Leaked group chats show Young Republican leaders nationwide praising Hitler, making “jokes” about racism, slavery, rape, and Holocaust gas chambers, and routinely using racial and anti-gay slurs to describe ideological opponents — including fellow Republicans, according to a bombshell report from Politico.

The Telegram chat logs — some 2,900 pages of dialogue spanning January through mid-August 2025 — were obtained by the D.C.-based outlet while it investigated a separate story about the group’s debts and alleged financial mismanagement.

The logs — containing messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont — chronicle the insurgent “Restore YR” effort to seize control of the Young Republican National Federation (a group for conservatives aged 18 to 40) and remold it into an organization that unquestioningly supports President Donald Trump’s current actions in office.

Led by New York State Young Republicans chair Peter Giunta, Restore YR clashed with a rival slate, Grow YR, led by current YRNF chair Hayden Padgett. Restore YR accused the incumbent leadership of being insufficiently pro-Trump and even of working against him. At the Young Republican National Convention in August, the group’s efforts fell short, with Grow YR’s Padgett narrowly winning re-election as YRNF’s chair.

Many members of the Telegram chat work in government or Republican politics — including one state senator — and several are now facing fallout from the leak, including Bobby Walker, the chair of the New York State Young Republicans, who will not be brought onto New York congressional candidate Peter Oberacker’s (R-Merrick) campaign.

New York Assemblymember Mike Reilly (R-Staten Island) — for whom Giunta, the leader of the Restore YR slate, worked — told Politico that the Republican operative’s time working with Reilly “has ended.”

The Telegram logs suggest the chat served as a kind of “safe space” for young Republican operatives, where participants freely used cavalier language, racial and anti-gay slurs, and joked about taboo subjects in what they believed was a private forum among ideological allies.

The logs show members referring to Black people as “monkeys” and “the watermelon people,” trading off-color jokes about rape, gas chambers, and driving political enemies to suicide, and routinely using slurs such as f****tt (sic), “retarded,” and the n-word.

According to Politico, William Hendrix, the former Kansas Young Republicans vice chair, used variations of the n-word more than a dozen times in the chat. He also made racially tinged remarks about a Black customer, writing, “Bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and kool aid with that?”

Hendrix also wrote that, despite political differences, he was drawn to Missouri’s Young Republican organization because “Missouri doesn’t like f*gs.”

Politico reports that Giunta was the most prominent voice in the chat promoting racist and bigoted messages or making light of Hitler and the Holocaust — several of which were “liked” by other members.

In one exchange, Alex Dwyer, chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, told Giunta that a Michigan Young Republicans member had promised the group “will vote for the most right-wing person” to lead the YRNF.

“Great. I love Hitler,” Giunta replied, and Dwyer reacted with a smiley face.

In a February conversation, Giunta praised the Orange County Teenage Republican organization in New York — part of the national Teen Age Republicans network — saying he was pleased with its young members’ ideological leanings.

“They support slavery and all that shit. Mega based,” he wrote, using an online term expressing approval of a bold or controversial idea, regardless of how others might react.

Orange County GOP chair Courtney Canfield Greene told Politico the party was disappointed that its teen group was mentioned in the chat and sought to distance the volunteers from the YRNF and the New York State Young Republicans.

In a June chat about his campaign for YRNF chair against Padgett, Giunta wrote that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”

“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” Joseph Maligno, a former New York State Young Republicans counsel, responded.

“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committee member, replied.

Group members were especially vicious toward rivals aligned with the Grow YR slate, particularly its leader, Hayden Padgett.

“So you mean Hayden F****t wrote the resolution himself?” Giunta asked the group in late May about the National Young Republicans chair.

Giunta also hurled anti-gay slurs, insults, and threats at Young Republicans in states that appeared to favor Padgett over him.

“Minnesota – f****ts,” he wrote. “Arkansas – inbred cow fuckers… Maryland – fat stinky Jew… Rhode Island — traitorous c**ts who I will eradicate from the face of this planet.”

He added that he planned to make one of his competitors “unalive himself on the convention floor.”

Both Giunta and Walker later issued statements apologizing for their comments while questioning whether the chat logs had been altered.

Padgett, meanwhile, condemned the Restore YR members’ chats.

“The Young Republican National Federation condemns all forms of racism, antisemitism, and hate,” Padgett said in a statement. “Such behavior is entirely inconsistent with our values and has no place within our organization or the broader conservative movement.”

New York State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R-North Tonawanda) and Rep. Elise Stefanik denounced the anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric in the chat as “indefensible,” “heinous,” and “unacceptable,” calling on those involved to resign from positions of power in the organization.

Vice President JD Vance broke with other Republicans who condemned the chat, arguing on X that Restore YR members were being held to a different standard than former Virginia Del. Jay Jones (D-Norfolk), a Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general who came under fire for texting a Republican colleague about shooting the then-Republican House speaker and wishing harm on his children.

“This is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,” Vance wrote alongside Jones’ message to Del. Carrie Coyner (R-Chesterfield). “I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.”

But a review of the Young Republicans’ chat messages indicates members were also aware of how controversial their remarks could be.

Walker seemed most aware of the potential fallout, writing, “If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr.”

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