Vice President JD Vance has sought to downplay reports that leaders of an organization called the Young Republicans sent thousands of virulently racist and sexist text messages— despite his recent calls for Democrats to tone down their rhetoric.
Vance dismissed the conversations, which were published by Politico earlier this week, as an example of “kids” doing “stupid things,” arguing that no one involved in the chat should face professional repercussions. According to reporting from Mother Jones journalist Julianne McShane, the people who participated in the Telegram chat group ranged from ages 24 to 35.
The 2,900 pages of leaked chats from Young Republican leaders across the country featured a plethora of disturbing content, including:
- Referring to Black people as monkeys and “watermelon people”;
- Repeated use of racist and homophobic slurs, including the n-word;
- Describing the mass rape of Native Americans as “epic”;
- Expressing “love” for Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler;
- Calling for people they disagreed with to be murdered in gas chambers; and
- Jokes about driving individuals to suicide, including members of their own group that they viewed as rivals.
One message from a Young Republicans member noted that if the group chat messages were ever leaked, “we would be cooked.”
Following the publication of the text messages, a small number of Young Republican members lost their jobs.
In an interview on Wednesday, Vance told critics of the Young Republicans to “grow up” and “focus on the real issues.” He went on:
Don’t focus on what kids say in group chats. The reality is that kids do stupid things, 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. And at some point, we’re all going to have to say, enough of this BS.
In social media posts, Vance said he would “refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence,” citing reports that the private messages of a Democratic candidate in Virginia also contained disturbing language.
That candidate’s actions were “one thousand times worse than what a bunch of young people, a bunch of kids, say in a group chat,” Vance said.
Although Vance claimed the messages were from “kids” participating in playful banter, the people in the chat were adults. Indeed, the Young Republicans organization requires a person to have reached adulthood in order to participate, and the group allows members as old as 40.
Vance himself is 41 years old, meaning that he would have been allowed to be a Young Republicans member up until this past year.
“Suffice it to say, these are not kids,” Alejandra Caraballo, a cyberlaw clinical instructor at Harvard Law School, wrote in a Bluesky post. “These are full grown ass adults, many of them in their late 20’s and early 30’s. At least one was an elected state senator in Vermont.”
“And even if they were [kids], it’s never ok to make antisemitic and racist jokes like that,” Caraballo added.
Explicitly racist language and symbolism is becoming increasingly common in Republican spaces.
Just this week, an image of an American flag with a Nazi swastika embedded in the stripes was spotted during a Zoom call behind Angelo Elia, the legislative correspondent to Rep. Dave Taylor (R-Ohio). Congressman Taylor claims he asked Capitol Police to investigate how the flag was placed in his office, but given the placement of the symbol, it’s unlikely that Taylor or his staffers wouldn’t have noticed it before the Zoom call.
Notably, President Donald Trump’s own rhetoric has frequently included racist dog whistles and explicit bigotry. Trump has also borrowed rhetoric from Nazi officials, including publicly claiming that immigrants are “poisoning” the blood of the country, and calling his political opponents “vermin.”
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