Leaked Telegram Messages from Young Republicans Revealed
October 17, 2025
by Charlie Monero
WASHINGTON — Multiple news outlets, including The Independent, The Guardian, Axios, The Hill, PBS News, ABC News, and Al Jazeera, have reported on a leaked private Telegram group chat involving leaders of Young Republican chapters from New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont. The chat, titled "RESTOREYR WAR ROOM," contained over 28,000 messages exchanged from January to August 2025, spanning more than 2,900 pages. Reports describe the content as including racist slurs, antisemitic references, homophobic language, and jokes involving violence, Adolf Hitler, gas chambers, slavery, and rape.
The group was created by Peter Giunta, former president of the New York State Young Republicans, during his campaign for chair of the Young Republican National Federation (YRNF), which began in early 2025. Participants included Bobby Walker (chair of the New York State Young Republicans), William Hendrix (vice chair of the Kansas Young Republicans), Alex Dwyer (chair of the Kansas Young Republicans), Luke Mosiman (chair of the Arizona Young Republicans), Sam Douglass (Vermont state senator and chair of the Vermont Young Republicans), and others such as Rachel Hope, Anne Kaykaty, Joe Maligno, and Brianna Douglass. Ages ranged from 24 to 35, with many in state GOP roles or employed by elected officials.
In February 2025, as the campaign heated up, discussions included ideological alignments with allied groups. One exchange highlighted this:
Later, in June 2025, amid vote strategy talks for the YRNF chair position, a notable thread emerged:
This occurred as Giunta and his supporters pushed for delegate support, with tensions rising over endorsements.
By July 2025, the group explored tactics against a rival, leading to another exchange:
Around the same time, a historical debate took a sharp turn:
The month also saw a brief exchange about a hotel room number:
This exchange referenced "1488," which is a numeric code often associated with white supremacist ideology, where "14" stands for the "14 Words" slogan ("We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children," coined by David Lane, a neo-Nazi terrorist) and "88" symbolizes "Heil Hitler" (H being the 8th letter of the alphabet). Some find it problematic due to its ties to hate groups and Nazi symbolism, viewing it as a covert signal of extremism. However, in the private chat's context, it appears as an absurd, exaggerated joke in a guessing game, poking fun at those who see malice in innocuous numbers or overinterpret casual banter.
In a separate instance tied to delegate outreach, another quip surfaced:
Vice President JD Vance described the messages as "stupid jokes" from "kids" during an appearance on the Charlie Kirk Show and referenced a 2022 incident involving a Democratic candidate's texts. That incident involved leaked texts from Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for Virginia Attorney General, who in August 2022 messaged a colleague about Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert, suggesting he "gets two bullets to the head" and hoping Gilbert's children "die in their mother’s arms," among other violent fantasies, including urinating on graves and comparing Republicans to Hitler. Vance argued this was "far worse than anything said in a college group chat," while a White House spokesperson denied any affiliation with the Young Republicans chat.
