A trove of bigoted messages between members of the Young Republicans is deepening a sharp rift among state groups across the country, further fracturing an organization that has been beset with internal discord and infighting for years.

Young Republicans chapters across the country were divided on how to respond to the texts — with some groups staying silent and others immediately denouncing the Telegram group chat revealed by POLITICO that contained racist, homophobic and antisemitic epithets.

Much of the conflict on how to respond to the texts stems from an August election over who would lead the Young Republican National Federation, the umbrella group for all the state chapters known commonly as Young Republicans.

The election essentially split Young Republicans into two groups: On one side was Hayden Padgett, a Texas Republican and current chair of the Young Republican National Federation who was running for reelection. On the other side was Peter Giunta, who led an insurgent group within the Young Republicans and who previously clashed with Padgett, in part because he challenged Padgett to be chair of the national federation in the August election. Giunta ultimately lost the election.

Giunta, however, was one of the members on the leaked text chain and had posted offensive messages, including “I love Hitler” and “If your pilot is a she and she looks ten shades darker than someone from Sicily, just end it there. Scream the no no word.” Giunta and other members of the group chat also repeatedly used homophobic slurs to refer to Padgett, with Arizona Young Republicans Chair Luke Mosiman at one point writing “RAPE HAYDEN.”

Giunta, who apologized for the texts, did not respond to a request for comment, and Mosiman declined to comment.

After POLITICO revealed the chats, Young Republican leaders in 23 state groups who supported Padget’s reelection bid quickly released statements condemning the leaked text messages. Several used the statements as an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to Padgett: Leaders in Missouri, Alaska and Wisconsin, for example, noted in their statements that they opposed Giunta’s attempt to unseat Padgett in August.

By contrast, many of the state groups that previously supported Giunta were silent in the aftermath of the leak, with the exception of a handful of states including Illinois and Georgia that denounced the texts. Several also appeared to have deleted social media posts expressing support for Giunta’s campaign.

One group that endorsed Giunta and his platform over the summer, the Arizona Young Republican Federation, lambasted what it called “mob-style condemnation driven by political opportunism or personal agendas.”

“While certain voices within our movement have been quick to condemn, many of these same individuals have overlooked or ignored deeply concerning rhetoric and actions on the political left–including public celebrations of the tragic death of Charlie Kirk and Jay Jones, calling for the death of family,” the group said in a statement.

The Arizona group, led by Mosiman, also condemned the rhetoric from the Telegram chat but raised concerns about their “authenticity and context.”

The group also used the controversy as an opportunity to take a swipe at Padgett and YRNF leadership, calling out “a troubling disregard for unity and due process” from national leaders who they said failed to communicate with state leaders before releasing its statement.

When asked about criticism against his leadership, Padgett told POLITICO that any claims of division within the organization are “baseless” while calling on Democrats to condemn violent rhetoric from members of their party.

“The YRNF unequivocally condemned the leaked messages in the Politico article—full stop,” he said. “Outside of those in the sticks, every state and local Young Republican chapter stands united.”

The fight over how to respond to the text scandal ultimately exposes the deep fissures within the Young Republican National Federation, which has around 14,000 members who have historically helped the Republican Party run its ground game during elections. Past chairs include longtime Trump ally Roger Stone as well as members of Congress.

One state chair, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about internal dynamics, said they were surprised some YRNF leaders were “not as strong in condemning the remarks” but hoped the organization could move forward as a united group.

California Young Republicans Chair Ariana Assenmacher, who was Giunta’s running mate in the August election, said in an interview she was surprised by the rhetoric used in the messages and had no knowledge of nor involvement in the group chat.

“I think it’s a very isolated event, and it’s frustrating to see something that is a very small chat being pushed as representation for Young Republicans across the country, which is obviously not the case,” Assenmacher said.

Young Republicans leaders from more than three dozen states did not respond to POLITICO’s requests for comment or declined to comment.

