Tangle - The Republican texting scandals.

Starting point is 00:00:00 From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to to be talking about the young Republicans group chat, as well as the Paul and Gracia controversy, oddly, two chats that got leaked to Politico that I think have had a really big newsy impact. Yeah, I mean, it's very interesting. So I hope you guys can get something out of this newsletter today because I think there's been a lot of noise on both these stories. I actually have

Starting point is 00:00:59 a little bit of an optimistic take, though there's some dissent from our staff, so we'll get into that. Before we jump in, though, I have a quick note, a really fun announcement. The media industry, as many of you guys know, is changing, and that change is happening fast. The future is uncertain. Every day, we are thinking of new ways to do two things. One, ensure we can always reach our audience, and two, deliver content that meets your needs as news consumers. To that end, we are launching a new future-proof product we think our audience will love. A free text message service. We tested this out with about 700 readers and listeners

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Starting point is 00:01:53 and we'll make sure we only text you with valuable information, rarely more than once a day, depending on the alerts you sign up for. So far, things are off to an incredible start. It took me 11 months to get 5,000 people to sign up for the Tangle newsletter, but 5,000 people have already signed up for our texting service in just under two hours. If you're interested and want to join this new offering, you can sign up with a link in today's episode description,

Starting point is 00:02:19 or you can text Tangle in all caps to 850-338-9163. That's Tangle in all caps to 850-338-9163, or you can sign up with the link in today's episode description. Again, this is a free text messaging service where we're going to give some breaking news analysis, behind-the-scenes stuff. Generally, try and provide some really interesting short-form content for you guys. All right, with that, I'm going to send it over to Will, who's tagging in for John today as we all travel to our event in L.A., which is the second thing I want to remind you of. I should say Irvine, California. Somebody said calling it Los Angeles is Orange County Erasure, which is fair. We are going to be in Irvine, California.

Starting point is 00:03:06 On Friday, there's still some tickets left. A link to that's also on an episode description, or you can go to readtangle.com forward slash live. You guys should come out if you're interested in seeing what this looks like in person. But, yes, that event's happening. We're all traveling today. It's a crazy day for the Tangle team. So Will's jumping in on the pod, and I'll be back for my take. Thanks, Isaac.

Starting point is 00:03:37 All right, let's get into today's quick hits. Number one, President Donald Trump is reportedly requesting that the Justice Department pay him approximately $230 million as compensation for federal investigations into him following the end of his first term. Trump submitted complaints through an administrative claim process in 23 and 24 seeking damages for the investigations. And on Tuesday, Trump said he would give any money he receives to charity. Number two, a White House official said that President Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin would not meet in the immediate future after Trump had said on Thursday that the two planned to meet in Hungary in the coming weeks. Number three, a deputy U.S. Marshall and a TikTok streamer were injured when an immigration and customs enforcement agent

Starting point is 00:04:26 fired shots at a suspect who was allegedly trying to run from agents and used his car to ram the agent's vehicle. Number four, the North Carolina Senate approved a new congressional map expected to help Republicans gain an additional house seat in the 26 midterm elections. The North Carolina House is expected to approve the map in a vote on Wednesday. And finally, number five, Peru's president, Jose Harry, declared a 30-day state of emergency in the country's capital, Lima, and the providence of Kalao to address crime.

Starting point is 00:04:58 The declaration authorizes the deployment of the armed forces alongside the police to maintain public order. Politico published an explosive new report revealing thousands of vile racist text messages exchanged among some young Republican leaders. It's so bad that some of them are losing their jobs. President Trump's pick to lead the Office of Special Counsel appears to be on thin ice, and that, quite honestly, may be a generous take. You now have the top Republican in the Senate, John Thune,

Starting point is 00:05:36 saying this about Paul in Grosia. He's not going to pass. It comes after political reported on racist text messages in Grosia allegedly sent in a group chat with the Republican operatives. In one message, and Grosia allegedly texted that the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday should be tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs. And another engrossia in a back and forth allegedly wrote, I do have a Nazi

Starting point is 00:06:00 streak in me from time to time. I will admit it. On Thursday, Politico published screenshots of text messages sent by members of young Republicans, an organization for Republican Party members between 18 and 40 years old that featured offensive jokes and racist language. In the messages, Various leaders of young Republican chapters across the country joked about planting fake stories to smear rival GOP candidates, use racial epithets to refer to black people, and expressed admiration for Hitler. The texts also showed group members discussing a potential error in the number of delegates at the Republican National Convention. Those implicated in the texts reportedly represent chapters in New York, Kansas, Arizona, and Vermont. Many GOP leaders have called on the young

Starting point is 00:06:49 Republicans to take accountability, as has the group's Board of Directors. Quote, such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents, the Young Republican National Federation's Board of Directors said in a post on Instagram. As part of the fallout for the report, New York's Young Republicans' chapter voted to suspend its operations on Friday. Other national leaders have called for leniency and understanding. Most notably, Vice President J.D. Vance said he did.

Starting point is 00:07:19 not want those exposed by the reports to have their lives, quote, ruined because they're saying something stupid in a private group chat, end quote. Then on Monday, Politico published another leaked chain of incriminating private messages, this time from Paul Ingrossia, White House liaison to the Department of Homeland Security, and President Donald Trump's nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel. The messages between Ingracia and a group of fellow Republicans showed the 30-year-old attorney saying that the Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday should be, quote, tossed into the seventh circle of hell, end quote, and admitting to having a, quote, Nazi streak. Ingracio's nomination was already embattled, as recent reports revealed he was the subject of an

Starting point is 00:08:01 internal investigation at the Department of Homeland Security after a sexual harassment complaint was filed against him. The woman who initially filed the complaint later withdrew it, and Ingracios' attorney denied the allegation. Separately, in general, July, Senator Tom Tillis, a Republican from North Carolina, said that Ingracia was, quote, not ready for prime time after a meeting with the Senate Homeland Security Committee staff. On Tuesday evening, Ingracia withdrew his nomination. Quote, I will be withdrawing myself from Thursday as committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs hearing to lead the Office of Special Counsel because, unfortunately, I do

Starting point is 00:08:37 not have enough Republican votes at this time, Ingracia said in a post on X. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, a Republican from South Dakota, and Senators Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rick Scott from Florida, and James Langford from Oklahoma, were among the Republican senators who had publicly expressed doubts about Ingrosia's nomination. Today, we'll break down the Young Republicans and Paul Grosia scandals with views from the right and left.

Starting point is 00:09:03 Then, executive editor, Isaac Saul, gives his take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Here's what the right is saying. Most on the right condemn the messages in the leaked chats. Some argue that the messages are not meaningfully worse than what elected Democrats have said. And others say the ingracia leaks are a lesson for other young Republicans. In the New York Post, Ricky Schlott said, The Young Republican Group Chat is part of the right's new vice signaling bonding ritual.

Starting point is 00:09:50 It's apparently supposed to be funny. You guys are in on the joke, right? And meant to prove loyalty. If you're one of us, they're implying, you'd never rat. But it's abhorrent and fits right into a concerning mounting trend on the right, Schlott wrote. Vice signaling is a backlash response to the left smug virtue signaling, a performative and exclusionary trend of going to,

Starting point is 00:10:11 fashionable protests, using overly genuflecting lingo, and shaming anyone to the right of the far left. It's not just a matter of rejecting political correctness. It's about being actively and aggressively politically incorrect. Yes, it's all free speech, but there's also an expectation of civility and basic respect for others, especially from up-and-coming political leaders. There's humor, and there's taking a joke so far that it's vile, Schlott said. The right has to rethink whether being anti-PC is really the best glue to hold together a community. Tasteless and rude is in a flex, and performatively standing against something is an incoherent ideology. In the Daily Caller, Jeffrey Ingersoll wrote, these leaked chats won't get a rise out of me. The leaked chat from a group of

Starting point is 00:10:59 young Republican leaders mostly came off like a bunch of cringe, prepubescent idiots who recently discovered curse words, except it was 20-somethings larping as edgy 4chan racists. Ingersoll said. Do I think all this is bad? Yes. Condeming it is easy. I don't even need to hit the brakes. I can do a drive-by condemnation. But do I believe they need to be rapidly unpersoned? Absolutely not. Jay Jones, the potential top law enforcement officer of the most historic state in the union, fantasized about shooting a former statehouse speaker in the head. He said he'd love to do it not once, but twice, Ingersoll wrote. As far as I can tell, not a single sitting Democrat, has called for him to drop out.

