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adolf hitler
'Disgusting': Racist, Homophobic, Antisemitic, and Violent Private Chats of GOP Leaders Exposed
"These are the people who pretend to be offended when called Nazis."
Oct 15, 2025
Is this who they are when not in view of public judgment or recrimination?
That is just one of the questions being widely asked after Politico on Tuesday revealed nearly seven months of grotesque private chats between members of Leaders of Young Republicans, the party's batch of up-and-comers, though already in positions of power within the faction's ranks.
From praising Adolf Hitler to casual use of racial slurs and calls for violence against their opponents, the Telegram chat logs obtained by Politico paint a picture of vile individuals who share a deep loyalty to President Donald Trump and reveled in sadistic contempt for their political enemies, hatred of minorities, and lust for power.
As Politico reports,
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.
William Hendrix, the Kansas Young Republicans’ vice chair, used the words “n--ga” and “n--guh,” variations of a racial slur, more than a dozen times in the chat. Bobby Walker, the vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans at the time, referred to rape as “epic.” Peter Giunta, who at the time was chair of the same organization, wrote in a message sent in June that “everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber.”
Reaction to the leaked private messages was swift and full of contempt, if not shock.
"Welcome to Trump’s Republican Party," said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) in response to the reporting. "Disgusting."
" Racism, rape, homophobia, antisemitism … Are we greater yet?" asked Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. "Feel safer?"
According to Politico, "the messages reveal a culture where racist, antisemitic and violent rhetoric circulate freely—and where the Trump-era loosening of political norms has made such talk feel less taboo among those positioning themselves as the party’s next leaders."
The members themselves seemed to recognize that if their free-flowing conversations were ever revealed to the public, it would be bad. "If we ever had a leak of this chat, we would be cooked," said one member inside one of the chat threads. But as Politico noted, "they kept typing anyway."
Melanie D'Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health, an advocacy group, said, "These are the people who pretend to be offended when called Nazis. Where’s the GOP leadership outrage?"
Congresswoman Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) came under fire in the wake of Politico's reporting, given her vocal support for the New York members of the group, many of whom were identified and named in the reporting. Just this summer, Stefanik called them the "backbone" of the Republican Party and key to its future.
Some of Stefanik's top young allies in the party, noted Addison Dick, a member of the New York Democrats' communication team, "praised Hitler, called to put opponents in gas chambers, and repeatedly used racist and antisemitic hate speech in leaked chats." Dick was among those chiding Stefanik for characterizing the reporting as a "hit piece" as opposed to more harshly condemning the vile behavior it exposed among her party's core of young leaders.
For his part, Vice President JD Vance said he would not join in the "pearl clutching" over the leaked chat logs and refused to condemn the myriad examples of racist, sexist, antisemitic, and calls to violence by the group of party officials.
New York Gov. Katherine Hochul, a Democrat, was asked about the revelations during a Tuesday afternoon press conference, and whether it was a case of a few "bad apples" or a "deeper toxicity" within the entire Republican Party.
Q: Politico reported on a group chat of young Republicans. Does this just reflect some bad apples?
HOCHUL: Some bad apples? These are the future of the Republican Party. This is so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context that these are people who are part of one of… pic.twitter.com/aDjnmcQTaJ
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 14, 2025
"Some bad apples? These are the future of the Republican Party," Hochul responded. "This was so vile it's hard to find the words to put into context that these are people who are part of one of the two major political parties, and they believe in gas chambers, rape, and discrimination based on the color of people's skin. These are racist, sexist, disgusting remarks."
"And I would say this," Hochul continued, also calling out Stefanik as the highest-ranking elected GOP official in the state for her history of inflammatory and bigoted comments, most notably against New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim, whom Stefanik has called a "jihadist" and "terrorist."
Stefanik, said the governor, should do a bit of self-reflection and "reexamination" of her own "inflammatory words" and of her broader role in influencing these young members and "normalizing" such thinking and rhetoric. As for the members exposed in the chats, Hochul said "there's gotta be consequences" for their behavior and that everyone in the party, from Trump on down, should condemn it.