YRNF has seen bitter clashes between warring factions since Padgett was elected in 2023, when the opposing slate garnered less than one-fifth of the vote. But Giunta’s campaign this year picked up significant traction among state leaders disillusioned with the incumbent leadership, winning 47 percent of the vote in August’s national leadership election.

Another state chair, who was granted anonymity due to fears of retribution, said they were not surprised by the maliciousness of the messages but added that they had “never heard anything like that from the people I am friends with.”

“I don’t like attacking our own,” they said. “We spend a lot of time fighting amongst ourselves. The August election was extremely controversial, and there were personal attacks from both sides, very very unkind stuff.”

The state chair added that YRNF has been plagued by division in recent years and that they were “absolutely sure there’s extremely unkind things” in the messages of Giunta’s opponents.

Valerie McDonnell, the youngest state legislator in New Hampshire who stepped down as a Young Republican national committeewoman in August, said she was appalled by the “repeated terrible language about other members.”

“It wasn't just a one-off comment. It was, I believe, over a span of six months, just repeated terrible language about other members,” she said. “This just was beyond belief to see the extent of this.”

Still, the second state chair worried that ongoing divisions in the organization following the August leadership election could hamper the organization’s value to the GOP in the 2026 midterm elections.

“These are the meanest people I have ever met in my life,” the person said of their Young Republicans colleagues. “I love this organization so much, and it meant so much to me in my early- and mid-20s, and it is just different. These kids are not the same. I think they’ve grown up in politics only seeing how Trump treats people and they think that’s how you treat people.”

Samuel Benson, Faith Wardwell and Jason Beeferman contributed to this report.

© Paul Sancya/AP

The nationwide “No Kings” protest movement is back for round two — and after avoiding Washington during the summer, protesters descended on the nation’s capital Saturday amid an 18-day government shutdown that has no end in sight.

The demonstrations are part of the second national day of action, organized by dozens of liberal advocacy groups to protest what they call “authoritarian power grabs” on the part of President Donald Trump.

Organizers said they expected the more than 2,600 events across all 50 states to surpass the more than 5 million people who attended the first wave of “No Kings” rallies in June. The marches come amid heightened criticism from Republicans about this weekend’s rallies.

“They might try to paint this weekend's events as something dangerous to our society, but the reality is there is nothing unlawful or unsafe about organizing and attending peaceful protests,” said Deirdre Schifeling of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It's the most patriotic and American thing you can do, and we have a 250-year-old history of disagreeing in public.”

Amid the heightened tensions of the shutdown, Republicans have repeatedly sought to vilify the planned protests. House Speaker Mike Johnson and other leading Republicans have referred to the protests as a “hate America rally” and sought to tie it to Hamas and antifa. And Texas Gov. Greg Abbott also announced Thursday that he would be sending members of the state’s National Guard — as well as state troopers, Texas Rangers and Department of Public Safety personnel — to Austin on Saturday in response to the planned demonstrations.

In an interview with Fox News earlier this week, Trump said “some people say [Democrats] want to delay” ending the government shutdown because of the rallies.

“They're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king,” Trump said in the interview. But on Saturday morning, shortly before the Washington rally was set to kick off, the Trump War Room account posted an image of a smirking Trump wearing a crown.

Organizers and Democratic politicians remain undeterred by the response, though. Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.), who was set to appear at rallies in his district, said Democrats were intentionally trying to paint Saturday's rallies in fundamentally patriotic terms in response to Republicans' attacks.

"We knew they’d try to do what they’re now doing," he told POLITICO Playbook. "So we thought it was really important to make clear that there’s literally nothing more patriotic and more American than exercising your First Amendment rights when you disagree with the direction of your country.”

Ryan said he and other members of Congress with a background in the military and national security now talk regularly to chart a response as “Trump has ratcheted up the politicization of the military.”

