'Sickening': Leaked chats reveal 'insensitive and inexcusable' texts among Young Republicans

In an exclusive story, Politico got access to thousands of private messages revealing young GOP leaders joking about gas chambers and slavery, among other "insensitive and inexcusable" topics.

The chats took place on the Telegram app, Politico reports. In them, they "referred to Black people as monkeys and 'the watermelon people' and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers."

Kansas Young Republicans vice chair William Hendrix, former vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans Bobby Walker and Chairman of the Association of New York State Young Republican Clubs Peter Giunta were among the Republican leaders named in the report.

“Can we fix the showers?” Joe Maligno, who previously identified himself as the general counsel for the New York State Young Republicans, replied.

“I’m ready to watch people burn now,” Annie Kaykaty, New York’s national committeewoman, said.

The 2,900 pages of chats shared among young Republicans between January and mid-August also featured members talking "about the pressure to cow to Trump to avoid being called a RINO."

Giunta, Politco reports, apologized, saying “I am so sorry to those offended by the insensitive and inexcusable language found within the more than 28,000 messages of a private group chat that I created during my campaign to lead the Young Republicans."

“While I take complete responsibility, I have had no way of verifying their accuracy and am deeply concerned that the message logs in question may have been deceptively doctored," Giunta said.

Social media, however, wasn't so accepting of the apology, nor were they surprised about the context of the messages.

"Shocked. Shocked I tell you. Who could have expected this from them?" wrote veteran Kirk Wolff on X.

"This is Charlie Kirk's legacy," wrote Drew Smith on X.

"They can't even scream liberal 'fake news!' cause it was leaked by Republicans," wrote Profiteroles Carmichael on X.

"This is sickening, the rhetoric needs to be toned down on both sides, and even though I voted for Pres Trump 3 times, he needs to stop it too, we need a calm leader who wants to unite the country, not childish memes and name calling," wrote Sherri Twigg on X.