"Kick them out of the party. Take away their official roles. Stop using them as campaign advisers," she advised. "This bullshit has to stop."
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'The Hitler of Our Time!' Trump Confronted Inside DC Steak House
"They feast while Gaza starves!" said members of the peace group CodePink to the far-right president and his cabinet.
Sep 10, 2025
Local peace activists in Washington, DC, were swiftly ejected on Tuesday night after confronting President Donald Trump and several members of his cabinet who were dining in a steak and seafood restaurant, but not before they castigated the men for "feasting" in opulence while the people of Gaza "starve" under the brutal humanitarian blockade imposed by the US and Israeli governments.
The small group of CodePink activists chanted "They feast while Gaza starves!" and "Trump is the Hitler of our time!" as Trump looked on just several feet away inside Joe's Seafood, Prime Steak & Stone Crab restaurant, alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and others.
"He's terrorizing Gaza and communities all over the world!" one activist in the group shouted at Trump. At the same time, the president looked on and then shooed them to go away with a point of his finger and then a gesture to his Secret Service detail.
- YouTube
"While Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth, and others feasted at a steakhouse, we stood our ground and told them the truth," said Olivia DiNucci, the group's DC organizer, in a statement following the confrontation. "Two years into genocide, Gaza is under evacuation orders, Puerto Rico and Venezuela are in the crosshairs, and the Pentagon proudly calls itself the Department of War. Trump looked us in the eyes, and we made sure he would never dine in peace while communities are under siege."
CodePink said a Trump administration "prioritizing war and the wealthy over the needs of the American people and human rights abroad" should not be able to dine in luxury when it is causing so much pain and misery both abroad and in communities nationwide in the US, including the capital.
The group specifically condemned ongoing "support for the genocide in Gaza, reckless and illegal military strikes on vessels in the Caribbean, and the deployment of troops and ICE agents within US borders. As well as the growing threat of occupying U.S. cities with the deployment of the National Guard."
With National Guard troops now deployed in Los Angeles and Washington, DC—and with the Trump administration announcing the launch of what it dubbed operation "Midway Blitz" in Chicago this week—CodePink said there is growing anger nationwide over the president's authoritarian and fascist tactics that are reminiscent of how Adolf Hitler intensified his violent grip on power in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s.
"We hope he sees our faces in his mind, for a long time," said one group member who confronted Trump in the restaurant. "Because he looked us all in the eyes as we were standing there. We will continue to fight for DC. We will continue to fight for a free Palestine every single day."
While Trump, JD Vance, Marco Rubio, Pete Hegseth and others feasted at a steakhouse, we stood our ground and told them the truth: Free DC. Free Palestine. Trump is the Hitler of our time.
Two years into genocide, Gaza is under evacuation orders, Puerto Rico and Venezuela are in… pic.twitter.com/FswxHD9QHA
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) September 10, 2025
The activists received high praise online for their disruptive efforts.
"Pretty gutsy in my opinion. I don't know how they got so close," said journalist and writer Tim Shorrock.
"Amazing!" declared writer Polly Sigh. "My hats off to these brave protesters for saying it right to his ugly orange face."
In its statement, CodePink said that while Trump's authoritarian march at home and warmongering abroad continues, "the very programs that support struggling Americans—healthcare, education, and addiction treatment—face severe cuts."
"This agenda, funded by a bill providing massive tax cuts for the super-rich, is being paid for by a working class that cannot afford it," said the group, which added that their minor disruption of a dinner for some of the world's most powerful men represents the frustration of a majority of Americans who reject these priorities.
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Fascism: A Word That Matters Here and Now
We call Trump a fascist because with each passing day, it rings increasingly true.
Sep 06, 2025
Words matter in life generally and politics particularly. They are the medium of thought, the means of sensemaking, the vehicle of communication and persuasion. They shape us collectively and individually.
Words, political scientist Francis Beer writes, are “the defining framework for political authority” and “a primary means of motivating political actors.” Our physical and verbal worlds are interconnected and “inseparable,” thus “the political importance of language”: political rhetoric carries and constructs meaning that shapes conduct.
