Senator Chuck Schumer of New York on Wednesday called on President Trump and top Republicans to condemn leaked text messages from leaders of Young Republican groups across the country that included racist and antisemitic comments as well as jokes about subjecting their political enemies to rape and gas chambers.
In remarks on the Senate floor, Mr. Schumer, the minority leader, accused Republicans of being quick to denounce hateful and violent language by Democrats but reticent to do so when the same kinds of statements came from their supporters.
“Too many Republicans seem willing to call out violent rhetoric only when it comes from the other side. But these same Republicans never seem willing to denounce it when it comes from their own ranks, and that’s dangerous. Violent political rhetoric is an attack on everyone,” Mr. Schumer said.
The 2,900 pages of chats, including one message that declared “I love Hitler,” were reported by Politico on Tuesday. The Young Republican National Federation is a political organization with thousands of G.O.P. members across the country between the ages of 18 and 40.
Mr. Trump has said nothing about the chats, which Politico reported included at least one low-level member of his administration, since they surfaced, nor has any Republican leader in Congress.
Representative Elise Stefanik of New York, the former chair of the House Republican Conference, was the highest-profile Republican in Washington to call out the “alleged vile statements” in a social media post. But she also called Politico’s reporting on the Young Republicans — a group she recently accepted an award from — a “hit piece,” and deflected to criticizing Democrats. Some state Republican leaders have condemned the texts and taken actions against some members of the chat.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Mr. Schumer’s criticism.
Mr. Schumer specifically called out Vice President JD Vance for dismissing the outrage over the thousands of violent, bigoted and misogynistic texts as “pearl clutching.” Mr. Vance sought to deflect attention instead to a leaked text exchange from Jay Jones, the Democratic nominee for attorney general in Virginia, in which Mr. Jones suggested that the state’s Republican House speaker deserved to be killed, as “far worse.”
“I refuse to join the pearl clutching when powerful people call for political violence,” the vice president wrote in a post on social media on Tuesday, including a screenshot of messages from three years ago in which Mr. Jones appeared to acknowledge having said he hoped the then-G.O.P. speaker’s children would die. The Democratic nominee has since apologized for the texts.
Mr. Schumer called the vice president’s post “outrageous” and accused Mr. Vance of condemning violent political discourse “only when it serves his interests.”
“Every single Republican leader, from the president on down, has to condemn these attacks immediately, or all of their cries about hate speech seem to be one-sided or bogus,” Mr. Schumer added.
Megan Mineiro is a Times congressional reporter and a member of the 2025-26 Times Fellowship class, a program for early-career journalists.
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