Starting point is 00:11:42 Abigail Spanberger is running for governor to actually work with the man, and she hasn't either. Until a higher percentage of the fiery but mostly peaceful crowd stops thinking it's totally justified to assault and kill us, I won't be getting mad about these leaked chats. The Wall Street Journal editorial board called the Ingracia scandal a lesson for young MAGA. Beyond the failure of vetting,

Starting point is 00:12:04 it would be useful if President Trump made clear that this kind of garbage isn't wanted in his MAGA political movement. the board said. A lawyer for Mr. Ingrossia told the news outlet Politico he didn't concede the veracity of the leaked messages. Quote, even if the texts are authentic, they clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor, making fun of the fact that liberals outlandishly and routinely call MAGA supporters Nazis. It's impossible to know what's in Mr. Ingrosia's heart, but if his explanation is that he acted like an internet troll, it isn't much of a defense. Other participants in the chat offered warnings.

Starting point is 00:12:41 Quote, Paul, you are coming across as a white nationalist, one reportedly said. Quote, you're going to be in private practice one day, and this shit will be around forever, end quote. The same advice could have been given to all of those young Republican leaders whose chat threads were leaked recently. The board wrote, Mr. Ingrosia's nomination is dead, a sign that the GOP won't tolerate his brand of extremist political behavior and rhetoric. It is also a potent lesson for mega youth in what not to do.

Starting point is 00:13:08 All right, here's what the left is saying. The left is appalled by the messages and alarmed by some prominent Republicans' refusal to condemn them. Some commend Senate Republicans for pulling their support for Grosia. Others say the attitude shown in the group chats has already spread to mainstream Republican circles. In the Atlantic, Jonathan Chate asked, why is Vance defending that racist group chat? When a political ally does something

Starting point is 00:13:46 controversial, there are three ways to respond. Defend it, repudiate it, or deflect attention away from it. Defense is the obvious option if you think the action is acceptable enough to the public. Repudiation makes sense if the matter is so toxic that you can't afford to keep the guilty party in your coalition,

Starting point is 00:14:04 Chate wrote, deflection is the response of choice only when the behavior of an ally is too toxic to defend, but so widespread within your coalition that you cannot afford to criticize it. That a group of ambitious professional Republicans can spread nakedly racist messages without rebuke signifies the transformation of conservative political norms in the Trump era, Chate said. The vice president apparently grasps that openly defending references to black people as, quote, watermelon eaters and quips about sending political rivals to the gas chamber would hurt his political standing.

Starting point is 00:14:38 but he also clearly needs these young Republican leaders if he hopes to consolidate the Trump base behind him. Deflection is a calculated response. The Washington Post editorial board wrote about Republicans drawing a line on Paul and Gracia. One of the differences between President Donald Trump's first and second terms is the meekness of Senate Republicans. But it's good to know that there's still a limit somewhere

Starting point is 00:15:03 after Senate Majority Leader John Thune warned Monday night that his conference would reject with the nomination of Paul Ngrossia, the board said. It was always clear that Ingracia was a puerile troll with no business serving as an officer of the United States, but it took Senate Republicans five months to say as much. Presidents deserve significant deference in filling most executive branch posts, but the Senate plays an important role in forcing certain boundaries. Thune's majority mostly abdicated that responsibility by approving figures such as Robert F. Kennedy

Starting point is 00:15:36 Jr. as Health and Human Services Secretary and Cash Patel as FBI director, the board wrote. Republican and Democratic senators are too enthralled to presidents of their parties, and it's damaging the constitutional system. In Politico, Catherine Kim and Calder McHugh called the leaked chat, a sign of where we could be headed. As the leaked young Republicans chat reveals, the hateful troll-like way in which these people communicate has also found its way into the mainstream GOP. It's a trend that could become more visible as a generation of chronically online young people on the right age into higher positions of power and are embraced by the party, Kim and McHugh said. What begins in far right corners of the internet seeps into right-leaning spaces offline, even within Republican politics. Several members of the young Republicans group chat are in official positions in the party.

