Oct. 17 (UPI) — New York Republican Party leaders on Friday voted unanimously to disband the state’s Young Republicans chapter after a group chat involving some of their members included racist and antisemitic comments.
The 2,900 pages of messages posted on Telegram also involved Republicans in Arizona, Kansas and Vermont, according to a Politico report. The messages from January to August included calling for gas chambers, expressing love for Adolf Hitler and endorsing rape.
On Tuesday, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party deactivated the Kansas organization.
New York’s executive committee suspended the authorization of men and women 18 to 40 to operate in the state, Politico website and The Hill reported.
“The Young Republicans was already grossly mismanaged, and vile language of the sort made in the group chat has no place in our party or its subsidiary organizations,” New York GOP chair Ed Cox said in a statement.
Cox sent a formal notice to the National Federation of Young Republicans.
“Unlike the Democrat Party that embraces anti-Semitic rhetoric and refuses to condemn leaders who call for political violence, Republicans deliver accountability by immediately removing those who use this sort of rhetoric from the positions they hold,” he said. “This incident was immediately condemned by our most senior New York Republican elected leaders.”
The New York group’s Facebook page is not longer available.
Five people linked to New York participated in the chat, including Peter Giunta, a former leader of the state group and Bobby Walker, the vice chair.
Giunta is no longer chief of staff to state Assemblymember Mike Reilly and Walker’s offer to manage state Sen. Peter Oberacker’s congressional bid was pulled. They both apologized for their remarks but questioned whether the chat was altered.
“I love Hitler” is one of the messages associated with Giunta.
“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, a member of the Young Republicans’ national committee, who is also from New York, wrote.
A photo obtained by HuffPost shows Giunta and Kaykaty posing with President Donald Trump at a campaign event in 2024.
Vermont state Sen. Samuel Douglass was revealed as a chat participant.
Elise Stefanik and Mike Lawler, who are House members serving New York districts, condemned the chat.
Democrats denounced their association with the Young Republicans.
“Disgraceful New York Republicans Mike Lawler and Elise Stefanik have been palling around with these racist, antisemitic and bigoted ‘Young Republicans’ for years,” Jeffries wrote Tuesday on X. “Their silence exposes what’s always been true – the phony outrage was nothing more than performance.” Alex Degrasse, a senior adviser to Stefanik, said she “calls for any New York Young Republicans responsible for these horrific comments in this chat to step down immediately,” in a statement to ABC News.
Stefanik fired back at violent rhetoric from Democrats, calling Zohran Mmadani, the party’s New York City candidate a “raging antisemite” on X.
Vice President JD Vance said those messages should not face career-ending punishments.
“The reality is that kids do stupid things,” Vance said in an interview on The Charlie Kirk Show on Wednesday. “Especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do. 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.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday called for a congressional investigation of antisemitic and racist comments.
In 1935, the Young Republican division officially became the Young Republican National Federation.