Democrat Richard Ojeda Said He Would Be 'Happy to Go to Jail' for Beating Up Stephen Miller

Democrat Richard Ojeda, who defeated Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), in Tuesday’s midterm elections, expressed a willingness to physically assault President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, saying he would be happy to go to jail for doing so.

“Stephen Miller needs to be thumped. That guy’s a friggin’ worm,” Ojeda said. “I would be willing to go to jail for. I mean, how much would I get for just cracking him a couple times?”

“You know, I’d be willing to go to jail to kick the shit out of him,” Ojeda continued. “I’d be more than happy to find myself in an elevator with him, and I’d whoop his ass from the first floor to the fifth floor, and be happy to go to jail.”

Ojeda, a retired Army veteran who served 24 years in the military, also emphasized his anger with political leaders in a campaign advertisement, citing childhood poverty in West Virginia and coal miners’ pensions.

“People say that I’m angry. Well, angry is an understatement,” Ojeda said in the advertisement. “When I come home and I find that I got children in my backyard that have it worse than the kids that I saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, I can’t accept that.”

During that portion of the advertisement, an on-screen reference to an October 25, 2012, Public News Service report appeared with the headline, “STUDY FINDS TOO MANY WV KIDS GROWING UP IN POVERTY.”

“When I see companies using bankruptcy loopholes to keep repaying our coal miners the pensions that they work for, I will not sit quiet,” Ojeda continued. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have been sold out. We’ve been sold out by people like Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and the Washington Insiders.”

“I approve this message because I am angry and I’m ready to fight back,” Ojeda concluded.

Ojeda defeated Hudson in North Carolina’s 9th Congressional District, receiving 138,707 votes, or 51.1 percent, compared with Hudson’s 132,692 votes, or 48.9 percent, according to the Associated Press.

Hudson’s defeat marked the loss of the NRCC chairman’s own congressional seat in a district Republicans had held since 1963, according to NBC News. The NRCC is the official Republican Party organization responsible for winning or maintaining a majority in the House of Representatives.

Following his victory, Ojeda celebrated the defeat of the Republican campaign chief in a post on X.

“WE JUST UNSEATED THE CHAIR OF THE NRCC,” Ojeda wrote. “IT’S A NEW DAY IN AMERICA.”