Leah Greenberg, progressive advocacy organization Indivisible co-executive director, called it “part of a broader effort to create a permission structure to crack down" on peaceful protests.

“They are panicking and they are flailing and they are searching for anything — literally anything — to distract from their own governing failures,” Greenberg said of Republicans at a press conference. “And in their desperation, they have decided to go with smearing millions of Americans who are coming out to peacefully, joyfully assert our rights.”

The first wave of rallies that took place on June 14 — the same day as Trump’s military parade in Washington, which coincided with the army’s 250th anniversary and Trump’s 79th birthday — were overwhelmingly peaceful, and organizers said then that they intentionally avoided a counterprotest in Washington to avoid the military parade.

The events went off almost entirely without incident, save for one notable exception of volunteer rally “peacekeepers” shooting and killing a bystander at a Utah march because they believed another man with a gun was about to fire on the crowd.

Republicans’ efforts to demonize the rally comes amid a White House push to target left-leaning nonprofits perceived as hostile to the administration’s agenda.

At an early rally, about 150 people have gathered at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, to protest the dismissal of thousands of federal employees.

“People are hurting and some people are dying because of the actions of President Trump,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who pointed toward the Trump administration’s disruption of clinical cancer trials. “Part of having a healthy America is making sure we protect our democracy and our rights. That is a healthy America.”

As NIH employees who were speaking urged crowd members to sign petitions to protect university research, protesters raised their signs in agreement: “Enough is enough,” they shouted back.

Unlike the June protests, the Saturday slate of events also included a rally in front of the U.S. Capitol in Washington. Organizers said Saturday that over 200,000 people participated in D.C. When asked for comment ahead of Saturday’s rallies, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson responded: “Who cares?”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), one of the first speakers at the demonstration in Washington, earlier this week criticized the push as an effort to “suppress turnout.”

“They’re showing us how much they hate free speech,” he said in a Wednesday social media video. “The rhetoric has ramped up from Republican leaders in the last few days.”

The speaker list in D.C. also included Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Karen Attiah, a former Washington Post columnist who was fired last month after attracting criticism for several social media posts in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s murder.

Several of the speakers at the Washington rally focused their remarks on the Trump administration's attempts to ramp up immigration enforcement and deploy military troops into American cities.

Sanders capped off the rally with an impassioned address about the series of dangers he said Trump posed to democracy, decrying the president's attacks on the media and higher education and his attempts to prosecute his political enemies.

The senator also lambasted Republicans for supporting Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," which could contribute to more than 10 million people losing health care coverage, according to estimates from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

"When he was sworn in as the nation's first president, George Washington called this attempt at self-government 'an experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.' My fellow Americans, in an unprecedented way, that experiment is now in danger," Sanders said.

Ben Johansen contributed to this report.

© Jose Luis Magana/AP Photo

The board of conservative youth organization Turning Point USA voted unanimously to hand over the reins of the group to Erika Kirk, widow of political activist Charlie Kirk.

In a statement, the group said Thursday that Charlie Kirk had expressed to executives that he wished for his wife to take over as chief executive and board chair in the event of his death.

“We will not surrender or kneel before evil,” the group’s board members wrote. “We will carry on. The attempt to destroy Charlie’s work will become our chance to make it more powerful and enduring than ever before.”

Erika Kirk, a graduate of Liberty University, won the Miss Arizona USA pageant in 2012 and went on to start her own podcast, clothing brand and nonprofit organization, and married the political organizer in 2021. Charlie Kirk cofounded TPUSA in 2012.

She is set to speak at a memorial for her deceased husband at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona — home to the Arizona Cardinals football team — alongside President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance and several senior administration officials.

The influential political organization has seen a surge in interest from young conservatives since the fatal shooting of its leader last week at a university in Utah. In the week following Charlie Kirk’s killing, the group said it had received more than 50,000 requests from high school and college students to start a chapter with the organization’s network or join an existing one.

