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Vice President J.D. Vance has dismissed the racist, antisemitic, and homophobic messages that were leaked from a Young Republicans group chat as "stupid" jokes made by "kids."
In an interview Wednesday (October 15) on "The Charlie Kirk Show," Vance doubled down on a viral tweet in which he slammed public outrage over the leaked group chat as “pearl clutching” and an example of cancel culture.
“Kids do stupid things. Especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes. Like, that’s what kids do,” Vance said. “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 cause to ruin their lives.”
Vance's comments come after a POLITICO report exposed over seven months of messages from a private group chat among members of the Young Republican National Federation (YRNF), the GOP’s official youth wing. The chat included jokes about gas chambers, slavery, rape, racial stereotypes, and gay slurs.
Several participants held or recently held roles in government, including a Vermont state senator, a chief of staff to a New York assemblyman, an official at the U.S. Small Business Administration, and a communications staffer in the Kansas attorney general’s office. Some members of the group were fired or faced calls to resign following the report.
While Vance referred to the participants as “kids,” at least eight of the 11 identifiable participants were reportedly between the ages of 24 and 35. One of the central figures, Peter Giunta, is 31.
On Wednesday, Vance said he’s using the incident as a teaching moment for his own children, “especially my boys,” warning them to assume “some scumbag is going to leak” anything they say online.
"If they were left-wing kids telling stupid left-wing jokes, I would also not want their lives to be ruined," he added.
Despite widespread backlash, Vance stood firm in his defense of the group chat.
“We’re not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat,” he said. “And if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I’m fine with it.”
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