad to hear your take on this

and that Todd Gilbert has forgiven J. Jones for those texts because obviously they were worthy of that level of condemnation. And the text that you're referencing from the political story yesterday, you know, are young Republicans from all across the country talking about how much they love Hitler, how racist they are, terms that I certainly am not going to be using on this podcast. And J.D. Vance basically said, I'm not interested in condemning that. He said, I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence, which doesn't really seem like it's helping out the tenor of the conversation at this particular moment in our history. Yeah, I just think, you know, everybody needs to tone it down. That kind of stuff shouldn't be

accepted on either side. I remember. when there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump, immediately, Todd Gilbert and I, we did a joint statement condemning any political violence. That is the type of leadership that folks want to see from our political leaders. And, you know, it would be nice. All of the reprehensible things Donald Trump has said, shooting Liz Cheney in the face, you know, beating his enemies, shooting folks if they're in a store, you know, extrajudicial punishment. It would be nice if he would apologize one time. Jay Jones and everybody else have apologized. He's never apologize and nobody's asked them to apologize. So I think this double standard is that whole thing where

they can say whatever they want to, do whatever they want to, and there's nobody asked them apologizing. Nobody's apologizing today for the comments that they just found out about yesterday. And, you know, I talked to a gentleman yesterday who's a Republican, a black Republican, who happens to also be gay. And he was the chairman of the young Republicans here in Virginia. And I called him yesterday just to say, hey, I'm sorry. He and I have a relationship. I say, I'm sorry you had to go through that because he was the subject of those texts, calling him the derogatory gay slayers, the derogatory racial slairs. And I spoke to him yesterday. And he was really hurt. He'd done a Facebook post about it. And I thanked him for his bravery and calling for these type of people just to leave the Republican Party. There's no space for that. And it's a lot of harm being caused. And it's really time for us to try to move forward. But we need leadership to do that. And it has to start at the time. top. And so far, we've seen nobody at the top move in a different direction. In fact, they continue to embrace this type of rhetoric. Yeah, and we have three plus more years of it. I wanted to talk about

the shutdown a little more. You already mentioned the negative effects that it's having on Virginia. So I guess a two-part question. One, are you supportive of the National Democrats plan right now to keep the government shutdown until there's some compromise on extending the ACA subsidies and hopefully being able to roll back some of these cuts to Medicare. And then the second part of it is, you know, state legislatures are taking on an even more important role in the Trump era. How are you working to safeguard Virginia from what's going on with the federal government? Well, number one, I do support a negotiation.

You know, I don't support the shutdown. I support a negotiation. And I think the Democrats have to get something for their votes. you don't give something without getting something. And the big thing that they have to get, what they're fighting for is for health care. They're fighting for a very simple thing that folks should have the ability to continue to have basic health care. It's a human right. And they have a, I think they have a responsibility to fight as long as they possibly can to make sure that they get healthy.

I think people are inspired, you know, finally Democrats are standing up to this guy. And I think people are inspired to see that we're standing up. And I think they have to continue to do that and make them come to the table to negotiate something, not just give them exactly what they want to continue to do harm. Republicans did a reconciliation to pass tax cuts for billionaires, but they won't do the reconciliation to do health care for the middle class. And I think that's very important. If they really wanted to do it, they could do it. And even that skyon of American ideals, Marjorie Taylor Green, said that they could do something and they won't. So you know you're in a bad position when Marjorie Taylor Green is the voice of common sense

in the Republican caucus right now, which is hilarious to me, man, politics make strange bedfellows. And then onto the second issue, I think regarding the shutdown, state government is so much and more important now. If you look at the Republican strategy over the last 20 years, it was to take hold of school boards, local government, state legislatures for times like this. And they had it set up similar to the project 2025. Project 2025 didn't start in 2024. It started long before. And I think they knew where we would be right now and then they've taken advantage of it. I think we have to start making more investments in state legislatures. When you look at the redistricting, they're about to do in North Carolina and Indiana and Missouri and Texas. I mean, those legislatures are controlled by Republicans. We have to go back and make investments in state legislatures like Virginia. I mean, I sound a little self-serving, but it's very important that these state legislatures are. We're in a very slim majority here. 100 members. All 100 members are on the ballot. We have a 5149 majority. So it's very slim. We're hopefully that we'll be able to expand that majority. That's what we're fighting and do this cycle. But that's where the fight is right now. That's where the solutions are going to come from on how we try to mitigate the damages that the federal government's doing right now, especially in a state like Virginia that has so much synchronization with the federal government. So what happens there in D.C. has a huge. huge impact what happens to us because we have such a huge defense industry here in Virginia

that it's important. We have a large Navy base here. I'm not far from where I sit from Quantico where the Marines are. I mean, this is the home of the military in Virginia. We have a lot of federal workers who are veterans and they view their service to the nation and civil service as a continuation of their military service. And so you see these people, these veterans being hurt. And I think we have to, we have to do everything in our power to make sure that we control the state legislature so that we can mitigate some of the damages that are coming from the federal government. We're not going to be to stop it all. I mean, they're cutting food assistance. They're hurting farmers. I talk to some farmers. I'm an ag major. I went to Texas

A&M. I'm a country. I'm a country boy. I grew up in the city, but I grew up in a country, so I'm bilingual. I speak country and city. And the farmers here, trust me. I was endorsed by the ag, the farmers bureau day one when I first run because they know I understand. I've spoken to soybean farmers here in Virginia who are angry because we just gave $20 billion to Argentina who's selling soybeans without a tariff to China. And then our soybeans are still sitting here and have to be stored for a period of time. And hopefully these tariffs and this fight won't end so they can sell their soybeans. So we're catching heck from the farmers to the veterans to civil servants to restaurant owners. We're catching a hell here in Virginia because of the Trump tariffs and the Trump economy.

