Today, Explained - The "I love Hitler" group chat

Episode Date: October 21, 2025

When the private messages of Young Republican leaders leaked, it exposed an antisemitism problem that is dividing the GOP. And the online world that is fostering it. This episode was produced by Denise Guerra and Avishay Artsy, edited by Amina Al-Sadi, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd and Adriene Lilly, and hosted by Noel King. Paul Ingrassia, White House Liaison to the Justice Department, who made racist and pro-Nazi comments in a recently revealed group chat. Photo by Pete Kiehart for The Washington Post via Getty Images. Listen to Today, Explained ad-free by becoming a Vox Member: vox.com/members. New Vox members get $20 off their membership right now. Transcript at ⁠vox.com/today-explained-podcast.⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's today explained from Vox. Maybe you've heard about the recent Republican Nazi scandal. There is a group text chain out there from Trump's pick to lead the office of special counsel. And he texted, according to Politico, that he has a Nazi streak. He made these remarks in a chain with a half a dozen Republican operatives and influencers. Oh, gosh, no, not that one. With regard to the swastika thing, this happened last night. a Republican congressman, allegedly one of his staffers had something in the background or something in a Zoom.

That's what it hurts. No, not that one either. The young Republicans in the Isle of Hitler in the group chat. It's awful. It's revolting. It's disgusting. It's obnoxious. It's also the third time in like seven days.

Coming up, do the Republicans have a Nazi problem? Support for this show comes from Notion. There's only one of you, only so many hours, only so much focus. What if you had a teammate who could work just like you do, with all the contexts you have but faster? That's what Notion AI feels like. Notion is the connected workspace where teams create, plan, track, and ship together. Now, with Notion Agent, you can get an AI teammate that finishes the job.

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The young Republicans whose text messages Politico got hold of a week ago are not that young, 22 to 40, L.O.L. And they weren't household names, but up and comers. Staffers in Republican offices. Andrew Procop, Vox, what did they say? Where to start? A lot of this was kind of edgy humor in which they were joking about all sorts of taboo topics. There was a lot of talk about Hitler, about gas chambers. There are references to black people as watermelon people. people. Someone says he doesn't want to watch the NBA because he'd go to the zoo if I wanted to watch monkey play ball. And then they refer to another young Republican figure who's not in the chat as a, quote, fat, stinky Jew. So a lot of nasty stuff here. In your piece for Vox, you focused on

the anti-Semitism. How have Republicans, conservatives, responded to the group chat from hell? Well, there has been a real split in the reaction over this. Disgusting. If they have government jobs, they should be fired. It's reprehensible. Focus on the real issues. Don't focus on what kids say in group chats. All out continues for New York's young Republican chapter as a pivotal vote to disband the group has been approved.

I think the insta reaction from a lot of people was to say, this is unacceptable. This goes too far. We don't want this kind of thing. associated with our movement. And then there's the other reaction, which is basically to rally to their defense, to say that essentially that we shouldn't care about this because Democrats in the left are so much worse. One thousand times worse.

And the loudest and most vocal proponent of that latter view was the vice president of the United States, J.D. Vance, who, of course, decided to weigh in on this. Focusing on what kids are saying in a group chat, grow up. He said he refused to join the pearl clutching over what he called inaccurately. A college group chat repeatedly said the participants were kids and young boys. And I really don't want us to grow up in a country where a kid telling a stupid joke, telling a very offensive stupid joke, is caused to ruin their lives. A really interesting debate has kind of emerged on X and on other social media platforms on the right. about whether

really should there be a line somewhere is enough enough and is this a sign of a worrying trend that blatant anti-Semitism and bigotry are being normalized among the young right in a way that is worsening and that will have very bad consequences for our society and perhaps for the Republican Party as well.

Let's go back to time and talk about whether this is a real shocker. Is this the first time we've seen this type of anti-Semitism in young conservative circles? What I would say is that this is something that has been brewing, that has been simmering. It's been kind of in the fever swamps of the young right. If you go on message boards like 4chan that have right-wing allegiances, this sort of, if you think back to the Charlottesville rally, where there were a bunch of relatively young white supremacists chanting things like, You will not replace us!

