{"id":90069,"date":"2025-10-17T16:47:50","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/?p=90069"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:47:50","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T21:47:50","slug":"mike-johnson-denounces-young-republicans-group-chat-that-praised-hitler-as-jd-vance-downplays-uproar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/mike-johnson-denounces-young-republicans-group-chat-that-praised-hitler-as-jd-vance-downplays-uproar\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Johnson denounces Young Republicans\u2019 group chat that praised Hitler as JD Vance downplays uproar"},"content":{"rendered":"

By ASAF ELIA-SHALEV<\/p>\n

House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday said Republicans \u201croundly condemn\u201d a leaked group chat in which Young Republican officials joked about gas chambers, praised Adolf Hitler and used racist, antisemitic and homophobic slurs, as well as an American flag with a swastika that was found in a Republican congressman\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

When asked whether he feared extremist or pro-Hitler views among young Republicans, Johnson replied, \u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (a Louisiana Republican (center) leads a news conference with Republican committee chairs at the U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, April 30, 2024. (Chip Somodevilla\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cObviously, that is not the principles of the Republican Party. We stand for the founding principles of America,\u201d Johnson said in a press conference. \u201cWe have stood against that. We fought the Nazis. We roundly condemn it, and anybody in any party who espouses it, we\u2019re opposing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson\u2019s remarks capped two days of intensifying fallout from a Politico expos\u00e9 <\/a>that published thousands of messages exchanged over months by rising Republican operatives around the country.<\/p>\n

In the cache reviewed by Politico, participants joked \u201cEveryone that votes no is going to the gas chamber,\u201d celebrated \u201cGreat. I love Hitler,\u201d and traded demeaning references to Black people, Jews and LGBTQ people.<\/p>\n

State and local leaders appeared in the chat, including one Vermont state senator. The revelations have already cost several participants their jobs<\/a> and prompted the deactivation of the Kansas Young Republicans chapter, with the Young Republican National Federation itself calling for implicated officials to \u201cimmediately resign from all positions\u201d within the organization.<\/p>\n

Civil rights attorney Leo Terrell, who heads the Trump administration\u2019s Task Force to Combat Antisemitism, reacted saying, \u201cAntisemitism on the right is just as dangerous as antisemitism on the left.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance has sought to downplay the severity of the situation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vance posted on X with a screenshot of texts in which Jay Jones, a former Democratic nominee for Virginia attorney general, suggested a prominent Republican deserved \u201ctwo bullets to the head.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is far worse than anything said in a college group chat, and the guy who said it could become the AG of Virginia,\u201d Vance wrote. \u201cI refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vance later said in an interview on \u201cThe Charlie Kirk Show,\u201d \u201cThe reality is that kids do stupid things. Especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that\u2019s what kids do. And I really don\u2019t want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke \u2014 telling a very offensive, stupid joke \u2014 is the cause of ruining their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, praised Republican leaders who condemned the messages, which he called \u201coffensive and very concerning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m also glad that many leaders, including @EliseStefanik and @RepMikeLawler, spoke out strongly and swiftly against these hateful statements,\u201d Greenblatt wrote on X.<\/p>\n

Gov. Gavin Newsom urged Congress to investigate<\/a> the scope of extremist sentiment within Republican-aligned youth networks, arguing that the chat logs were \u201cneither fringe nor humorous.\u201d In a letter to the House Oversight Committee chair, Newsom contrasted GOP scrutiny of campus antisemitism with what he characterized as muted responses to hate inside party infrastructure.<\/p>\n

Reactions to the messages were building up as a separate controversy ricocheted through the Capitol: a photograph circulating online showed a swastika integrated into the stripes of an American flag displayed in a Republican lawmaker\u2019s office. Capitol Police opened an investigation after Rep. Dave Taylor called the image \u201cvile and deeply inappropriate\u201d and suggested it was the result of vandalism.<\/p>\n

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