Verbal action “operates parallel to” nonverbal action in multiple ways, Beer notes, formulating and conveying perception, memory, history, story, myth, and message, differentiating friend from foe, articulating preferences, describing trends, developing plans, policies, and strategies, expressing feelings, structuring motives, and constructing identities, interests, and hierarchical relations. In these ways, words matter for citizens, not just political leaders.
Language is structured and structuring, settled and dynamic. It enables us to stabilize and communicate meaning but also to reflect thoughtfully on the key terms of our discourse, to describe, critique, destabilize, revise, and apply them productively as circumstances warrant. As linguistics professor Sally McConnell-Ginet illustrates in Words Matter: Meaning and Power (Cornell University Press, 2020), words are politically potent means of domination but also cooperation, of oppression but also resistance, because their significance can be unsettled and reassigned. Thus, we might come to see their application in new and unexpected ways.
The celebrated achievement of America’s “greatest generation” was their military victory over fascism in defense of democracy. Fascism was perceived as un-American, a threat from abroad, an alien and malevolent enemy of freedom and self-government.
The word "fascism" is a case in point. A label we are not accustomed to associating with American governance, it is increasingly featured in critiques of the Trump administration’s authoritarianism as a way of both describing and rallying resistance to Trump’s escalating overreach and oppression.
A conventional definition of fascism, drawn from the Merriam Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary (10th edition), is “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”; the same entry defines fascism succinctly as “a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control.” (A Fascista refers to “a member of an Italian political organization under Mussolini governing Italy 1922–1943 according to the principles of fascism.”)
Benito Mussolini is the embodiment of fascism in our collective memory along with Adolph Hitler, Germany’s more brutal Nazi Führer, and to a lesser extent the Japanese militarists allied with Germany and Italy in World War II. The celebrated achievement of America’s “greatest generation” was their military victory over fascism in defense of democracy. Fascism was perceived as un-American, a threat from abroad, an alien and malevolent enemy of freedom and self-government.
Yet the seeds of fascism sprouted in US soil during the years leading up to World War II. One notorious example of American Nazi proclivity occurred on February 20, 1939, when over 20,000 people attended a Madison Square Garden rally sponsored by the pro-Hitler German American Bund, one of several pro-Nazi organizations in the US. Film footage of the event was compiled in 2017 by documentarian Marshall Curry “as a cautionary tale to Americans.”
The Bund, as Sarah Kate Kramer recounted in 2019 on NPR’s “All Things Considered,” was “one of several organizations in the United States that were openly supportive of Adolf Hitler and the rise of fascism in Europe. They had parades, bookstores and summer camps for youth. Their vision for America was a cocktail of white supremacy, fascist ideology, and American patriotism.”
At the Madison Square Garden rally, swastikas were on full display complete with a 30-foot tall portrait of George Washington (modeling him as America’s first fascist), US and Nazi flags, Nazi arm bands and salutes, martial drummers and music, the American national anthem, a German-accented pledge of allegiance, and a “vigilante police force dressed in the style of Hitler’s SS troops.” Speakers called for a return of the country to the rule of true American white gentiles. Fritz Kuhn, the Bund’s leader, opened his speech with the call to “Wake up! You, Aryan, Nordic and Christians, to demand that our government be returned to the people who founded it!”
New Yorkers, numbering 100,000, protested the event; the US government took steps to suppress the Bund after the rally; and the Bund met its demise with Germany’s declaration of war on the US. Yet, as Kramer concludes, “the white supremacist ideology they championed remains.” Indeed, the 1939 Bund rally has been cited as precedent for the violent August, 2017 “Unite the Right” white-nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. The Nazi outburst in pre-war Depression years grew out of a history of American authoritarianism. The Bund rally in Madison Square Garden is one of the country’s own fascistic precedents.
