00:00The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys, they tell edgy, offensive jokes, like that's what kids do.
00:08And 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.
00:19That's what kids do. Vice President J.D. Vance earlier today commenting again on a Politico story involving members of young Republicans organizations.
00:29And thousands of leaked messages where they're seen exchanging hate, racist and homophobic texts.
00:36The vice president choosing there not to condemn the messages, instead dismissing it as, quote, what kids do and that, quote, kids do stupid things, especially young boys.
00:49The organization in question is for Republicans between the ages of 18 and 40.
00:55Kids. Anyway, according to Politico.
00:59The telegram group chats involve Republican operatives and at least one case, an elected official.
01:05Inside those messages, one referred to black people as, quote, monkeys and, quote, watermelon people.
01:12One talked about sending political opponents to gas chambers.
01:15Another called rape, quote, epic.
01:18Prominent Republicans, like Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, were quick to condemn the messages.
01:23The young Republicans denounced the text as vile and inexcusable.
01:29Politico reports that at least one person lost their job, while another had a job offer rescinded.
01:35At least two of the people involved have apologized.
01:39My panel is back.
01:39The arena text chain is also with us.
01:43Tolu, I want to start with you on the big picture.
01:47You've spent a lot of time thinking and writing about how race and politics intersect here.
01:53And the coarsening of the discourse that is seen on display in these texts is really, well,
02:01how, how do you interpret the reality that these groups, these groups of people felt like this was an appropriate thing to do?
02:11Well, it's shocking to see this in public.
02:14You have to imagine that this does happen from time to time in these private group group chats.
02:19I don't want to say that this is representative of all young Republicans, not at all.
02:23But it is something that has become more common.
02:25And it's something that Donald Trump, we have to mention the president here, the leader of the party, has made more common.
02:32He talks about very coarse language when he talks about his political opponents.
02:37He has opened the door to some of this kind of language.
02:39And we see the lack of condemnation from someone like J.D. Vance saying that these are just kids.
02:43They're just being edgy.
02:44And there is a difference between when someone says something that's offensive that's from a different party.
02:50Those kinds of people in the minds of Donald Trump and his allies, they get deported or they get shunned or they get told that they need to lose their jobs.
02:59You have to remember what happened after Charlie Kirk was murdered.
03:02There is an opportunity for leaders to condemn both sides.
03:06If someone on your side says something that's horrendous and offensive, you can condemn it while also condemning it happening on the other side.
03:12But there is a certain sense of hypocrisy that if something happens among my political allies, they're just kids and they need to be forgiven and given a lot of grace.
03:21If someone on the opposite side of the aisle says something that's offensive, they need to get the hammer put down on them.
03:27So I want to play for you, Tulu, something else that J.D. Vance said here today.
03:32We'll just we'll watch it because I think it plays into the point Tulu is just making.
03:35Take a look.
03:35We're not canceling kids because they do something stupid in a group chat.
03:41And if I have to be the person who carries that message forward, I'm fine with it.
03:45By the way, if they were left wing kids telling stupid left wing jokes, I would also not want their lives to be ruined because they're saying something stupid in a private group chat.
03:54First of all, having a little bit of accountability, potentially losing a job or having a role where you're representing the public, losing that role is not having your life ruined.
04:05It's having accountability for saying something when you're representing people.
04:08That's the same thing that people called for when people were saying negative things about Charlie Kirk, who are representative of the public in their own private Facebook chats or Facebook messages.
04:20That was what Republicans were calling for back then. So it's called accountability. It's not called ruining people's lives.
04:25But it is important to note that some of these vile, racist and homophobic languages that we see in these chats, they do cause harm for a lot of people.
04:35They do stem from a place. And for people who have power, who want to exert political power to expose these views, that often filters into policymaking.
04:44And it's not just, you know, being edgy in a group chat. This is how people are seeing and dehumanizing people.
04:49And it does lead to policy differences that actually impact people's lives.
04:53So it's important to know that it's not just kids in a group chat being edgy.