We have eight straight months of job losses in Virginia for the first time since 2008. It's crazy. Eight straight months of job losses. We would have had nine months, but we don't know what the heck happened because Trump shut the government down. So we don't know what happened in September. So we didn't get that BLS report. But if we had, I'm sure it would have been nine straight months. Well, he would have actually taken it back and said, we'll get back to you with another version of this.

Yeah. Or he defied the person that issued the report. They all got their heads on a swivel. Yeah. They give out the wrong data. they get their heads cracked. They get fired. And if it's not, yes, dear leader, jobs are up. But if they say, hey, the emperor has no clothes on, they get fired. And that's what we are right now. Only some of us are saying that the emperor has no clothes on.

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It's a bleak time, and your approach is, refreshing and hearing you talk about the election for the delegates, you know, very slim majority that you have right now, hoping to expand that and hopefully we'll have at least some sort of a blue wave starting in 2025 that should portend good things for 2026 in the midterms. What kind of candidates are you focused on getting to run? You know, what are the qualities that are really standing out and connecting with Virginians? You know, it's a purple state, right? what are you seeing shine through? Because on the national level, we're seeing that continued kind of ideological fight between the more Abigail Spanburgers of the world and then the AOCs of the world or Mom Donnie. I'm here in New York City, whereas our own mom, Donnie is going to become the mayor, obviously, much to the left of a Spanberger or Mikey Sherrill.

Yeah, I mean, what I'm seeing here is people, the number one quality that I've seen and the people that are deciding to run and that we have begun to, we recruited, because we have to make an effort to go out and. try to get folks. And we had a lot of partners that came in and helped us for the first time in anybody's memory. We have a Democrat running in every single district. So we're trying to connect with those rural communities that we had taken for granted. And we have to fight for every single vote here. So we're able to get somebody to run in all 100 districts. But in our battleground districts where we're trying to gain and take over some Republican seats that Kamala Harris won, that Tim Kaine won, we have an opportunity to be competitive in those areas. What we focused on, the number one trait for everybody that said that they wanted to run, which is something that we should have more of us, empathy.

They care. They care about people. They want to help people. They want to get to solutions. They're problem solvers. They don't have an ideological spectrum first. They have a get the job done, get things done mentality first. Those are the people that have come to serve. These are veterans and accountants and National Guard members and doctors. We have a pediatrician. We have attorneys. We have a lot. lot of different folks that came to the table from different backgrounds, work at universities, teaching. We have a mixture of folks who came to the table to try to say we need solutions. We have very good candidates across all of these communities. We have middle class folks that are struggling themselves so they can identify with the communities that they're asking to serve.

And I think that's what makes this election so powerful. And that makes our candidates so good this time. And that's why I feel so confident that we're not only going to keep our majority, But we're going to grow our majority because we have the right kind of people who are committed to doing the work. You know, we make every candidate sign an MOU that if we work with you, then you have to do these things. You have to do doors. You have to go knock on the doors, not paid volunteers, not people coming in. You. You have to connect with that. And we picked people who are already active in the community. So they're not people that the community doesn't already know. And that's what made

this cycle so special because people are stepping up to run because they see what's happening in this country and they don't want to stay on the sidelines. They want to be in the fight right now and fighting for our values and fighting for this American ideal that all men and women are created equal and die by their created with certain and aidable rights. And I think

that everybody wants to come and be a part of this idea, not based on religion or ethnicity, but based on this idea that we all have an opportunity to pursue happiness and live our best lives. And I think that's what makes all of our people so special. Well, that's also what got you into public service. And I want to make sure that our listeners get to hear a bit about your spectacular story. Forgive me, I'm going to read it so that I don't

mess it up because it is a winding road, Speaker Scott, to how you got here. In 2024, you became the first ever black speaker in the history of the Virginia House of Delegates. two years earlier, you were made minority leader, and two years before that, you began your first ever term as a delegate, first time you ever held elected office. Fast rise, obviously, through the ranks, but especially notable for you because in 1994, during your last semester in law school, you were arrested on federal drug charges and served seven years in prison. It's also, of course, worth pointing out that you served five years in the Navy before you even went to law school. And, you know, just for good measure, you're a fantastic person in 2021. You donated a kid. kidney to your friend and neighbor, Judge Johnny Morrison. I don't know what the right way to ask this is, but, like, who are you? How did you do this? You know, it was God Almighty. And the faith that my mother and my grandmother instilled in me, every time I think about it,

