‘It’s revolting’: More Young Republican chat members out of
jobs as condemnation intensifies
POLITICO report on private Telegram chat filled with racist
slurs and tropes ignites debate from New York to Washington.
Bobby Walker speaks.
Bobby Walker and other young Republicans who took part in an
epithet-filled Telegram chat are out of jobs after POLITICO began asking
questions about their statements. | NYSYR
By Emily Ngo and Jason Beeferman
10/14/2025 09:35 PM EDT
NEW YORK — Two more members of a Young Republican group chat
strewn with racist epithets and hateful jokes stepped down from their jobs
Tuesday after POLITICO published an exclusive report on the Telegram exchanges.
Peter Giunta’s time working with New York Assemblymember
Mike Reilly “has ended,” the Republican lawmaker said. Giunta served as chair
of the New York State Young Republicans when the chat took place. Joseph
Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for that
group, is no longer an employee of the New York State Unified Court System, a
courts spokesperson confirmed.
Another chat member, Vermont state Senator Sam Douglass,
faced mounting calls for his resignation as well, including from the state’s
Gov. Phil Scott, a Republican, and Douglass’ fellow Republican lawmakers, who
called his statements “deeply disturbing.”
POLITICO’s in-depth look into how one group of Young
Republicans spoke privately was met Tuesday with widespread condemnation in New
York, Washington and beyond. The members of the chat — 2,900 pages of which
were leaked and reviewed by POLITICO — called Black people monkeys, repeatedly
used slurs for gay, Black, Latino and Asian people, and jokingly celebrated
Adolf Hitler.
In a bipartisan outcry, members of Congress and other
political leaders from around the country said they were appalled by the
contents of the group chat. The board of directors of the National Young
Republicans said every member of the chat “must immediately resign” their state
organization.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, speaking on the Senate
floor, described the chat as “revolting” and “disgusting.”
“If this report is accurate, every single Republican leader
from President Trump on down … ought to condemn these comments swiftly and
unequivocally,” Schumer said.
Vice President JD Vance had a different view and broke with
Republicans who broadly condemned the comments within the chat.
On X Tuesday night, Vance drew attention to Democratic
candidate for Virginia attorney general Jay Jones, who texted a 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
with a screenshot of the text exchange. “I refuse to join the pearl clutching
when powerful people call for political violence.”
The fallout over the Telegram group chat comes after two
others in the slur-laced private exchanges saw their job statuses change before
the article even published. William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice
chair at the time of the chat, is “no longer employed” at Kansas Attorney
General Kris Kobach’s office. Bobby Walker, who was chair of the New York State
Young Republicans as of Tuesday, will not be brought onto New York
congressional candidate Peter Oberacker’s campaign as originally planned.
Maligno and Douglass did not respond to repeated requests
for comment. In separate statements, both Giunta and Walker apologized for the
messages they wrote in the chat but questioned whether they had been altered or
taken out of context. They also attempted to blame the release of their chat on
the New York Young Republican Club, a political group that operates at the city
level and which is often at odds with the state group.
“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,”
Giunta said. “These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to
POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me in what appears to be a
highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the
New York City Young Republican Club.”
Walker struck a similar tone.
“There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages
attributed to me. The language is wrong and hurtful, and I sincerely
apologize,” he said. “It’s troubling that private exchanges were obtained and
released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm, and the circumstances raise
real questions about accuracy and motive but none of that excuses the language.
This has been a painful lesson about judgment and trust.”
Wax declined POLITICO’s request for comment.
New York Republican leaders, including Rep. Elise Stefanik,
state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt and state party chair Ed Cox, had
preemptively denounced the chat as POLITICO reported out the story.
“We are appalled by the vile and inexcusable language
revealed in the Politico article published today. Such behavior is disgraceful,
unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our
movement represents,” the National Young Republicans group said Tuesday in a
statement posted on X.
New York Democrats piled on after the conversations became
public.
“Take them out of the party, take away their official roles,
stop using them as campaign advisers. There needs to be consequences. This
bullshit has to stop,” Gov. Kathy Hochul told reporters.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted an image of
POLITICO’s article on Instagram and wrote: “These are sick people. Every single
one of these racists and antisemites must be publicly exposed and held
accountable.”
Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus,
quoted from the article — “Monkeys” “Watermelon people” “1488” — and added on
X, “But when we say white supremacy is thriving on the right, they call us
reactionary… Give me a break. The future of the Republican Party proudly
embraces bigotry that belongs in the past, and every American needs to
recognize how dangerous that is.”
Rep. Grace Meng, chair of the Congressional Asian Pacific
American Caucus, said in a statement that “their willingness to engage in such
vile rhetoric behind closed doors speaks volumes to their character and the
tone set by our nation’s leaders.”
POLITICO’s reporting on the thousands of messages shared
among a dozen Young Republican club members between January and August also
reverberated Tuesday in one of the country’s most contentious congressional
battlegrounds.
The Democrat-aligned House Majority PAC shared photos of
Giunta and Walker with vulnerable New York GOP Rep. Mike Lawler at local GOP
events. And some of Lawler’s Democratic challengers, including Beth Davidson,
Cait Conley and Mike Sacks, amplified the connection between the New York
Republicans.
“You are the company you keep,” Conley wrote on X.
Lawler, who represents the suburbs north of New York City,
disavowed the chat members and called for their resignations.
“The deeply offensive and hateful comments reportedly made
in a private chat among members of the New York State Young Republicans are
disgusting,” his spokesperson Ciro Riccardi said in a statement. “They should
resign from any leadership position immediately and reflect on how far they
have strayed from basic human respect and decency.”
Ahead of next year’s midterms, the union- and
Democrat-backed Battleground New York PAC ramped up the pressure on the state’s
GOP representatives.
“These racist, anti-Semitic, and disgusting texts need to be
disavowed, full stop, by New York Republicans,” the group’s spokesperson Andrew
Grossman said. “Then, New York Republicans need to come clean about the rot
within their party that even led to this moment.”
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