Erika Kirk vowed to carry on her husband’s legacy in the wake of his death, committing to “make Turning Point the biggest thing this nation has ever seen” in public remarks just hours after authorities announced the arrest of Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah man now charged with aggravated murder.

Republicans intend to elevate Charlie Kirk’s killing as they look to the 2026 midterm elections, highlighting what they call radical left-wing violence and aiming to carry on his legacy of mobilizing young voters to turn out for Republicans.

© Phelan M. Ebenhack/AP

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) defended constitutional protections for hate speech in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of conservative organizer Charlie Kirk.

In an interview with POLITICO’s Rachael Bade, Cruz said people who engage in hate speech are not “immune from the consequences of your speech,” expressing support for companies that have taken disciplinary action against employees for speaking negatively of Kirk.

"The First Amendment absolutely protects speech,” Cruz said Tuesday at POLITICO’s AI & Tech Summit in Washington. “It absolutely protects hate speech. It protects vile speech. It protects horrible speech. What does that mean? It means you cannot be prosecuted for speech, even if it is evil and bigoted and wrong.”

At the same time, Cruz endorsed “naming and shaming” as “part of a functioning and vibrant democracy,” citing English philosopher John Stuart Mill’s famous axiom that free and plentiful expression is the best antidote to undesirable speech.

"We have seen, as you noted, across the country, people on the left — not everybody, but far too many people — celebrating Charlie Kirk's murder,” Cruz said. “We've seen teachers in high schools and elementary schools posting online, celebrating. We've seen university professors posting. In my view, they should absolutely face the consequences for celebrating murder."

The senator lauded Kirk, who he described as a friend, for being willing to engage in civil debate.

Numerous individuals have been targeted online for making disparaging posts about Kirk, leading to firings in higher education, media and other industries. The Pentagon has also vowed to discipline service members who “celebrate or mock” Kirk’s killing.

Cruz also defended Attorney General Pamela Bondi, who said law enforcement would “absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.” Cruz said those comments had been “misconstrued.”

In a Tuesday morning statement posted to social media, Bondi clarified that “hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment.”

Cruz said while he was glad to see social media companies attempt to block the video of Kirk’s killing but added that the companies should “allow free speech,” echoing earlier comments by Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr who told POLITICO’s Alex Burns that the government should not crack down on social media posts about Kirk.

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Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into a political organization led by former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke for helping Texas Democrats block newly proposed congressional maps.

In a Wednesday afternoon press release, Paxton said the O’Rourke-led group, Powered by People, may have violated bribery, campaign finance and abuse of office laws, citing “public reports” that Powered by People was “bankrolling” the Texas House Democrats.

The organization’s purported involvement in helping fund Democrats’ out-of-state travels was first reported by The Texas Tribune. POLITICO has not independently confirmed the report.

"The guy impeached for bribery is going after the folks trying to stop the theft of five Congressional seats," O'Rourke said in response to Paxton's announcement. "Let’s stop these thugs before they steal our country.”

Paxton — a Republican who is also primarying Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) — has vowed to seek the expulsion of Democratic state lawmakers who fled the state this weekend to prevent the legislature from hitting quorum, preventing Republicans from passing a gerrymandered congressional map that could give the party as many as five more House seats in the midterm elections.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott attempted to accelerate the process by filing an emergency petition against Texas House Democratic Caucus Chair Gene Wu with the state’s Supreme Court on Tuesday. But Paxton and Abbott face legal and procedural hurdles as they attempt to force Democrats back to the state for the special session called by Abbott last month.

“Texas cannot be bought. I look forward to thoroughly reviewing all of the documents and communications obtained throughout this investigation,” Paxton said in the press release. “These jet-setting runaways have already lost public trust by abandoning our state, and Texans deserve to know if they received illegal bribes to do it.”

Paxton also said he had issued a “Request to Examine,” requiring the organization to supply his office with documents and communications related to its alleged involvement in the quorum break.

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