{"id":3343,"date":"2025-10-17T11:35:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/gas-them-how-a-leaked-pro-nazi-young-republicans-chat-sparked-gop-storm\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:35:51","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T11:35:51","slug":"gas-them-how-a-leaked-pro-nazi-young-republicans-chat-sparked-gop-storm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/2025\/10\/17\/gas-them-how-a-leaked-pro-nazi-young-republicans-chat-sparked-gop-storm\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Gas them\u2019: How a leaked pro-Nazi young Republicans chat sparked GOP storm"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A Telegram chat between young members of the US Republican Party was found rife with racism, anti-Semitism, white supremacist symbols and violent language, Politico revealed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The group chat, called \u201cRESTOREYR WAR ROOM\u201d \u2013 referring to an organisation called Restore YR, a young Republicans movement \u2013 included members of Young Republican organisations in different states, and related organisations.<\/p>\n

Peter Giunta, who US media reported is aged 31 and is the former chair of the New York State Young Republicans (NYSR), said he created the group on Telegram to rally support for his campaign to become chair of the national Young Republicans organisation.<\/p>\n

The messages, which were sent between early January and mid-August this year, have earned condemnation from both Republicans and Democrats, and participants in the Telegram group chat are now facing pressure to resign from positions within Republican organisations,<\/strong> while some have lost their jobs with elected officials.<\/p>\n

What was in the messages?<\/h2>\n

Politico reported that the chat spanned 2,900 pages of messages. Themes of discussions included:<\/p>\n

Nazi support and calls for violence<\/h3>\n

Giunta, the former chair of NYSR, a political organisation of young members of the Republican Party in New York, wrote \u201cI love Hitler\u201d in one of the messages.<\/p>\n

Participants in the chat included Annie Kaykaty, a New York national committee member for the party, and Bobby Walker, who took over as the NYSR chair after Giunta resigned in late September amid allegations of financial mismanagement, including unpaid bills for club events and missing required financial disclosures, a Politico article published at the time revealed.<\/p>\n

In another somewhat convoluted message, Giunta wrote: \u201cEveryone that votes no is going to the gas chamber. And everyone that endorsed but then votes for us is going to the gas chamber,\u201d while discussing his campaign to become chair of the Young Republican National Federation, the official national organisation for young members of the Republican Party aged 18 to 40. While the actual ages of the chat-group members have been widely speculated about on social media platforms, Al Jazeera could not confirm these.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man,\u201d Giunta continued in his message.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we fix the showers? Gas chambers don\u2019t fit the Hitler aesthetic,\u201d replied Joe Maligno, whose bio on X previously stated that he is the general counsel for the NYSR and the vice president for the Staten Island Young Republicans, according to a screenshot<\/a> shared by Politico. Maligno has now removed both of these designations from his bio.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m ready to watch people burn now,\u201d Kaykaty wrote.<\/p>\n

Racism and 251 slurs<\/h3>\n

Participants in the chats used racist, ableist and homophobic slurs 251 times in the chat obtained by Politico.<\/p>\n

William Hendrix, the vice chair of the Kansas Young Republicans organisation, used a variation of the n-word more than a dozen times.<\/p>\n

The members of the chat also referred to Black people as \u201cmonkeys\u201d and \u201cthe watermelon people\u201d, a racist stereotype taken from the history of African slaves growing watermelon to sell as a cash crop. Giunta and Hendrix both made references to \u201cwatermelon people\u201d in separate messages.<\/p>\n

When one member asked the group if they were watching a National Basketball Association (NBA) match, Giunta replied: \u201cI\u2019d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkeys play ball.\u201d<\/p>\n

In another message, Walker stated that a mutual friend had \u201cdated this very obese Indian woman for a period of time\u201d.<\/p>\n

Giunta responded, saying the woman was not Indian.<\/p>\n

Then, Samuel Douglass, a state senator from northern Vermont \u2013 who, according to his profile from the state\u2019s legislature, plays the classical piano and violin, and keeps goats, chicken, ducks and bees on his family farm \u2013 interjected, writing: \u201cShe just didn\u2019t bathe often.\u201d<\/p>\n

On another occasion, Douglass\u2019 wife joined in the chat, making a racist, antisemitic reference to \u201cexpecting the Jew to be honest\u201d.<\/p>\n

In another message, Walker wrote: \u201cMy people built the train tracks with the Chinese\u201d, referring to his Italian ancestry. In response, Maligno wrote: \u201cLet his people go! Keep the ch\u2013ks, though.\u201d<\/p>\n

Misogyny and rape jokes<\/h3>\n

On a separate occasion, Giunta wrote: \u201cIf your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word.\u201d<\/p>\n

At another point, Luke Mosiman, the chair of Arizona Young Republicans, wrote: \u201cThe Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSex is gay,\u201d Dwyer replied. \u201cSex? It was rape,\u201d Mosiman said.<\/p>\n

Donald Trump<\/h3>\n

Politico also reported that the group chat members \u201cspoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO [Republican in name only]\u201d. They also appeared to criticise the president for allegedly suppressing documents<\/a> related to the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein\u2019s child sex crimes.<\/p>\n

In one message, Dwyer wrote: \u201cTrump\u2019s too busy burning the Epstein files.\u201d<\/p>\n

How did the chat come to light?<\/h2>\n

It is unclear how Politico obtained the chat.<\/p>\n

Its report revealed that at least one person in the Telegram was a Trump administration official \u2013 Michael Bartels.\u00a0He is listed on his LinkedIn as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the US Small Business Administration.<\/p>\n

While Bartels \u201cdid not write much\u201d in the chat, according to Politico, he also did not object to any of the offensive messages that appeared there.<\/p>\n