You will not replace us! But this year, there have been a series of what I found to be very notable warnings from prominent right-wing figures that are very closely in touch with trends on the right, that they believed this problem was getting worse, and they were worried about it. Christopher Rufo is, of course, the leading right-wing activists who combated wokeness critical race theory, very kind of not a moderate figure in really any way. They can use, you know, they-them pronouns. They can use it itself pronouns. They can use frog-frog-frog-self pronouns, for that matter. He wrote in early September, an article called the conservative movement at a crossroads. He said that racialism,

anti-Semitism, and conspiracism were entering some corners of mainstream conservatism, and that what he was hearing from Republican staffers was that all three trends have, quote, gained a foothold among their Gen Z colleagues in Washington. There have been several other posts like this that I've noted this year. A lot of it seems to be about a kind of culture among young right-wingers that's developed where saying extreme and offensive things makes you kind of cool. The commentator Richard Hanania had an article earlier this year where he called this the based ritual. He claims this is a real thing that young MAGA does when they're in social settings. They kind of compete for like who can say the most offensive things or express the most extreme

views. And what's interesting is in a sort of joking or am I joking really fashion. Like there's, you know, of course you're being ironic. You don't really support Hitler. But oh, Hitler, you know, he's kind of based. He's maybe kind of cool. But the belief is that this kind of crossed over from what were just like anonymous posters on message boards in the comments who had no power over to low-level positions, but inside the administration in Republican Hill offices, that this kind of thinking and behavior was now becoming more common among like the Republican staffer class. And one reason for this, many argue, is the growth of such.

allegedly anti-Semitic rhetoric and commentary among popular right-wing influencers. Like whom? So there is a spectrum of some certain influencers who are just openly anti-Semitic, anti-just criticized Jews in that term all the time. This would be like Nick Fuentes. The Jews took over America. They opened the borders. He's been called a white supremacist.

or a Hitler defender, but he's still pretty, pretty far from acceptable among most Republican elite circles. But what's really happened is that this has spread more among this kind of populist, independent influencer class of people who are offering up this commentary, often framed in terms of more conspiracy theories, where that often tend to blame Jews or Israelis or Zionists or the Mossad or whoever for various societal problems. But the craziest example of this so far is what unfolded after the killing of Charlie Kirk in September. And what happened there? So after Kirk was shot, some conservative figures like Rufo immediately seized on this as a, a pretext to blame the left. And there's been no evidence or assertion that has any validity that any other person or group was involved in this other than Tyler Robinson, the accused

killer. So Rufo is trying to blame the left. But then, inconveniently for him, these right-wing influencers start floating a different theory that maybe the Jews had something to do with it. You know, to be clear, this has no validity or basis whatsoever. but there was actually a complicated backstory about Charlie Kirk and about Israel that has come to light in the month or so since his killing. Kirk had long been a staunchly pro-Israel conservative.

I am a defender of the nation state of Israel to exist as a homeland for the Jewish people. But he was always in touch about where the trends were among the young rights rank and file. He recognized they were increasingly divided. divided over Israel. And he began to feature commentators like Tucker Carlson, who many argue has crossed over into kind of spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in his criticism of Israel. And then in early September, in texts that have since leaked, Charlie Kirk texted

some of his allies, just lost another huge Jewish donor, $2 million a year because we won't cancel Tucker. Jewish donors play into all the stereotypes. I cannot and will not be bullied like this, leaving me no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause. And a couple days after that, he was murdered. So this has been the basis for all of these anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about Israel or Jews in some way being involved in Charlie Kirk's murder. This is sometimes alluded to in sort of coded fashion at Kirk's memorial service. Tucker Carlson compared him to Jesus, who he said was killed due to, quote,

with a bunch of guys sitting around eating hummus thinking about what do we do about this guy telling the truth about us. We must make him stop talking. Candice Owens, another very popular figure in this podcast slash influencer. Space on the right has devoted her whole. podcast to like trying to suss out supposedly the truth about Kirk's killing. Bebe Netanyahu and that phone call what took place was a couple

of weeks ago before Charlie lost his life. She's the one who actually first published these leaked texts which have been confirmed to be authentic. And so as Tucker and Candace have increasingly pushed these conspiracy

theories, there's been pushback and others on the right. have said, is enough enough? Like, should we keep associating with these people? Have they gone too far? Or should they be, you know, denounced, shunned, disavowed? And there are very different views on this. People say, you know, they've crossed over into complete anti-Semitic nonsense.

