Politics
The dark side of US political group chats
Three separate controversies involving leaked text messages from private online group chats have rocked US political circles this month, revealing racist, antisemitic, and violent statements from figures across the ideological spectrum.
The messages — sent privately but now public — include racial slurs, praise for Nazis, and threats of political violence, raising questions about why those involved felt comfortable expressing such views despite the risk of exposure and censure.
The online posts have also deepened concern among civil society groups and political language experts that violent rhetoric and racist hate speech are becoming normalised in America, particularly after decades of hard-fought civil rights victories that sought to dismantle such ideologies.
People have long expressed violent or racist views in private settings, but experts say the leaks of the text messages are noteworthy because they surfaced the unfiltered — and to many shocking — views of political figures.
A Politico report on October 14 revealed that a group of about a dozen Young Republican leaders had been sending racist and antisemitic messages to each other on Telegram between January and mid-August, referring to Black people as monkeys and with one declaring, “I love Hitler.”
On October 3, leaked texts published by National Review revealed that Jay Jones, the Democratic candidate to be Virginia’s top law enforcement official, sent a private text in 2022 saying a state Republican should be shot dead and that he would urinate on the graves of political opponents.
And this week, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead a federal watchdog agency, Paul Ingrassia, withdrew from consideration after he lost support among key Republican lawmakers following reports that he had described himself as having a “Nazi streak” in a private text message exchange.
Experts in online culture and political discourse, including a professor from the City University of New York and Alex Turvy, a sociologist who writes for publications including “Social Media and Society”, say the persistence of inflammatory group chats reflects a false sense of privacy and safety, despite the fact that the messages form a permanent record and can be leaked.
At the same time, members in group chats sometimes falsely assume they can trust their fellow participants when allegiances, ambitions, and motivations can shift over time, especially in politics, said Turvy.
“There is an illusion of intimacy,” Turvy said. “It feels like it’s private speech. But you’re betting that all of the members in the group chat are going to protect you forever.”
Provocative language
The experts said an increasingly powerful social media presence among more extreme elements of both parties, and a phenomenon — especially among younger people — to push rhetorical boundaries, have exacerbated private hate speech.
Reece Peck, an associate professor of media culture at the City University of New York, said Trump’s own rhetoric and attacks on progressive causes have led many conservatives to believe that language that would have been deemed unacceptable before Trump first took office in 2017 is now permissible.
While campaigning last year, Trump accused people in the US illegally of “poisoning the blood of the country.” As president, he has called some of them “criminals,” and described illegal border crossings as an “invasion,” while his White House has posted memes online that critics say have coarsened political rhetoric.
“They feel Trump has seized popular culture, and the Democrats are out of touch. The throughline is anti‑woke,” Peck said. “If you can be edgy – say something inappropriate – you establish group membership. That dynamic is central to Trumpism.”
Turvy said this is known as “Edgelord culture,” an online phenomenon where people deliberately post shocking or taboo content to stay relevant within the chat group.
The Black Conservative Federation, a grassroots group that sought to court Black voters for Trump’s second term, called on Republican leaders to denounce the Young Republican group chat texts “without hesitation or excuse.”
Hakeem Jefferson, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford University, also said Trump has helped “give some cover” to some of the speech contained in the texts.
“This is how the president of the United States speaks, and I do think it has opened a space for these people to mimic his behavior,” Jefferson said.
Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said, “President Trump is right to call out heinous criminal aliens who have invaded our country and have murdered innocent Americans.”
Jackson cited the case of a man in the US illegally who allegedly killed three people while driving a truck this week under the influence of drugs in California.
She said White House memes were successfully communicating Trump’s agenda against people in the country illegally who are committing crimes against Americans.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment on the content of the Young Republican group chat and the alleged private text messages by Ingrassia.
Trump has criticised Jones for his text messages, saying that he shouldn’t be allowed to run for office.
“You would think he’s totally discredited – anybody would be put in prison for what he said,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on October 19.
Firings, resignations
The text scandals brought widespread condemnation from across the political spectrum, although Vice President JD Vance – while calling the Young Republican texts “truly disturbing” – also accused critics of “pearl clutching” and referred to the chat participants as “kids”. Most were in their 20s and 30s.
Vance instead drew attention on X to the texts by Jones.
Jones, in his 2022 text, said former Virginia Republican House Speaker Todd Gilbert should get “two bullets to the head,” and mused about his children dying in their mother’s arms.
Jones’ campaign referred Reuters to a statement he issued on October 3 in which he said he was “embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry” about his texts and had sought to apologise to Gilbert and his family.
A Washington Post-Schar School poll of Virginia voters released on Thursday showed that support for Jones has tumbled since the texts were made public, and a race he had led in public opinion polls is now a tie.
Many of the Young Republicans involved in their group chat have since lost their jobs as political aides or lost their positions as Young Republican leaders. One, a state senator from Vermont, has resigned.
Republican group disbanded
Across 2,900 pages of chats, Black people were referred to as “the watermelon people,” one member talked about raping enemies, and there was talk of sending people to the gas chamber.
