A massive leak has pulled back the curtain on how some young Republican leaders speak when they think no one’s listening — and it isn’t pretty. More than 2,900 pages of Telegram messages reviewed by Politico reveal a rare, unfiltered look inside their private conversations.
Over seven months, leaders from Young Republicans groups in New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont traded messages that were often hateful, racist, and shocking.
These weren’t just random activists. Some worked with elected officials, while others were trying to climb the ranks of the national Young Republican organization. And they knew the risks. “If we ever had a leak of this chat we would be cooked fr fr,” wrote Bobby Walker, the new chair of the New York State Young Republicans.
But that didn’t stop them. Here’s what they said.
Who are the Young Republicans?
The Young Republican National Federation — often called the Young Republicans or YRs — was founded in 1931. It’s the oldest political youth organization in the country and a key part of the Republican Party’s infrastructure, with about 15,000 members nationwide. For decades, it’s been a training ground and networking hub for young conservatives hoping to work their way into GOP politics.
What the messages revealed
The leaked messages were riddled with hate speech. Anti-LGBTQ+ and racist slurs — including “f*gg*t” “retarded,” and the N-word — appeared more than 250 times.
Hunter Hendrix, who until recently worked as a communications assistant for Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, said he was drawn to Missouri’s Young Republicans because “Missouri doesn’t like f*gs.”
When Arizona Young Republicans chair Luke Mosiman casually mentioned watching an NBA game, Peter Giunta, chair of the Kansas chapter, replied, “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball.” Giunta went on to refer to Black people as “the watermelon people” and praise Republicans who supported slavery.
The slurs didn’t stop there: Asians were targeted, too. “My people built the train tracks with the Chinese,” Walker said at one point. Joe Maligno, who identified himself as the group’s general counsel, responded, “Let his people go! Keep the ch*nks, though.”
The rhetoric escalated further. In one exchange, Alex Dwyer told Giunta that Michigan’s Young Republicans planned to “vote for the most right-wing person” to lead the national organization. Giunta responded: “Great. I love Hitler.” Dwyer replied with a smiley face.
Members even joked about putting political opponents into gas chambers and called the mass rape of Indigenous people “epic.”
The fallout
The backlash was swift. The Young Republican National Federation called on everyone involved in the chat to “immediately resign from all positions” within the organization. And in Kansas, the state chapter was dissolved on Tuesday, just hours after Politico’s reporting came out.
Some members have already lost their jobs. Peter Giunta was fired from his role as chief of staff to New York Assembly member Michael Reilly, who told Staten Island Live: “The comments shared in the group chat that have been reported are extremely troubling and disappointing. They do not align with my values.”
Hunter Hendrix is also out of a job. After Politico shared excerpts of the chat with the office of Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, the office confirmed he’s no longer employed there. And Bobby Walker, who had been slated to manage Republican Peter Oberacker’s congressional campaign in upstate New York, won’t be brought on after all — a campaign spokesperson said the decision was made because of his comments in the chat. And Joseph Maligno, who previously identified himself as the group’s general counsel, is reportedly no longer employed by the New York State Unified Court System.
But not everyone has faced consequences. One member of the group, Michael Bartels, still works in government. According to his LinkedIn profile, he’s a senior adviser in the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bartels didn’t say much in the chat, nor did he push back on the offensive language, and he declined to comment to Politico.
How political leaders responded
Republicans across the country have been quick to distance themselves from the people involved in the chat. Michael Lawler, a New York Republican congressman, called the remarks “disgusting” in a post on X, adding that those responsible should “resign from any leadership position immediately and reflect on how far they have strayed from basic human respect and decency.”
Democrats condemned the comments, too. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer described the chat as “revolting” and “disgusting,” while others pointed to it as part of a broader culture problem inside some corners of the GOP. When asked whether these messages represented the thoughts of a few “bad apples” in a larger political community, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said, “Some bad apples? These are the future of the Republican Party.”
The White House, however, brushed off the controversy, describing the messages as “edgy, offensive jokes.” Vice President J.D. Vance suggested the real issue was how quickly such comments can derail a young person’s career. That response sparked some backlash of its own, but the vice president went even further, drawing a comparison to old texts from Democratic candidate for Virginia attorney general Jay Jones, who had once joked about harming a Republican speaker.
The bigger picture
Experts say what showed up in the chat isn’t happening in a vacuum — it reflects a broader political culture on the right.
Take one example: A joke in the chat about a darker-skinned pilot closely mirrored a line used by the late conservative activist Charlie Kirk last year, when he said, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
Art Jipson, a University of Dayton professor who studies white racial extremism, told Politico the tone of the chat echoes the language regularly used by President Donald Trump. On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump spread false claims that Haitian migrants were eating pets, invited a comedian who mocked Puerto Ricans and Black people to a rally in New York City, and more recently posted an AI-generated video depicting Democratic leaders in racist stereotypes.
“Trump’s persistent use of hostile, often incendiary language that normalizes aggressive discourse in conservative circles can be incredibly influential on young conservatives who are still trying to figure out, ‘What is political discourse?’” Jipson said.