Starting point is 00:16:28 One works for the Trump administration. Government agencies under the Trump administration have also demonstrated their fluency in this case. kind of radical online humor and provocation. The public ex-accounts of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security are now sharing content that would be at home on Groyper message boards, though without explicit Nazi reference, Kim and McHugh wrote. The transgressive nature of these kinds of posts is likely the point. It's supposed to make the poster's enemies mad and push the boundaries of acceptable discourse. All right, that is it for what the right and left are saying, So I will pass it back over to Isaac for his take.

Starting point is 00:17:07 Isaac, over to you. All right, that is it for the left and the writer's sandwich brings us to my take. I'll start with the easy one before moving on to the issue that I think has slightly more nuance. Paul and Gracia's nomination getting pulled is obviously a good thing. It also serves as a reminder that Senate Republicans who have displayed an incredible amount of deference to President Trump still have lines that they are not willing to cross. Someone with a self-described Nazi streak who uses slurs to describe black people and thinks all federal holidays honoring minorities should be tossed into the seventh circle of hell

Starting point is 00:17:50 apparently crosses the line. A lot of this stuff was already known about ingracia, so it's alarming. It took this long for him to be rejected by the party, but good riddance. The discussion about the young Republicans' text message scandal offers a few more layers of nuance. If you have been reading this newsletter or listening to this podcast for a little while, you probably know that my position here is typically one of extending grace. In 2021, I wrote a piece called Confessing My Sins, which addressed the way cancel culture was derailing the lives of people

Starting point is 00:18:23 who have made embarrassing mistakes when they were younger, and how it could also have derailed mine had I not been given grace and room to grow. As a teenager, I used homophobic slurs and wrapped along to lyrics using the N-word. I did this mostly because the people I grew up around did it, and I broke out of these habits because better-adjusted older kids made me feel stupid and uncool for using this language without exiling me altogether. On occasion, I'll still make or laugh at an offensive or edgy joke, which describes a lot of humor,

Starting point is 00:18:54 and I generally try not to judge young people by the worst things they say, especially in the context of them trying to be funnier, win social approval. In some, I don't think I'm particularly sensitive to this stuff, and I'm inclined against destroying people's lives when you can instead help them evolve. At the same time, extending grace is not the same as withholding consequences. Nobody is going to jail or being publicly tard and feather.

Starting point is 00:19:19 Neither should these young leaders be permanently blacklisted from working in politics. But they also shouldn't get to say the things they said in that chat without any blowback. There should be repercussions. Even assuming the best of the participants, it should still be taboo to say overtly racist things to be edgy, or joke about gas chambering your political opponents, or make light of embracing Hitler, especially in a context where you're supposedly modeling leadership behavior. The board of directors of the young Republicans set the right tone in response to the leaked chats. They called the behavior disgraceful and

Starting point is 00:19:55 unbecoming of Republicans and helped force out several members from the political jobs they were holding. This is good. This is what appropriate repercussions look like. Vice President J.D. Vance, on the other hand, handled the situation about as poorly as one could have imagined. Vance dismissed the vile language as kids doing stupid things and that young boys make edgy and offensive jokes before repeating the mantra that we shouldn't ruin their lives for it. But this wasn't just some group of teenagers who didn't know any better. First off, these aren't kids. Most of these young men are in their 20s and some are in their 30s and even 40s, just a few years younger than the vice president. Secondly, they are supposed to be the next generation of political leaders for the Republican Party. A few were in