When the chat became public, Bartels denied being the person who had leaked it to Politico. A notarised affidavit he signed, which has been seen by Politico, also revealed that there was conflict between young Republicans in New York.<\/p>\n

In his affidavit, Bartels said that Gavin Wax, 31, a staffer at the US State Department and the former president of the New York Young Republican Club \u2013 a separate organisation which is \u201cin conflict\u201d with NYSR, according to Politico \u2013 pressured him in a phone call to release the entire chat log.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen 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,\u201d Bartels said in the affidavit. \u201cMy position within the New York Young Republican Club was directly threatened.\u201d He did not give details about the alleged breach or expand on what information he had given.<\/p>\n

Giunta then alleged that Wax was the person who leaked the chats to Politico.<\/p>\n

What have members of the chat group said about the scandal?<\/h2>\n

Politico reported that Dwyer and Kaykaty declined to comment while Maligno and Hendrix did not respond at all.<\/p>\n

Peter Giunta<\/h3>\n

According to Politico, <\/b>Giunta claimed the leak was part of \u201ca highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to Politico by the very same people conspiring against me,\u201d said Giunta.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s most disheartening is that, despite my unwavering support of President Trump since 2016, rouge [sic] members of his administration \u2013 including Gavin Wax \u2013 have participated in this conspiracy to ruin me publicly simply because I challenged them privately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giunta did apologise but also claimed the messages in the leak had been \u201cdoctored\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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\u00a0during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans,\u201d he said. \u201cWhile 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bobby Walker<\/h3>\n

Walker also claimed the messages had been altered, but also apologised.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologise,\u201d Walker said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis has been a painful lesson about judgement and trust, and I am committed to moving forward with greater care, respect and accountability in everything I say and do.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, he added that the messages \u201cmay have been altered, taken out of context, or otherwise manipulated\u201d, adding that the \u201cprivate exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm\u201d.<\/p>\n

Samuel Douglass<\/h3>\n

On Wednesday, the Vermont state senator said he had not decided whether he should resign, as he has been pressed to do by Republican Governor Phil Scott and other GOP leaders in the Vermont House and Senate.<\/p>\n

Douglass said in a written statement: \u201cMy role in the group chat in question was a procedural one about bylaws and floor strategy. There were often periods of multiple days when I didn\u2019t check this group chat and I was unfortunately unaware of those comments. I should\u2019ve been more vigilant, more careful, and less naive about who I associate with and my digital environments.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added that his message in the chat about a woman not bathing regularly \u201cwas not a generalisation and doesn\u2019t represent my views or character\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI apologise so deeply to my constituents and colleagues that our county and state have been dragged into this,\u201d Douglass said. \u201cI am currently weighing all my options to ensure that the outcome of this is what\u2019s best for the safety and wellbeing of my family and my constituency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Vance\"
Vice President JD Vance, pictured at a meeting with UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy on August 8, 2025, has dismissed the furore over the Young Republicans\u2019 group chat as \u2018kids\u2019 doing \u2018stupid things\u2019 [File: Kin Cheung \u2013 Pool\/Getty Images]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

How have others reacted?<\/h2>\n

Following a request for comment by Politico, a White House spokesperson said: \u201cOnly an activist, left-wing reporter would desperately try to tie President Trump into a story about a random group chat he has no affiliation with, while failing to mention the dangerous smears coming from Democrat politicians who have fantasised about murdering their opponent and called Republicans Nazis and Fascists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The spokesperson added that \u201cno one has been subjected to more vicious rhetoric and violence than President Trump and his supporters\u201d.<\/p>\n

US Vice President JD Vance brushed off the message leak. Despite the members of the group chat being understood to be aged in their late 20s and early 30s, he said: \u201cThe reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that\u2019s what kids do\u201d, during an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I really don\u2019t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke, is cause to ruin their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

New York governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, expressed anger over the messages during a news conference on Tuesday. She said: \u201cThis is so vile it\u2019s hard to find the words to put into context that these are people who are part of one of two major parties and they believe in gas chambers and rape and discrimination based on the colour of people\u2019s skin.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republicans from New York also condemned the chat, including Rob Ortt, the Minority Leader in the state senate, and Representative Elise Stefanik of the US House of Representatives.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Ortt called for the resignations of the group\u2019s members from positions within the Republican Party,\u00a0saying: \u201cI was shocked and disgusted to learn about the racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments attributed to members of the New York State Young Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Congressman from New York, Michael Lawler, posted a statement on his X account on October 14, calling the messages \u201cdisgusting\u201d and saying of the group members: \u201cThey should resign from any leadership position immediately and reflect on how far they have strayed from basic human respect and decency.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

The deeply offensive and hateful comments reportedly made in a private chat among members of the New York State Young Republicans are disgusting. They should resign from any leadership position immediately and reflect on how far they have strayed from basic human respect and\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/gWuhczzolv<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Congressman Mike Lawler (@RepMikeLawler) October 14, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which members of the chat group have lost their positions?<\/h2>\n

On October 14, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party announced that the Politico article prompted Republican leaders to close down the Kansas Young Republican chapter, local media reported.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Hendrix, the vice chair of the Kansas chapter, has lost his job as a staffer for Kansas Attorney General Republican Kris Kobach.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe comments in the chat are inexcusable,\u201d Kobach said in a statement. \u201cAs soon as the office learned of those messages, Will Hendrix\u2019s employment was terminated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Walker, who was set to join New York Republican Peter Oberacker\u2019s congressional campaign, had his job offer rescinded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Telegram chat between young members of the US Republican Party was found rife with racism, anti-Semitism, white supremacist symbols and violent language, Politico revealed on Tuesday. The group chat, called \u201cRESTOREYR WAR ROOM\u201d \u2013 referring to an organisation called Restore YR, a young Republicans movement \u2013 included members of Young Republican organisations in different … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pronews.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}