You're going to be shocked by this-- Make sure you are sitting down!
NEW YORK — Leaders of Young Republican groups throughout the country worried what would happen if their Telegram chat ever got leaked, but they kept typing anyway.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.
“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.
Two members of the chat responded.
“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, wrote back.
“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committee member, said.
The exchange is part of a trove of Telegram chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than seven months of messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.
Since POLITICO began making inquiries, one member of the group chat is no longer employed at their job and another’s job offer was rescinded. Prominent New York Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik and state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, have denounced the chat. And festering resentments among Young Republicans have now turned into public recriminations, including allegations of character assassination and extortion.
Together, the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely — and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders.
“The more the political atmosphere is open and liberating — like it has been with the emergence of Trump and a more right wing GOP even before him — it opens up young people and older people to telling racist jokes, making racist commentaries in private and public,” said Joe Feagin, a Texas A&M sociology professor who has studied racism for the last 60 years. He’s also concerned the words would be applied to public policy. “It’s chilling, of course, because they will act on these views.”
The dynamic of easy racism and casual cruelty played out in often dark, vivid fashion inside the chats, where campaign talk and party gossip blurred into streams of slurs and violent fantasies.
The group chat members spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO, the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing and the president’s alleged work to suppress documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex crimes.
“Trumps too busy burning the Epstein files,” Alex Dwyer, the chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, wrote in one instance.
Dwyer and Kaykaty declined to comment. Maligno and Hendrix did not return requests for comment.
But some involved in the chat did respond publicly.
Giunta claimed the release of the chat is part of “a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club” — an allusion to a once obscured internecine war that has now spilled into the open.
“These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me,” he said. “What’s most disheartening is that, despite my unwavering support of President Trump since 2016, rouge [sic] members of his administration — including Gavin Wax — have participated in this conspiracy to ruin me publicly simply because I challenged them privately.”
Wax, a staffer in Trump’s State Department, formerly led the New York Young Republican Club — a separate, city-based group that is at odds with the state organization, the New York State Young Republicans. He declined to comment.
Despite his allusions to infighting, Giunta still apologized.
“I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans,” he said. “While I take complete responsibility, I have had no way of verifying their accuracy and am deeply concerned that the message logs in question may have been deceptively doctored.”
At least one person in the Telegram chat works in the Trump administration: Michael Bartels, who, according to his LinkedIn account, serves as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bartels did not have much to say in the chat, but he didn’t offer any pushback against the offensive rhetoric in it either. He declined to comment.
A notarized affidavit signed by Bartels and obtained by POLITICO also sheds light on the intraparty rivalry that led the “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” Telegram chat to be made public. Bartels references Wax as well. He wrote that he did not give POLITICO the chat and that Wax “demanded” in a phone call that he provide the full chat log.
“When I attempted to resist that demand, after providing some of the requested information, Wax threatened my professional standing, and raised the possibility of potential legal action related to an alleged breach of a non-disclosure agreement,” Bartels claimed in the affidavit. “My position within the New York Young Republican Club was directly threatened.”
Walker, who now leads the New York State Young Republicans, touched on a similar theme, saying that he believes portions of the chat “may have been altered, taken out of context, or otherwise manipulated” and that the “private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm.”
He also apologized.
“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologize,” Walker said. “This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust, and I am committed to moving forward with greater care, respect, and accountability in everything I say and do.”
In one instance, Walker — who at the time was a staffer for Ortt — talked about how a mutual friend of some in the chat “dated this very obese Indian woman for a period of time.”
Giunta responded that the woman “was not Indian.”
“She just didn’t bathe often,” Samuel Douglass, a state senator from northern Vermont and the head of the state’s Young Republicans, replied to Giunta.
In a separate conversation, Giunta shared that his flight to Charleston, South Carolina, landed safely. Then, he offered some advice for his fellow Young Republicans.
“If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word,” Giunta wrote.
Douglass did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, Ortt called for members of the chat to resign.
“I was shocked and disgusted to learn about the racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments attributed to members of the New York State Young Republicans,” Ortt said. “This behavior is indefensible and has no place in our party or anywhere in public life.”
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‘I love Hitler’: Leaked messages expose Young Republicans’ racist chat
Thousands of private messages reveal young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers, slavery and rape.
They referred to Black people as monkeys and “the watermelon people” and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
Giunta was referring to an upcoming vote on whether he should become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the GOP’s 15,000-member political organization for Republicans between 18 and 40 years old.
“Im going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man. We only want true believers,” he continued.
Two members of the chat responded.
“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, wrote back.