Starting point is 00:20:39 important government jobs or leadership positions. One was a state senator from Vermont who has since resigned. Second, the entire premise is laced with hypocrisy. Ramesa Ozturk is a 30-year-old graduate student who was snatched up on the street by ICE and detained for writing a milk toast pro-Palestine op-ed. Is she a kid? She's younger than some participants in the group chat and she was arrested and detained for a run-of-the-mill political opinion piece. Third and finally, appropriate consequences don't have to ruin lives. The vice president, of all people, should be able to hold these young Republicans to the same standard the board of directors of their own organization does. But alas, he was incapable of doing even that. Just this month, I wrote about the Jay Jones text messages in which the

Starting point is 00:21:27 Democratic candidate for Virginia Attorney General entertained the value of his opponent's children dying in order to change his political views, and I called on him to drop out of his race. My argument in that case was simple. Let's make calls for political violence, even if they can be excused as jokes so taboo that both sides start to weed this behavior out of their own ranks. We have to police our own groups and communities. and my appeal to Democrats was to take the high road, sacrifice Jones, and then try to hold Republicans to the same standards. Now is the GOP's turn to exercise those standards. Republican senators just showed how easy it was with Ingracia. A few said that they would vote no, and now his nomination is dead.

Starting point is 00:22:10 There wasn't some uprising from the base, and there was no downside to setting the standard. It just made them look like decent and reasonable people. The board of directors of the national young Republicans also did a good job with the participants of the group chat. They condemn the text in plain language, and then they called on every member of the group chat to immediately resign whatever positions they held, and many of them have. This is good. This is how it's done.

Starting point is 00:22:35 Which all brings me to my final point. For the most part, Republicans have actually handled these two scandals precisely how they should have. With the prominent exception of the vice president and the small selection of members of Congress, most of the party condemn these behaviors for what they were. Plenty of news outlets, including Politico, have framed the story as the GOP being split on these text messages and how to navigate them, but I'm not really buying that.

Starting point is 00:23:00 Political came up with exactly two Republican members of Congress who tried to defend or distract from the messages. I'm sure there were a few more, but I think the party generally condemned these actions for what they were. So framing this as a division is a gross overstatement. Sure, you can find plenty of people on ex-defending the young Republicans, though nobody really came to in Gracia's defense, but that reaction isn't representative of the Republican Party as a whole. Repercussions are being delivered across the country. The Young Republicans' organization itself has staked out a hardline condemnation,

Starting point is 00:23:32 and almost every Republican at the state and national level has rejected this language outright and called for clear repercussions. This is an encouraging signal about the norms we're all still willing to enforce and live by. Republicans should keep it up, and Democrats should remember it the next time they have an opportunity to draw lines on what's acceptable and what's not. All right, that is it for my take. Senior editor Will Kayback has a dissent,

Starting point is 00:23:55 so I'm going to pass it over to him for that. Hey, this is senior editor, Will Kayback, jumping back in here to share my dissent to a portion of Isaac's take today. I agree with Isaac that the Republican Party writ large has responded appropriately to the Young Republican Group chat leaks, but I think he's downplaying the importance of, the dissent among the online right. Most notably, conservative podcaster Matt Walsh, who has nearly 4 million followers on X, suggested that the right should never disavow its own in order to

Starting point is 00:24:29 maintain a united front against the left. The post has sparked a massive debate, with some of the most influential conservative figures weighing in, many of whom have a direct line to the White House and President Trump. While I admire elected Republicans' response to this controversy, I think this notion of no enemies to the right remains salient and will recur when future controversies arise. With all that said, it's also worth noting that elected Democrats approach to the recent scandals involving Jay Jones and Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner have been just as disappointing. All right, I'm going to send it back over to Isaac for today's reader question. We'll be right back after this question.

Starting point is 00:25:17 quick break. All right, next up is your questions answered. This one's from Jody in Seattle, Washington. Jody said, would it make any difference if Congress stopped getting paid during a shutdown? And why, when the government shuts down, do I still pay taxes? Okay, this is a great question. Actually divided our staff a little bit. So we've got some version of this a lot this week.