04:56These are potential future leaders who have important roles.
04:59It could be the attorney general nominee in Virginia, the Democrat Jay Jones, who's fantasizing texts about his opponent, his political opponent, getting two bullets to the head or his children dying in their mother's arms.
05:09I mean, these are random dorks in a young Republican club. We don't have anything better to do. I condemn it.
05:14I can completely condemn it. But these are not the attorney general of Virginia possibilities.
05:20I'm very familiar with that race. I work on it.
05:22Let us stipulate that the attorney general, you know, candidate in Virginia, should not have said that.
05:28Let's also stipulate...
05:28He should not run. He should drop out.
05:30Let's also stipulate these are not kids, 18 to 40 years old.
05:35And if you read through what they said, they knew they shouldn't be saying it.
05:40They say, we're going to get in a lot of trouble if this becomes public.
05:44To talk about being hypocritical, let's go beyond Charlie Kirk, where people lost their jobs for posts.
05:53The Trump administration wanted to cancel Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert for making jokes about Donald Trump, for being a comedian.
06:06These kids, you know, you should sit down and read some of the quotes, putting people in gas chambers.
06:14I mean, it just goes on and on, driving them to suicide.
06:19The notion that they should be excused as kids is simply ludicrous.
06:24They're not kids. There's all the condemnation.
06:26It's ludicrous.
06:27We can muster for it, but I find it interesting that Democrats are aghast about this today when they won't run Jay Jones out of the attorney general's race in Virginia.
06:35So, first of all, we shouldn't forget where they were doing these text messages.
06:39It was on Telegram.
06:40They looked at WhatsApp, they looked at Signal, and they said, no, no, no, we need to go to a place that's super private and a venue for extremism.
06:47Can you just underscore what Telegram is?
06:50So, Telegram is an app for super private, highly encrypted communication that terrorists have been known to use, that extremist actors have been known to use.
07:02They explicitly brought this chat to Telegram because they knew it was vile and worthy of condemnation.
07:09And I love it how you and our friend Scott on the text are syncing up in your talking points, constantly moving this back to something else.
07:17Let's talk about Virginia. Let's talk about this.
07:19Because Jay Jones potentially could lead a state.
07:21That is much more consequential than a bunch of dorks on Telegram.
07:25First of all, all Republicans at this point are probably certifiable dorks, but the point here is that the Republican Party refuses to apologize for anything today, anything.
07:38The young Republicans did apologize, Congressman.
07:40They condemned it.
07:42They did not apologize for shooting.
07:43No, the young Republican organization condemned it.
07:45They did not.
07:46They did not.
07:47I'm talking about the vice president of the United States, not the young Republicans organization of anything.
07:51They shot rubber bullets at a religious leader, and they did not apologize in Oregon, okay?
07:57This party at this point, irrespective of the level of extremism, will just march forward and hope that we forget.
08:05And this is yet another illustration of that.
08:07Just to update one thing, I believe Elise Stefanik today sort of changed her tone and said that this was a hit piece by Politico.
08:19So she's now getting right with the White House.
08:23But just to underscore what the congressman said, that was J.D. Vance, the vice president, making light of this.
08:31It's not okay.
08:32I think, I mean, Brad, to the point and the comparison that you're making, I think it's important that we underscore that the conversation here is not about the appropriateness of the remarks that that person made.
08:44But it does seem to me, Jamie, that the more responsibility you carry, the bigger platform you have, the larger your megaphone, the more responsibility you do bear.
08:55But that does not free you from whatever consequences are appropriate from the place that you find yourself in your life.
09:01I would also say this language goes to another level.
09:06This is not about some...
09:07Martering your opponent?
09:08Excuse me.
09:09I'm talking about J.D. Vance, the Republicans, and what these people wrote.
09:14This is not about some war on woke.
09:19And just to go back to what you said about, you know, President Trump opening Pandora's box, you know, the language of President Trump, of what we heard from Vice President Vance today, it allows this to happen.
09:37It doesn't come in isolation.
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