‘It’s revolting’: More Young Republican chat members out of jobs as condemnation intensifies

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.”