I kind of get choked up to think about the women who did not give up on me. During that time, you know, I, like most young people, very flawed, some mistakes, made mistakes, even in the Navy, made mistakes back then. But, you know, one of the things you have to do is you have to accept accountability for mistakes you make, and then you try to make amends. And you spend time trying to make amends to become the person that people believe that you are. And then you try to become a met a great woman and married her. My wife's a dentist. She actually met me a few months out of prison. She was teaching dentistry at the University of Pennsylvania, believe it or not. And she chose me, which I was shocked. I was

But, okay, this must be a fluke. And now 20 years later, November 12th, we'll be celebrating our 20th year of marriage. And so, you know, that whole journey has made me a lot more empathetic. I grew up with a single mom, six kids who believed in education, believed that education was the key. And that's why I believe that I'm here where I am because I had a solid foundation and I was able to bounce back. I had an uncle who gave me a chance for my family. That's why I just established. this program for men and boys so we can deal with the trauma that's impacting men and boys

and the outcomes that are happening because everybody didn't have an Uncle Warren like I did who said, hey, smack you around, show you some tough love and get you back, you know, and I'm going to hold you accountable to go back to where I think you can be, and that's what happened to me. You know, and I was blessed to be able to take the Virginia bar exam 20 years after I'd finished law school in 2014 and passed a doggone thing and have been practicing and working as a trial lawyer ever since. But it's been an amazing journey. It's been a blessing. It's a blessing to serve. You know, when I first got elected, I had to pinch myself. I'm sitting in Jefferson's chamber, and I'm like, wow, this is amazing. And I just wanted to be quiet. And I never thought I would be in

leadership. I just thought I would be there. I was blessed to be there. And I would pinch myself because I would listen to my other 99 members stand up and give speeches and do their thing. And I was kind of like imposter syndrome, like I'm not supposed to be here, kind of stay quiet. But after about 30 days, I listened to them, I was like, how the hell to y'all get here? How did y'all get here? I didn't feel guilty at all anymore. I felt pretty good. I felt like I belonged. And so from that point on, my colleagues and my caucus had, you know, put some faith in me to take back the majority. You say Virginia's purple, but Virginia was red in the House of Delegates. They had the House of Delegates for 20 years straight. We won it back when I was sworn in in 2020. We promptly lost it in 2021 in November.

and then in 22 I became a minority leader and then we won it back in November 23 and that's where I got nine so we got to do it again because I say winning it one time is a flute you got to do it twice so this time I'm trying to do it again and I'm hopeful that this story that continues to focus not on me because I think what makes my thing so fun is that I like serving people and I like getting results and I like winning so you put those three things together we have an opportunity I think to do some great things. for the Commonwealth in Virginia and be an example for the rest of the country. Definitely to that. Do you think that national politics could ever be in your future? It sounds like it's certainly feasible to me listening to you. I mean, I got jail out of the way already. Most of them go to jail afterwards, so I got that out of the way. Ticking boxes in the right order.

I already got that out of the way, you know. I got my education. I got to jail. Now I can go and do that. All my dirt is out. Yeah, you know, we never know. Let's see what the future has. I'm going to be ready when the time.

If my number's called, I'll be ready to get in the game. Okay. And one last thing, what's one thing that makes you rage and one thing you think we should all calm down about? Oh, man, the thing that makes me really upset right now, I'm a Cowboys fan, so I'm miserable. I mean, that's why I'm miserable. They're just losing the people for no reason. Jerry Jones, I think it's time for him to go ahead and turn over the keys or somebody else. So I'm upset about my poor Cowboys.

They just figure out new ways to lose. number one offense and last in defense at the same time. How do you do that? But they're terrible. And the thing that yet gives me the thing that I love the most is also related to football right now. I'm going to take the Zaggart. We're number four in the country.

I cannot believe it. So I'm like, everybody's like, don't talk about it. You're going to jinx it. No, because we've never been here before. Not in my life. You know, it's been forever since we've been this, Frank, this house. So I'm going to talk about it all I want. I don't care about jinxing it.

And on a political side, I just think I'm around a lot of people. Republicans. I went to Texas A&M. It's the most conservative school in Texas. I went to LSU law school. It's the most conservative school in Louisiana. I deal with some of these guys still to this day. The politics, the maga politics that we see on TV and that we see performing, I don't see that behind closed doors. And I just think a lot of that stuff is performative. And Trump has made these people afraid to say anything and tell their true feelings. And I just think I still believe that this is a fad. I think pendulum swing. They don't creep. I think they swung over here, and I think it's when it swings back, they better watch out because I think America's greatest days are still ahead of us. And I think folks are going to come back to their census. And it's going to begin here in Virginia. We're going to send a message. You know, Virginia is for lovers. So we're going to send a love letter to the rest of the country in November that we had all lost our minds, not only to the country, but to the world.

Everybody's going to say, oh, Virginia got it right. We got an A on the test. You know, and so I think when we look back, we'll know that Virginia was the beginning of the pendulum swinging back. I hope that you're correct. And Speaker Scott, I'm so appreciative of your time. Thank you for coming on. Thank y'all for having me. I appreciate it. Of course. Take care.