- New York GOP unanimously disbanded its Young Republicans chapter after a leaked Telegram chat revealed racist, homophobic, and antisemitic messages from leaders.
- Prominent members, including Peter Giunta and Bobby Walker, faced firings, campaign cuts, and public condemnation amid documented hateful remarks.
- The scandal prompted national fallout, party rebukes, and questions about rebuilding the GOP youth wing’s reputation and leadership.
ALBANY, N.Y. — The New York State Republican Party took decisive action Friday, unanimously voting to disband its Young Republicans chapter after an explosive report revealed a private Telegram chat filled with racist, homophobic, and antisemitic messages from its leaders.
The move, which strips the group of its charter and voting rights within the state party’s executive committee, marks a rare purge aimed at salvaging the party’s image amid mounting backlash from both within its ranks and across the political aisle.
The fallout began earlier this week when Politico published details from 2,900 pages of exchanges spanning seven months, from January to mid-August, in a chat dubbed the “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM.”
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The conversation involved a dozen young GOP activists plotting to seize control of the national Young Republican organization.
What emerged was a stream of vitriol that included praise for Adolf Hitler, jokes about gas chambers, racial slurs directed at Black people, and casual endorsements of sexual violence.
Participants hailed from New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont chapters, but the New York contingent drew the sharpest scrutiny.
Details of the Racial Messages
Peter Giunta, the former chairman of the New York State Young Republican Club, emerged as one of the most prolific voices in the chat.
According to Politico’s reporting, Giunta posted, “I love Hitler,” and in another exchange, responded to a question about watching an NBA playoff game by saying, “I’d go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkeys play ball.”
He also referred to Black people as “the watermelon people” and, during a discussion about a leadership vote, threatened, “Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber. And everyone that endorsed but then votes for us is going to the gas chamber.”
Giunta, who had been chief of staff to Assemblyman Mike Reilly (R-Staten Island), was fired from that role shortly after the story broke.
Reilly confirmed the termination, stating simply that Giunta’s time working for him “has ended.”
Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York group at the time and its current chair, also faced swift consequences. Walker called rape “epic” in one message and used homophobic slurs repeatedly, including multiple instances of the f-word.
He had been slated to join the congressional campaign of State Sen. Peter Oberacker (R-Binghamton), who is running for a seat covering the Catskills and Hudson Valley.
That offer was rescinded, with Oberacker’s team citing the revelations as incompatible with their values. In the chat, Walker himself acknowledged the peril, writing, “If we ever had a leak of this chat, we would be cooked.”
Both Giunta and Walker issued apologies but tempered them with skepticism about the messages’ authenticity.
They suggested the texts might have been doctored or taken out of context, while blaming the leak on rivalries with the separate New York Young Republican Club, a Manhattan-based group known for its own history of controversy.
A History of Controversies Now Closed
That city chapter, founded in 1911 as the oldest and largest in the U.S., has drawn fire in recent years for hosting maskless galas during the COVID-19 pandemic—attended by figures like Rep. Matt Gaetz and James O’Keefe—and endorsing far-right causes, including Jair Bolsonaro’s 2022 reelection bid in Brazil and unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud there.
In 2022, it threw a gala where Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene quipped that if she and Stephen K. Bannon had led the January 6 Capitol attack, “we would have won” and “it would have been armed.”
The New York State Young Republicans, distinct from the city group and affiliated directly with the state party, had already been plagued by internal strife and financial woes before the chat surfaced.
Ed Cox, the state Republican chairman, condemned the language publicly and spearheaded Friday’s virtual meeting.
In a statement, Cox said, “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.”
The vote suspends the chapter’s statewide operations indefinitely, though sources familiar with the discussions told Newsday it could be reconstituted later with fresh leadership—a “fresh start,” as one anonymous state Republican put it.
The scandal rippled far beyond New York. In Kansas, Republicans had already disbanded their Young Republicans group in response to similar messages from its vice chair, William Hendrix, who used racial slurs over a dozen times and is now out of a job at Attorney General Kris Kobach’s office.
Arizona’s Luke Mosiman, former chair there, lost his position at the Center for Arizona Policy.
Vermont State Sen. Samuel Douglass, who made antisemitic remarks including Nazi references, is under intense pressure to resign, with calls coming from Gov. Phil Scott (R) and his own party colleagues, who deemed the comments “deeply disturbing.”
Joseph Maligno, who identified as general counsel for the New York group, chimed in on the gas chamber thread with, “Gas chambers don’t fit the Hitler aesthetic,” before being let go from the New York State Unified Court System.
Annie Kaykaty, a national committeewoman for the New York chapter, wrote, “I’m ready to watch people burn now,” and was subsequently fired from her counseling job at Xaverian Private Day School in Brooklyn.
Nationally, the Young Republican National Federation—representing thousands of members aged 18 to 40—issued a statement calling the messages “vile and inexcusable” and demanding immediate resignations.
Even Vice President JD Vance downplayed it as a “college group chat,” drawing criticism for not fully condemning the content.
Democrats and Republicans Weigh in on the Seriousness of the Matter
Democrats pounced, with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries tweeting photos of Reps. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) alongside chat participants, writing, “Disgraceful New York Republicans Mike Lawler and Elise Stefanik have been palling around with these racist, antisemitic and bigoted ‘Young Republicans’ for years.”
Stefanik, who had endorsed Giunta for national Young Republican chair earlier this year—praising him at the group’s August convention as part of the party’s “backbone”—quickly distanced herself.
Her spokesperson said she was “absolutely appalled” and called for those responsible to “step down immediately.”
But she fired back at critics, labeling Politico’s report a “hit piece” and pivoting to attack Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) for endorsing Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist and New York City mayoral candidate, whom Stefanik branded an “Antisemite Defund the Police Communist who embraces and campaigns with terrorist sympathizers.”
Hochul’s campaign retorted, “Elise Stefanik can’t hide behind staff to denounce the antisemitic, racist, hateful individuals she endorsed, funded, and praised.”
Lawler echoed the condemnation, calling the texts “reprehensible.”
Nassau County GOP Chair Joe Cairo said, “I don’t know many of these people… but their words are repugnant and they have no place in the Republican Party or anywhere else.”
Suffolk County GOP Chair Jesse Garcia added, “These immature individuals do not represent the values of the Republican Party. They should resign and they should have no position in public service.”
On Long Island, Islip Town Board candidate DawnMarie Kuhn, the group’s former recording secretary, disavowed the chat entirely, posting on her campaign site, “LET ME BE CLEAR: I WAS NOT IN THE GROUP CHAT,” and telling Newsday she condemned it outright.
State Senate Minority Leader Rob Ortt (R) expressed shock, saying he was “shocked and disgusted” by the “racist, anti-Semitic, and misogynistic comments.”
The Orange County GOP, referenced approvingly in the chat for its members’ supposed support of slavery—”They support slavery and all that shit. Mega based,” Giunta wrote—issued a statement of disappointment.
As the dust settles, the disbandment raises questions about the future of young conservatives in New York, a state where Republicans have struggled for relevance.
The party, which hasn’t won a statewide race since 2002, now faces the task of rebuilding its youth wing without the taint of this episode.
For now, the chat’s exposure serves as a stark reminder of the tensions simmering in the GOP’s rising generation, where bold rhetoric can curdle into outright bigotry behind closed doors—or, in this case, encrypted apps.
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