Starting point is 00:25:43 Some readers have wondered if members of Congress get paid during the shutdown. they do. If any have publicly declined their salaries, some have pledged to, and if congressional staffs are getting paid, they are, but they are subject to furlough. Those are questions with straightforward factual answers, as is your second question. Congress is getting paid because Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution defines the pay of federal legislators stating in part that senators and representatives shall receive a compensation for their services to be ascertained by law and paid out of the Treasury of the United States. Your first question is more of an opinion question, one that strongly divided our editorial team.

Starting point is 00:26:22 Would it make any difference if Congress stopped getting paid during a shutdown? We should start by saying that several bills have actually been proposed that would achieve this goal. The Make America Govern Again Act introduced yesterday, ironically during the shutdown, would bar members from collecting salaries during a shutdown. And the No Budget No Pay Act introduced in January goes a step further and would forbid members from collecting a salary until Congress approved. a budget. Those all sound like good motivators, so why wouldn't they make a difference? Some of us, like managing editor Ari Whiteman and social media and marketing strategist Russell Nystrom,

Starting point is 00:26:57 think such laws wouldn't make a difference. Russell and Ari believe the salary costs would likely be less than the benefit gained by any politician who would vote in favor of such a measure. Wealthier members of Congress make plenty of side money from book deals and speaking fees and have for years, and now make so much in stock deals that it's become almost a joke. Without pairing this measure with other reforms, like requiring members to place investments in a blind trust, this kind of reform will likely serve to give more leverage to wealthier representatives to push their agendas, knowing others are less able to survive shutdowns.

Starting point is 00:27:31 Others of us, like me, and Associate Editor Arjee Moorhead, strongly disagree. We think that very few members of Congress actually make a lot of money off book deals or trading stocks. Remember, Congress is over 500 members. For the vast majority, losing their pay would be a huge deal. And we think the consequences would increase the pressure on the majority of Congress to find a deal in a way that could actually be pretty productive. All right, that is it for your questions answered.

Starting point is 00:27:58 I'm going to send it back to Will for the rest of the pod. And I'll see you guys tomorrow. And I hope some of you out in L.A. on Friday. Have a good one. Don't forget to sign up for subtext. Peace. Thanks, Isaac. All right, jumping back in now with our Under the Radar story. On Monday, Colombia recalled its ambassador to the United States, Daniel Garcia-Pena,

Starting point is 00:28:25 amid rising tensions between the countries over U.S. strikes on alleged drugboats in the Caribbean. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of, quote, murder for a strike in September that he claims killed a fisherman whose boat was adrift due to engine failure. Trump responded by alleging that Petro was. was encouraging drug production in Colombia and announcing that he would cut off U.S. aid to the country. The Hill has this story, and we'll put the link to it in today's episode notes.

Starting point is 00:28:59 Now on to today's numbers. 2,900. That's the number of pages of chats among young Republicans leaked to Politico. And the number of text messages in the leak was approximately 28,000. The year that the Association of New York State Young Republican Clubs was established was 1932, and the age range of those eligible to join the club was 18 to 40. Finally, the number of days between Paul and Gracia being nominated to lead the office of special counsel and his withdrawal for the position was 145 days.

Starting point is 00:29:38 Finally, here's today's Have a Nice Day story. Jeff Robertson became a local celebrity for her. his house's Halloween decorations in 2020, and he decided to use some of that attention to help others. Robertson launched Skeletons for St. Jude, a national campaign that encourages families to decorate their homes for Halloween and raise awareness and funds for children's cancer research. Roughly 600 homes are already participating this year, and Robertson says the number could reach 1,000 by Halloween. The effort has raised approximately $978,000 for St. Jude. since 2020.

Starting point is 00:30:16 Good, Good, good, good has this story, and we'll put the link to it in the show notes, as well as the link to check out these skeletons for St. Jude website. All right, that is it for today's edition. Thanks, as always, for being with us. We'll be back tomorrow. Have a great day.

Starting point is 00:30:32 Our executive editor and founder is me. Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Lull. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas. Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors Hunter Casperson, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saw, Lindsay Canuth, and Kendall White. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership,

Starting point is 00:30:57 please visit our website at retangle.com.

Tangle - The Republican texting scandals.

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