“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committee member, said.
The exchange is part of a trove of Telegram chats — obtained by POLITICO and spanning more than seven months of messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. The chat offers an unfiltered look at how a new generation of GOP activists talk when they think no one is listening.
Since POLITICO began making inquiries, one member of the group chat is no longer employed at their job and another’s job offer was rescinded. Prominent New York Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik and state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, have denounced the chat. And festering resentments among Young Republicans have now turned into public recriminations, including allegations of character assassination and extortion.
A liberating atmosphere
The 2,900 pages of chats, shared among a dozen millennial and Gen Z Republicans between early January and mid-August, chronicle their campaign to seize control of the national Young Republican organization on a hardline pro-Donald Trump platform. Many of the chat members already work inside government or party politics, and one serves as a state senator.Together, the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely — and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders.
“The more the political atmosphere is open and liberating — like it has been with the emergence of Trump and a more right wing GOP even before him — it opens up young people and older people to telling racist jokes, making racist commentaries in private and public,” said Joe Feagin, a Texas A&M sociology professor who has studied racism for the last 60 years. He’s also concerned the words would be applied to public policy. “It’s chilling, of course, because they will act on these views.”
The dynamic of easy racism and casual cruelty played out in often dark, vivid fashion inside the chats, where campaign talk and party gossip blurred into streams of slurs and violent fantasies.
The group chat members spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO, the love of Nazis within their party’s right wing and the president’s alleged work to suppress documents related to wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex crimes.
“Trumps too busy burning the Epstein files,” Alex Dwyer, the chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, wrote in one instance.
Dwyer and Kaykaty declined to comment. Maligno and Hendrix did not return requests for comment.
But some involved in the chat did respond publicly.
Giunta claimed the release of the chat is part of “a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club” — an allusion to a once obscured internecine war that has now spilled into the open.
“These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me,” he said. “What’s most disheartening is that, despite my unwavering support of President Trump since 2016, rouge [sic] members of his administration — including Gavin Wax — have participated in this conspiracy to ruin me publicly simply because I challenged them privately.”
Wax, a staffer in Trump’s State Department, formerly led the New York Young Republican Club — a separate, city-based group that is at odds with the state organization, the New York State Young Republicans. He declined to comment.
Despite his allusions to infighting, Giunta still apologized.
“I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans,” he said. “While I take complete responsibility, I have had no way of verifying their accuracy and am deeply concerned that the message logs in question may have been deceptively doctored.”
At least one person in the Telegram chat works in the Trump administration: Michael Bartels, who, according to his LinkedIn account, serves as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bartels did not have much to say in the chat, but he didn’t offer any pushback against the offensive rhetoric in it either. He declined to comment.
A notarized affidavit signed by Bartels and obtained by POLITICO also sheds light on the intraparty rivalry that led the “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” Telegram chat to be made public. Bartels references Wax as well. He wrote that he did not give POLITICO the chat and that Wax “demanded” in a phone call that he provide the full chat log.
“When I attempted to resist that demand, after providing some of the requested information, Wax threatened my professional standing, and raised the possibility of potential legal action related to an alleged breach of a non-disclosure agreement,” Bartels claimed in the affidavit. “My position within the New York Young Republican Club was directly threatened.”
Walker, who now leads the New York State Young Republicans, touched on a similar theme, saying that he believes portions of the chat “may have been altered, taken out of context, or otherwise manipulated” and that the “private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm.”
He also apologized.
“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologize,” Walker said. “This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust, and I am committed to moving forward with greater care, respect, and accountability in everything I say and do.”
251 times
Mixed into formal conversations about whipping votes, social media strategy and logistics, the members of the chat slung around an array of slurs — which POLITICO is republishing to show how they spoke. Epithets like “f----t,” “retarded” and “n--ga” appeared more than 251 times combined.In one instance, Walker — who at the time was a staffer for Ortt — talked about how a mutual friend of some in the chat “dated this very obese Indian woman for a period of time.”
Giunta responded that the woman “was not Indian.”
“She just didn’t bathe often,” Samuel Douglass, a state senator from northern Vermont and the head of the state’s Young Republicans, replied to Giunta.
In a separate conversation, Giunta shared that his flight to Charleston, South Carolina, landed safely. Then, he offered some advice for his fellow Young Republicans.
“If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word,” Giunta wrote.
Douglass did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement, Ortt called for members of the chat to resign.
“I was shocked and disgusted to learn about the racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments attributed to members of the New York State Young Republicans,” Ortt said. “This behavior is indefensible and has no place in our party or anywhere in public life.”
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