In a unanimous vote on Friday, the New York GOP Executive Committee disbanded the state’s Young Republicans chapter after leaked Telegram messages revealed that members frequently used racist, antisemitic and other offensive language.

Last week, an investigation led by Politico exposed over seven months of messages from a group chat between Young Republican leaders from New York, Kansas, Arizona and Vermont. The New York chapter was part of the Young Republican National Federation, which engages registered Republicans between the ages of 18 and 40.

“The Young Republicans was already grossly mismanaged, and vile language of the sort made in the group chat has no place in our party or its subsidiary organizations,” New York GOP Chair Ed Cox said in a statement following the vote.

Some chat members used an array of slurs throughout their conversations, with terms like the N-word, R-word and “f——t” appearing more than 251 times combined. Jokes about sexual assault, suicide and support for slavery were also made.

Peter Giunta, the former chair of the New York Young Republicans, sent a large portion of the controversial messages. Earlier this year, Giunta, who was also chief of staff to New York Assemblyman Mike Reilly, campaigned to head the Young Republican National Federation before losing by six points.

“Everyone that votes no is going to the gas chamber,” Giunta texted, referring to his plan to take control of the organization in which he led the Restore YR campaign.

Giunta, who accused the Young Republican leadership of insufficiently supporting Trump, lost the race to incumbent chair Hayden Padgett.

In a message, Giunta made derisive and offensive remarks about Young Republican leaders from states that supported or were leaning toward Padgett’s platform. His insults included homophobic and antisemitic language.

After the release of these messages, Giunta was removed from his position in Reilly’s office.

“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,” Giunta said in a statement to Politico. “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.”

Bobby Walker, former vice chair of the New York State Young Republicans, told Politico he believed that portions of the chat “may have been altered, taken out of context, or otherwise manipulated” and that the “private exchanges were obtained and released in a way clearly intended to inflict harm.” Walker still apologized and said, “There is no excuse for the language and tone in messages attributed to me.”

In the leaked messages, Walker referred to rape as “epic” and used a homophobic slur. He also wrote “I prefer my war heroes not captured,” repeating a quote that President Donald Trump said in 2015 while referring to former Arizona Sen. John McCain, who died in 2018 and spent over five years in North Vietnam as a prisoner of war from 1967 to 1973.

Walker previously worked for Republican State Sen. Peter Oberacker as his communications director. Earlier this month, Oberacker announced his intent to run against Democratic Rep. Josh Riley in 2026. Walker was expected to become Oberacker’s campaign manager. His offer has since been rescinded, a campaign spokesperson told Politico.

The New York State Young Republicans has left behind over $38,000 in debt, according to campaign finance disclosures.

“What we heard from the Politico story in those chats was despicable,” Broome County Republican Chairman Benji Federman told WMHT after the vote to disband the state’s Young Republicans chapter. “And so that was an easy decision to make. We just need to move on.”

When asked if she believed the chat messages were made by “some bad apples” or instead represented “toxicity” within the Republican Party, Gov. Kathy Hochul said the messages represented the Republican Party’s future.

“Some bad apples?” she said. “These are the future of the Republican Party. This was so vile, it is hard to find the words to put into context that these are people who are part of a political party — one of two major political parties — and they believe in gas chambers and rape and discrimination based on the color of people’s skin.”