The governor of California is daring the GOP-controlled Congress to open an investigation into “the vile and offensive” pro-Nazis, pro-rape and racist text messages recently revealed from Young Republican leaders across America.
“Those text chats invoked sending people who disagree with the group ‘to the gas chamber,’ expressed ‘love [for] Hitler,’ and contained other overtly antisemitic exchanges,” Gavin Newsom said Wednesday in a one-page letter sent to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chair James Comer. “They expressly endorse rape and other violence against women and use patently racist phrases for racial minorities,” Newsom noted.
“This is the definition of conduct that can create a hostile and discriminatory environment that violates civil rights laws,” the two-term Golden State governor added, also pointing out the GOP hypocrisy in going after Ivy League schools like “Harvard University for its allegedly inadequate response to campus antisemitism” but seeking to swipe the Young Republicans’ hateful talk and texts under the rug.
Then there’s the politics of it all, past, present and future.
Yes, the national Young Republicans board has insisted everyone on the chats, first revealed by Politico, “must immediately resign” from their state groups. Many have, many have been pink-slipped, and some like Vermont state Sen. Sam Douglass are digging their heels in.
Knowing perfectly well there will almost certainly be little or no positive response from Comer or other Republicans in the shut-down Congress, the timing-sensitive Newsom today made his demand not long after Vice President JD Vance dismissively said again without any sense of irony that those offended should “grow up” and “focus on the real issues, don’t focus on what kids say in group chats.”
On Tuesday, Vance took to social media and tried to flip the script on the topic with a dig at Virginia Democrats.
Last month, as the tightly contested Old Dominion election comes down to the final weeks, text messages from 2022 were made public that had Democratic attorney general nominee Jay Jones shooting his digital mouth off about shooting then Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert and saying vile things about the Republican’s children. Democrats like poll-leading gubernatorial candidate Abigail Spanberger have condemned Jones’ comments, but Jones remains in the race.
Today, Vance was back on The Charlie Kirk Show podcast to take another kick at dampening the outrage and calls for consequences for the Young Republicans’ pro-Nazis, pro-rape and racist statements.
“The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys,” the self-admitted “old guy” Veep said Wednesday. “They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do.”
Rarely missing an opportunity to call out or mock the Trump administration or the increasingly far-right GOP, Newsom made sure to put the Hillbilly Elegy author and potential 2028 rival in a leg-hold trap of his own making.
“Vice President Vance’s refusal to unequivocally condemn the invocation of gas chambers and rape underscores that the United States Department of Justice and other agencies with potential jurisdiction, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, that have aggressively investigated alleged antisemitism and unlawful gender ideology by the other institutions and organizations cannot be trusted to do so here,” Newsom wrote. “Congressional oversight is therefore essential.”
There has been no reaction so far from the committee or its GOP members, though Newsom’s active social media team made sure to turn up the spotlight a bit more today:
