(WASHINGTON, D.C., 10/15/2025) – The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on Young Republicans responsible for sending racist and bigoted Telegram chats to resign from their positions and engage directly with the communities they reportedly targeted with hate.
According to Politico: “They referred to Black people as monkeys and ‘the watermelon people’ and mused about putting their political opponents in gas chambers. They talked about raping their enemies and driving them to suicide and lauded Republicans who they believed support slavery…Epithets like ‘f—-t,’ ‘retarded’ and ‘n—ga’ appeared more than 251 times combined.
In a statement CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw said:
“Although our society should always resist the urge to overreact to crude humor, the rhetoric in these messages was vile, inexcusable and symptomatic of a broader normalization of hate in political spaces. If young political activists who hold these hateful views become the political leaders of our nation in the future, we could be in store for a generation of racist policies and forever wars overseas.
“We urge those responsible for these messages of hate to step down, engage directly with the communities they targeted and take meaningful steps toward accountability.
“Hate speech leads to hate crimes. Dehumanization paves the way for dehumanizing policies. Leaders and organizations that plan to represent the future of this country must do better.”
CAIR also called on the Republican Party and its affiliated youth organizations to investigate this matter thoroughly and to commit to addressing racism, antisemitism, anti-Muslim bigotry, and all forms of bigotry within their ranks.
Earlier today, CAIR condemned neo-Nazi vandalism found on a walking path in Bangor, Maine
Washington, D.C., based CAIR and the American Muslim community stand in solidarity with all those challenging antisemitism, systemic anti-Black racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, white supremacy, and all other forms of bigotry.
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CONTACT: CAIR National Deputy Director Edward Ahmed Mitchell, 404-285-9530, e-Mitchell@cair.com; CAIR Government Affairs Director Robert McCaw, 202-742-6448, rmccaw@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper, 202-744-7726, ihooper@cair.com; CAIR National Communications Manager Ismail Allison, 202-770-6280, iallison@cair.com