Trump was President in 2017 when the Charlottesville rally occurred, a rally that turned violent and that the Virginia state police declared unlawful. It consisted of neo-fascists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Klansmen, and far-right militias. Some carried weapons, some chanted racist and antisemitic slogans, some carried Confederate battle flags. Violence occurred when the protesting marchers engaged counter protesters. A white supremacist drove his car into a group of counter protesters, killing one woman and injuring 35 other people. Trump condemned “the display of hatred, bigotry, and violence on many sides” and subsequently said there were “very fine people on both sides” and “blame on both sides,” suggesting an equivalency between the two sides for which he was roundly criticized. (See “Unite the Right Rally” on Wikipedia for a detailed account of the rally.)
There has been no hedging by Trump since he took office for a second term on January 20, 2025. He stated during his campaign that he intended to be a dictator on Day 1, an intention that has extended in quick order from Day 1 forward. An onslaught of executive power overwhelming Constitutional checks and balances and assaulting democratic principles was immediately recognized by critics as the work of an authoritarian and increasingly is seen as fascistic.
The difference between authoritarianism and fascism is largely a matter of degree. An authoritarian expects blind submission and a concentration of power unhampered by responsibility to a people who are allowed only restricted political freedoms. A fascist is an extreme right-wing authoritarian with totalitarian propensities, pursuing total control over the state while propagandizing a racist brand of nationalism and viciously suppressing dissent. Acting as a right-wing populist, the fascist demagogue claims to “represent” the people and actively mobilizes their sometimes-violent support.
As Robert Longley recently put the matter of fascism:
The foundation of fascism is a combination of ultranationalism—an extreme devotion to one’s nation over all others—along with a widely held belief among the people that the nation must and will be somehow saved or “reborn.” Rather than working for concrete solutions to economic, political, and social problems, fascist rulers divert the people’s focus while winning public support by elevating the idea of a need for a national rebirth into a virtual religion. To this end, fascists encourage the growth of cults of national unity and racial purity.
Further, Longley and others report, fascist (or neo-fascist) dictators typically extol militarism and promote military readiness, assert dominance over other countries, undertake aggressive military actions, engage in territorial conquest and expansion, suppress domestic opposition (with police and military force, propaganda, and/or mass violence), attack universities, advance state-controlled corporate capitalism with protectionist policies such as tariffs, aim for national self-sufficiency, portray themselves as defenders of traditional Christian family values, manipulate elections to remain in power, and cultivate a cult of personality in which the dictator symbolically embodies the nation.
By this account, Trump—followed by his MAGA cult—is no less than an aspirational neo-fascist pursuing policies that closely resemble fascism. Some experts have maintained that he is better described as an authoritarian; other experts, including Yale University historian Timothy Snyder, have fled to Canada in the belief that the US is becoming a fascist dictatorship. Serena Dash, writing for the Fordham Political Review, concluded that “after the first month of Trump’s second term, no doubt should remain of whether or not the ‘fascist’ label applies.” It does.
The fascistic trajectory of Trump’s rule is manifested in his actions since Day 1. Some glaring examples include military occupation of cities governed by elected Democrats; deployment of masked ICE agents by the massively funded Immigration Enforcement and Customs agency and its growing prison system; defying court orders; attacking universities to undermine academic freedom, dictate curriculum, and bar student protests; aggressive gerrymandering and other election maneuvering to retain power; repressing news media for unfavorable news coverage, editorials, and programing; targeting critics for federal prosecution; imposing his will on key industries in the private sector, including keeping track of which corporations are loyal to him and therefore candidates for tax and regulatory benefits and exclusion from federal lawsuits; enriching himself at the public’s expense; and so on.
Fascism is no longer a word relevant only to other countries and applicable to a threat from abroad. As Serena Dash observes:
The discourse around Donald Trump being a fascist is not just an academic exercise; it is essential for recognizing and addressing the potential dangers he poses to democratic institutions and social equality and knowing how to combat it. The utility of using a term like “fascism” is that it has successfully been thwarted and fought before.Words matter. And right now, the words we use to describe Trump’s rule matter greatly. There is a reason why growing numbers of commentators, activists, and political leaders are calling Trump a fascist—because with each passing day, it rings increasingly true. The remnant of the country’s founding aspirations of liberty and self-governance “seems now to be shrinking day by day,” writes political scientist Jeffrey Isaac. “Whether it will survive the next few years [of Trump’s repression] is an open question.”
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