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 “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM” – referring to an organisation called Restore YR, a young Republicans movement – included members of Young Republican organisations in different states, and related organisations.

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.

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, while some have lost their jobs with elected officials.

What was in the messages?

Politico reported that the chat spanned 2,900 pages of messages. Themes of discussions included:

Nazi support and calls for violence

Giunta, the former chair of NYSR, a political organisation of young members of the Republican Party in New York, wrote “I love Hitler” in one of the messages.

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.

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In another somewhat convoluted message, Giunta wrote: “Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber. And everyone that endorsed but then votes for us is going to the gas chamber,” 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.

“I’m going to create some of the greatest physiological torture methods known to man,” Giunta continued in his message.

“Can we fix the showers? Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” 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 shared by Politico. Maligno has now removed both of these designations from his bio.

“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Kaykaty wrote.

Racism and 251 slurs

Participants in the chats used racist, ableist and homophobic slurs 251 times in the chat obtained by Politico.

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

The members of the chat also referred to Black people as “monkeys” and “the watermelon people”, 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 “watermelon people” in separate messages.

When one member asked the group if they were watching a National Basketball Association (NBA) match, Giunta replied: “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkeys play ball.”

In another message, Walker stated that a mutual friend had “dated this very obese Indian woman for a period of time”.

Giunta responded, saying the woman was not Indian.

Then, Samuel Douglass, a state senator from northern Vermont – who, according to his profile from the state’s legislature, plays the classical piano and violin, and keeps goats, chicken, ducks and bees on his family farm – interjected, writing: “She just didn’t bathe often.”

On another occasion, Douglass’ wife joined in the chat, making a racist, antisemitic reference to “expecting the Jew to be honest”.

In another message, Walker wrote: “My people built the train tracks with the Chinese”, referring to his Italian ancestry. In response, Maligno wrote: “Let his people go! Keep the ch–ks, though.”

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Misogyny and rape jokes

On a separate occasion, Giunta wrote: “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.”

At another point, Luke Mosiman, the chair of Arizona Young Republicans, wrote: “The Spanish came to America and had sex with every single woman.”

“Sex is gay,” Dwyer replied. “Sex? It was rape,” Mosiman said.

Donald Trump

Politico also reported that the group chat members “spoke freely about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO [Republican in name only]”. They also appeared to criticise the president for allegedly suppressing documents related to the late, disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex crimes.

In one message, Dwyer wrote: “Trump’s too busy burning the Epstein files.”

How did the chat come to light?

It is unclear how Politico obtained the chat.

Its report revealed that at least one person in the Telegram was a Trump administration official – Michael Bartels. He is listed on his LinkedIn as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the US Small Business Administration.

While Bartels “did not write much” in the chat, according to Politico, he also did not object to any of the offensive messages that appeared there.

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.

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 – a separate organisation which is “in conflict” with NYSR, according to Politico – pressured him in a phone call to release the entire 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 said in the affidavit. “My position within the New York Young Republican Club was directly threatened.” He did not give details about the alleged breach or expand on what information he had given.

Giunta then alleged that Wax was the person who leaked the chats to Politico.

What have members of the chat group said about the scandal?

Politico reported that Dwyer and Kaykaty declined to comment while Maligno and Hendrix did not respond at all.

Peter Giunta

According to Politico, Giunta claimed the leak was part of “a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club”.

“These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to Politico by the very same people conspiring against me,” said Giunta.

“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.”

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Giunta did apologise but also claimed the messages in the leak had been “doctored”.

“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.”

Bobby Walker

Walker also claimed the messages had been altered, but also apologised.

“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely apologise,” Walker said.

“This 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.”

However, he added that the messages “may have been altered, taken out of context, or otherwise manipulated”, adding that the “private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm”.

Samuel Douglass

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.

Douglass said in a written statement: “My 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’t check this group chat and I was unfortunately unaware of those comments. I should’ve been more vigilant, more careful, and less naive about who I associate with and my digital environments.”

He added that his message in the chat about a woman not bathing regularly “was not a generalisation and doesn’t represent my views or character”.

“I apologise so deeply to my constituents and colleagues that our county and state have been dragged into this,” Douglass said. “I am currently weighing all my options to ensure that the outcome of this is what’s best for the safety and wellbeing of my family and my constituency.”

How have others reacted?

Following a request for comment by Politico, a White House spokesperson said: “Only 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.”

The spokesperson added that “no one has been subjected to more vicious rhetoric and violence than President Trump and his supporters”.

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: “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do”, during an appearance on The Charlie Kirk Show on Wednesday.

“And I really don’t 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.”

New York governor, Democrat Kathy Hochul, expressed anger over the messages during a news conference on Tuesday. She said: “This is so vile it’s 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’s skin.”

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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.

In a statement, Ortt called for the resignations of the group’s members from positions within the Republican Party, saying: “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.”

Republican Congressman from New York, Michael Lawler, posted a statement on his X account on October 14, calling the messages “disgusting” and saying of the group members: “They should resign from any leadership position immediately and reflect on how far they have strayed from basic human respect and decency.”

Which members of the chat group have lost their positions?

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.

Additionally, Hendrix, the vice chair of the Kansas chapter, has lost his job as a staffer for Kansas Attorney General Republican Kris Kobach.

“The comments in the chat are inexcusable,” Kobach said in a statement. “As soon as the office learned of those messages, Will Hendrix’s employment was terminated.”

Walker, who was set to join New York Republican Peter Oberacker’s congressional campaign, had his job offer rescinded.