Several members of the group were from the New York Young Republicans Club, which was disbanded by the state’s Republican executive committee last week. At least two members from the group, which also included members from states including Kansas, Arizona and Vermont, have apologised.
Hayden Padgett, chairman of the Young Republican National Federation, referred Reuters to a statement the group released on X on October 3, in which its board of directors called on all involved to resign.
“Such behavior is disgraceful, unbecoming of any Republican, and stands in direct opposition to the values our movement represents,” the statement said.
Ingrassia, a former right-wing podcaster, was Trump’s nominee to head the Office of Special Counsel, which investigates claims of retaliation against government whistleblowers.
His nomination imploded after Politico reported on Monday that Ingrassia told Republican operatives and social media influencers in a text chat last year that “I do have a Nazi streak in me from time to time.” He also said the January holiday celebrating Black civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. “should be ended and tossed into the seventh circle of hell where it belongs.”
A lawyer for Ingrassia, Edward Andrew Paltzik, said in a statement to Reuters that the messages could have been manipulated. He added that if they were authentic, they “clearly read as self-deprecating and satirical humor.”
- Washington could apply more banking, oil sanctions, sources say.
- Some US officials say Trump wants Europe to make next move.
- Trump: won’t meet with Putin unless there’s a peace deal.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has prepared additional sanctions it could use to target key areas of Russia’s economy if President Vladimir Putin continues to delay ending Moscow’s war in Ukraine, according to a US official and another person familiar with the matter.
US officials have also told European counterparts that they support the EU using frozen Russian assets to buy US weapons for Kyiv, and Washington has held nascent internal conversations about leveraging Russian assets held in the US to support Ukraine’s war effort, two US officials said.
While it is not clear whether Washington will actually carry out any of those moves in the immediate term, it indicates that the administration has a well-developed toolkit to escalate further after Trump imposed sanctions on Russia on Wednesday for the first time since returning to office in January.
Trump has positioned himself as a global peacemaker, but has admitted that trying to end Russia’s more-than-three-year war in neighbouring Ukraine has proven harder than he had anticipated.
His meeting with Putin in Alaska in August failed to make progress. Trump told reporters in Doha on Saturday that he would not meet with Putin again unless a peace deal appeared likely. “I’m not going to be wasting my time,” Trump said.
European allies — buffeted by Trump’s swings between accommodation and anger toward Putin — hope he will continue to increase pressure on Moscow.
One senior US official told Reuters that he would like to see European nations make the next big Russia move, which could be additional sanctions or tariffs. A separate source with knowledge of internal administration dynamics said Trump was likely to hit pause for a few weeks and gauge Russia’s reaction to Wednesday’s sanctions announcement.
Those sanctions took aim at oil companies Lukoil and Rosneft. The moves spiked oil prices by more than $2 and sent major Chinese and Indian buyers of Russian crude looking for alternatives.
Trump said on Saturday that when he meets with President Xi Jinping on Thursday, China’s purchases of Russian oil may be discussed. But China is cutting back “very substantially” on Russian oil and “India is cutting back completely,” Trump told reporters.
Banking sector, oil, and infrastructure
Some of the additional sanctions prepared by the United States target Russia’s banking sector and the infrastructure used to get oil to market, said a US official and another person familiar with the matter.
Last week, Ukrainian officials proposed new sanctions that the US could levy, said one source with knowledge of those conversations. Their ideas included measures to cut off all Russian banks from the dollar-based system with US counterparts, two sources said. It is not clear, however, whether Ukraine’s specific requests are being seriously considered by US officials.
Some US senators are renewing a push to get a long-stalled bipartisan sanctions bill over the line. The person with knowledge of internal administration dynamics said Trump is open to endorsing the package. The source warned, though, that such an endorsement is unlikely this month.
The Treasury Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Kirill Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy for investment and economic cooperation, said on Friday he believes his country, the United States and Ukraine are close to a diplomatic solution to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Halyna Yusypiuk, Ukrainian Embassy spokesperson in Washington, said the recent sanctions decision was appreciated, but did not otherwise comment.
“Dismantling Russia’s war machine is the most humane way to bring this war to an end,” Yusypiuk wrote in an email.
A week of whiplash
Trump’s decision to hit Russia with sanctions capped a tumultuous week with respect to the administration’s Ukraine policy.
Trump spoke with Putin last week and then announced the pair planned to meet in Budapest, catching Ukraine off guard.
A day later, Trump met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Washington, where US officials pressed Zelenskiy to give up territory in the Donbas region as part of a lopsided land swap to end the war. Zelenskiy pushed back, and Trump left the meeting with the position that the conflict should be frozen at its frontlines.
Then last weekend, Russia sent a diplomatic note to Washington reiterating previous peace terms. A few days later, Trump told reporters the planned meeting with Putin was off because “it just didn’t feel right to me.”
Speaking to CNN on Friday after arriving in Washington for talks with US officials, Dmitriev said a meeting between Trump and Putin had not been cancelled, as the US president described it, and that the two leaders will likely meet at a later date.