They've been completely lost to reality and cut them loose. a coalition, like firing people who say bigoted things, denouncing people with extreme views, deplatforming, have really lost favor among many on the right because they're viewed as kind of the way that the left weaponizes censorship against the right. And they don't want to support censorship. And so they are basically saying, you know, we can't do anything except stand aside while these groups and these ideas continue to gain influence will try to argue against them to persuade people otherwise, but they have not been doing such a great job of it so far.

Andrew ProcopVox.com. Coming up, what's the worst thing you've ever said in a group chat? And honestly, did you mean it literally? You did not. And so we're going to ask, should we give these guys a break? Devil's avocado ahead. Support for today explained comes from Mint Mobile, the company that thinks sometimes you should just say no. You don't want to get trapped in some overpriced wireless plan, says Mint Mobile. This year, Mint Mobile invites you to say no. At Mint Mobile, their favorite word is no. No contracts. No monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, I'm told. You can ditch overpriced wireless and those jaw-dropping monthly bills and unexpected overages. At Mint, plans start at $15 a month. All those plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on what I'm told is the nation's largest 5G network. You can use your own phone with any Mint mobile plan. You can bring your same number along all your existing contexts. Ready to say yes, to saying no, you can make this switch at mintmobile.com slash explain. That's mintmobile.com slash explain. An upfront payment of $45 is required, guys. That's equivalent to $15 a month. This is a limited time, new customer

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I'm afraid that if I subscribe to something like Internet, you would really be hooked. I would get hooked and I would never, you know, spend time. What Today Explained. Okay, my name is Jamie Cohen, and I am an associate professor of media studies at CUNY, Queens College in New York. You spent a lot of time studying memes, I'm told. Yes, I actually tell people I have a PhD in memes, but I really have a doctorate in visual culture and online propaganda, I guess is the way to think of it. But yes, memes are my main focus of study, yes. Why do you think those young Republicans were saying what they were saying?

I think they've normalized this speech. in their communities. It's sort of the way that we code switch into our group chats. We each have our own type of language when we talk to each other. And the sites and places that they communicate or find themselves around online are speaking like this. And so they're just dragging that type of language into their group chats. Yes. And then that brings us to the question of if you think that talking this way is normal, whether you really mean it. And we're not inside their heads. We don't know if they really mean it. But one way of determining whether they really mean it, is to ask, is this exclusive to young people on the right?

There is a space where people, anybody, tests the people around them while using speech. The Overton window is the overall borderlands of acceptable speech. But I think each person who holds their ideologies, whether their left ideologies or right ideologies, tests people by using language that are pretty specific to their space and ideology. And so in these cases, you often hear these words to see if somebody pushes back or not. And if nobody pushes back, you know that that's an acceptable form of speech inside those communities. So it isn't always ideologically to the right. It is ideologically to what is an in-group or what you find as a sense of belonging. So it's the way that we test each other to figure it out. All right. So we are talking about

the young Republicans and their leaked chat. You will know that Jay Jones, a Democrat who's running for Attorney General in Virginia, said in some text that he seemed to think were private. He fantasized about killing Virginia's Republican State House Speaker and about the deaths of that Republican's children. A person who is very politically powerful, who is about to become one of the most powerful law enforcement officers in the country, that person seriously wishing for political violence and political assassination is 1,000 times worse than what a bunch of young people, a bunch of kids say in a group chat, however offensive it might be. That's just a reality.

What do we take from the example of Jay Jones? What does he tell us? So this example is interesting because the difference here is the young Republicans aren't running for office. They might hold positions in their state. But when you're running for attorney general, you really are the person who's kind of responsible for that type of justice. And so that type of speech, I think there's like that sentence of like wisdom consists of the anticipation of consequences. And when you're running for that position, being inconsequential about that in that speech is irresponsible. And he said he was embarrassed and sorry for what he said. I'm ashamed.

I'm embarrassed. And I'm sorry. But really, that is also important speech. And it falls under what would be considered threat. And that isn't protected by our First Amendment rights. Okay. So what I'm hearing from you is that everybody is behaving badly in the chats. And by everybody, I don't obviously literally.

really mean everybody, but I myself have said things in private group chats, nothing along these lines, I assure you, and our listeners, that I would not want anyone to see. This makes me, Jamie, open to the idea that a group chat is essentially harmless. We talk this way in private, but we don't act on this. And we live in 2025. Everyone has the group chat. And everybody is trying to impress their friends with the clever or salty or spicy things that they say. But we need to remember that it's not real life. What do you think about that? In the past several years, probably the last decade, we've replaced community into these digital spaces. We're allowed to be more free inside of them. And I think, to be clear, if we lose that freedom, then we've lost connectivity. We do need an ability to express ourselves freer with our group chats in terms of, like,

private spaces in terms of like what we would consider community, should. have the ability to have a flexibility of language that is acceptable among friends. That is how it is. And that's where nuance and like, if you're a friend of somebody, you understand their intonation. So those gray areas are part of how we moderate space in general. So it isn't like a danger that translates from text directly to action. That is completely different. Text to action takes many, many years.

