A treasure trove of leaked Telegram chats among the leadership of the Young Republicans exposed a mixture of racist comments, rape fantasies, and suggestions on how to drive their opponents to suicide.
According to a bombshell report from Politico’s Jason Beeferman and Emily Ngo, there were jokes about “loving Hitler,” how to construct gas chambers, with one woman, Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committeewoman, chiming in with, “I’m ready to watch people burn now.”
The report notes that, despite cautioning each other about what they wrote, “They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery.”
According to Politico, the chats spanned “more than seven months of messages among Young Republican leaders in New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont,” adding that since Politico followed up with inquiries, “one member of the group chat is no longer employed at their job and another’s job offer was rescinded. Prominent New York Republicans, including Rep. Elise Stefanik and state Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt, have denounced the chat.”
Peter Giunta of the New York State Young Republicans, who was an active participant, objected to the exposure, claiming it was “a highly-coordinated year-long character assassination led by Gavin Wax and the New York City Young Republican Club.”
He added, “These logs were sourced by way of extortion and provided to POLITICO by the very same people conspiring against me. 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.”
The report adds, “At least one person in the Telegram chat works in the Trump administration: Michael Bartels, who, according to his LinkedIn account, serves as a senior adviser in the office of general counsel within the U.S. Small Business Administration. Bartels did not have much to say in the chat, but he didn’t offer any pushback against the offensive rhetoric in it either. He declined to comment.”
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