Two US officials argued privately that, in hindsight, Trump’s abortive plan to meet with Putin was likely the fruit of irrational exuberance. After sealing a ceasefire in Gaza, those officials said, Trump overestimated the degree he could use momentum from one diplomatic success to broker another one.
Trump ultimately decided to slap Russia with sanctions during a Wednesday meeting with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a senior White House official said.
DUBAI: The city of superlatives is preparing to add another landmark to its skyline — one that will quite literally float.
The Dubai Arts Museum (DUMA), announced by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and ruler of Dubai, is set to rise on an island in the heart of Dubai Creek.
Unlike conventional museums anchored on land, DUMA’s design incorporates the waters of the creek into its architectural identity. The museum, conceived by world-renowned Japanese architect Tadao Ando, aims to merge minimalist modernism with Dubai’s vibrant cultural narrative.
Sheikh Mohammed described the project as “a mirror of Dubai’s artistic identity and cultural spirit,” emphasising its role in shaping the city’s creative ecosystem.
By floating on the creek, DUMA is not just a museum, but a symbolic statement of Dubai’s ambition to redefine how art interacts with urban space.
The project is being delivered in partnership with Emirati businessman Abdullah Al Futtaim and his son Omar Al Futtaim, highlighting a collaboration between the public and private sectors.
Sheikh Mohammed described their involvement as “a bright example of how private enterprise can contribute meaningfully to the city’s cultural and creative economy.”
Officials indicate that DUMA will host a mix of contemporary and classical art, while its architecture will allow the museum to function as a public space, promenade, and cultural hub, providing residents and visitors with a unique vantage point of Dubai Creek.
Construction is expected to begin later this year, with completion projected within three years.
- Early voting to continue until November 2.
- Mamdani has 47% New Yorkers’ support.
- Lawmaker top Democrat endorses Mamdani.
Early voting for New York’s next mayor begins Saturday with an outsider Democratic Party candidate the favorite to upend the city’s politics and face down President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly attacked him.
The twisting race has seen state lawmaker Zohran Mamdani, a self-described socialist, surge from the political wilderness to become the frontrunner in a campaign in which the current mayor bowed out and the onetime Democratic favorite lost his own primary.
The 34-year-old Mamdani’s once unlikely campaign has been turbo-charged by eager campaigning by young New Yorkers in particular.
An emphasise on the soaring cost of living has also resonated, with the Queens-based lawmaker promising to freeze rent for two million New Yorkers in rent-stabilised properties.
In the latest twist, scandal-tainted current mayor Eric Adams backed the second-place candidate, 67-year-old former state governor Andrew Cuomo — after previously calling him a “snake and a liar.”
Early voting allows New Yorkers to cast a ballot from Saturday until November 2, with Election Day on November 4 and the winner taking office in the New Year.
Mamdani had 47% support and led Cuomo by 18 points in the latest citywide poll, conducted by Victory Insights between October 22 and 23. Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa, 71, was at 16%.
Adams, who has been mired in corruption allegations linked to his term in office, dropped out of the race on September 28 but did not initially endorse a rival.
“You can’t freeze rent, but you are lying and telling people you could — we’re fighting against a snake oil salesman,” Adams said Thursday with Cuomo at his side.
“Gentrifiers have raised the rent in the city… and (Mamdani’s) the king of the gentrifiers.”
It is unclear what impact Adams’s endorsement will have on the race.
“It is possible, but extremely unlikely, Cuomo can catch Mamdani,” said Lincoln Mitchell, a political science professor at Columbia University, saying the former governor’s “tough guy persona” dates from another era.
‘Affordability crisis’
The race has been dominated by the issue of cost of living, as well as by how each candidate would handle Trump, who has threatened to withhold federal funds from the city where he made his name as a property developer and reality TV star.
Trump has branded Mamdani, who wants to make bus travel and childcare in the city of 8.5 million people free, a “communist.”
“I was always very generous with New York, even when you had opposition there,” Trump said this month.
“I wouldn’t be generous to a communist guy that’s going to take the money and throw it out the window.”
Mamdani has said he would cooperate with Trump if it brought down the cost of living in the city, while Sliwa has said he would seek to “negotiate” with the president and Cuomo has said he would “confront” the commander-in-chief.
“I’ve lived in New York for 10 years almost. I’ve always been… not necessarily always struggling, but trying to hustle and get things together,” Mamdani supporter and tenant organiser Lex Rountree, 27, told AFP.
“It feels strange to kind of think about what it would look like to have some of that ease” under Mamdani, Rountree added.
Mamdani’s campaign received a lift on Friday when Hakeem Jeffries, a New York lawmaker and the top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, endorsed him.
“Mamdani has relentlessly focused on addressing the affordability crisis and explicitly committed to being a mayor for all New Yorkers, including those who do not support his candidacy,” the leading Democrat said.
Mamdani will bring star firepower to the table Sunday when he appears alongside leftist Senator Bernie Sanders and lawmaker Alexandria Ocasio Cortez at a “get out the vote” rally in Forest Hills Stadium in Queens.
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