I think where I feel this happens is that when you normalize any type of slow violence, meaning like these are just jokes at this point. When you normalize that amongst a group of friends, sometimes the borders of your group chat spill out into real life. You forget who you're talking to. You've normalized it so much in your head that your filters have been worn down. And I think that's where the borderlands become soft.

And I worry about that with internet culture in general because so many people that consider themselves extremely online or very online since the pandemic have sort of lost the idea of what the filter is between like their online friends and how they communicate. to their parents, to their friends offline, or in classes, to be honest. I've heard things that come out of their mouth, which result in a little bit of a red face.

So I think sometimes that normalcy creates an accidental okayness that isn't with the right in-group. And, you know, another argument you heard is that these were young Republicans who were like chair of the young Republicans in Kansas City and New York. Like you look at their online profile. These are not particularly charismatic people. They don't seem as if they are bound for greatness. And so maybe, and you know, we've heard conservatives make this argument, they are people at the lower echelon who weren't really headed anywhere. And therefore, it's not so much to worry about. What do you think about that? I would ask where J.D. Vance was in the echelon 10 years ago. If you assume that he was in the lower echelons of politics a decade ago coming off of a book deal and telling his story. and 10 years ago today being fairly anti-Trump. Trump is a really bad candidate and, frankly, I think a really bad person. And then figuring his way into a point where today he uses Twitter and his accounts quite aggressively with his language

and in the defense of these text messages, it just tells you that, yes, at this point, they may be lower echelon in their speech, but there's a likely trajectory of the moving up to potentially the vice presidency or the presidency itself. Yeah. Vance is a fascinating. case because he is young. He's a millennial. He's a member of the emo community. Fated to you by Mazzie Starr is probably like my favorite song of the entire 90s rock era. He almost certainly will run for president in 2028. And he is defending this. This man who's very ambitious, who would probably like to be president someday, is the loudest voice saying

this is no big deal. That's really striking. What do we take from that? I guess it surprised me the most when the vice president replied in a quote tweet to the Krasenstein's, I don't give a shit what you call it. When the Krasenstein's called out, the Trump administration's bombing of a Venezuelan boat, a war crime. And it was shocking to me because the vice president is a very online character, but the Krasnstein's are well known as reply guys, very popular reply guys on Twitter X space. And they clap back. That's their main goals. They speak directly back to politicians and try to get that a type of attention. So they're popular, their popular figures. And I thought to myself, in what part of history, at least modern history, would you hear a vice president saying that to a citizen?

That would be considered something that would be a gaff or something that would be so problematic. I mean, I grew up when Dan Quill misspelled potato. Yep. So it was. Weeks of coverage. So I was fascinated by that level of aggressive mockery of somebody just saying something on Twitter, an X, and how much that type of speech has become normalized, not to. just by politics, but by culture and media as well. I do believe that Vance is speaking, when he talks about this or covers for these young

Republicans, I feel in many ways he's speaking towards the future of the party that he is likely to or imagines himself to inherit. And in that way, we're kind of seeing what the new baseline the bottom is, the normalcy of that lower level, as it's going to become something more aggressive in the future. People still see the internet as another place, but J.D. Vance and this chat group shows that, like, the internet is everywhere. And internet culture is running our politics and our culture at this point. And we have to really pay very close attention to how J.D. Vance speaks because he may be speaking to his echo chamber,

but he is expecting that chamber to get much larger and encompass everything around us. Jamie Cohen, professor, me man, Queens College in New York. Denise Guerra and Avishai Artsy produced today, show. Amina El Sadi edited. Laura Bullard checked the facts. Took it a little too far this time. Our engineers are Patrick Boyden, Adrian Lilly, and I'm Noel King. You may know that Vox is currently on sale, the whole organization to the highest bidder. I'm just kidding. 30% off an annual membership. Perks, newsletters, unlimited reading, no ads on the podcast if you choose Vox.com slash members for more. It's today explained.

Thank you.