Two days after the 2026 midterms, Van Jones went on CNN's The Source with Kaitlan Collins and said, "Now it can be told." He added, "Don't get mad at me, I was just given permission to reveal this."
Jones then described what he called the American Accountability Network. He said tens of thousands of real people — not bots — were coordinated to make affordability the winning message online. The numbers he cited were large: 32.5 million hits a day on Instagram, 88.8 million on X, and 185 million on Facebook.
The message, as Jones described it, tied kitchen-table costs positively to Democrats and negatively to Republicans. He said Republicans "couldn't get any traction on these culture war issues anymore" because "we figured out how to get around all of that." Then he said, "The Republicans never figured out what we were doing."
Host Uriah Kiser argues that once that admission is on the record, the last year and a half in Virginia looks more legible.
Abigail Spanberger ran for governor in 2025 with affordability as the centerpiece. CNN reported in September 2025 that she made cost-of-living issues a cornerstone of her campaign, including health care, energy, and housing. In a campaign video, she said, "Like every day on the campaign trail, I am hearing about issues of affordability." She released an Affordable Virginia Plan, then rolled out an Affordable Virginia Agenda with Democratic legislative leaders in December 2025 as governor-elect.
Kiser then turns to what the 2026 session produced under a Democratic trifecta. Spanberger signed a package of gun restrictions in May 2026, including an assault-firearms and high-capacity magazine ban. The law would have barred future sales and transfers of defined "assault firearms" and magazines over 15 rounds. It was not a confiscation bill; people who already legally owned those firearms and magazines could keep them. Courts later blocked enforcement statewide. In July, Washington County Circuit Judge Jeffrey L. Campbell issued a preliminary injunction that applies across the commonwealth — a pause on enforcement, not a final ruling that the law is gone.
Spanberger also signed a paid family and medical leave program funded by a new payroll contribution. The Washington Times reported the figure in March at 0.72 percent, split between employer and employee, with collections starting April 1, 2028, benefits starting December 1 of that year, and up to 12 weeks at about 80 percent of wages for private companies. The Times framed the contrast as Democrats running on affordability and then passing a new payroll tax. Official materials describe 0.72 percent as a fiscal estimate, with the Virginia Employment Commission to set the initial rate by October 1, 2027.
Conservative commentator Glenn Beck linked the operation Jones described to longtime organizer Heather Booth, listed as president of the American Accountability Network on the group's 2025 Form 990, and to allied groups including MoveOn, the Service Employees International Union, teachers unions, and the House Democratic campaign apparatus. That linkage is Beck's and the host's account.
Just this week, Spanberger stood on the Capitol steps and unveiled a new agenda, Moving Virginia Forward, with affordability on the first line: stronger, safer, and more affordable. The rollout included medical debt forgiveness, housing, solar, and more data centers.
WJLA-TV's Nick Minock asked whether she wants Democrats to scrap the car tax, freeze rate hikes on power bills, and pause the state gas tax. On the car tax, Spanberger said, "Everybody hates the car tax." She said she is open to getting rid of it if it can be done with a constitutional amendment and if localities can replace the revenue that pays for fire, police, and schools. In 2025 she called it "the most hated tax of all" and said she would work with Democrats and Republicans to get rid of it.
The car tax is still on the bill. Bills to cut or eliminate it did not become law in the 2026 session. A study on how to abolish it was continued to 2027. Kiser notes that the new agenda talks about kitchen-table issues but does not take the car tax off the bill. At the Capitol event, she deferred on power bills and did not address the gas tax.
What did pass last session, Kiser said, is telling. The General Assembly voted itself a pay raise from about $18,000 a year to $50,000, starting in 2028. Lawmakers also kept the sales-tax exemption for data centers, a break that cost the state about $1.6 billion in 2025 and remains on the books through 2035. They added a temporary tax on the power those centers use, but the larger exemption stayed.
After the 2020 election, Spanberger was among Democrats warning her party against socialism and "defund the police." She was branded, with Elissa Slotkin and Mikie Sherrill, as part of the "Mod Squad" of moderate House Democrats. Sherrill is now New Jersey's governor. The brand was moderate. The campaign was Affordable Virginia. The record in Richmond, Kiser said, is what it is. He tells viewers to watch Jones say it himself and read the bills Spanberger signed.
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