GOP Senator Markwayne Mullin is not toeing Vice President J.D. Vance’s party line on the leaked, slur-filled, “I love Hitler” Young Republican group chat.
While the vice president has attempted to dismiss the content of the group chat as “jokes,” Mullin told CNN’s Kasie Hunt, ”I would never let my kids joke like that. That’s zero. There’s a solid no," on Wednesday evening.
The Oklahoma senator said he was “not aware” of J.D. Vance’s comments on the matter, but sternly rebuked people who would downplay or find funny the racist messages sent in the chat.
“My grandfather fought in World War II,” he said. ”He went over on Omaha Beach. He saw the despicable things that the Nazis did to not just the Jewish people, but to other countries and other races along the way. He went into a concentration camp. He was a gentleman that you never ate Hershey’s chocolate around because of the story that he tells about going inside a concentration camp."
“It’s a hard stop that you’re not associated with me whatsoever if you think that’s funny,” he concluded.
While several Republican organizations and politicians have condemned the group chat—which featured 251 slurs and a user declaring “I love Hitler”—the vice president, 41, has been leading the defense, saying the chat’s members were just “kids” making “stupid jokes.”
Vance has said the bipartisan outrage over the chat amounts to “pearl clutching” and has attempted to divert attention to a scandal in Virginia, where Attorney General candidate Jay Jones is under fire for sending text messages wishing death on then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert‘s children (Jones accepted responsibility for those messages and called them a “grave mistake” to The New York Times).
Vance also appeared on The Charlie Kirk Show and voiced how he was fortunate that the “stupid stuff” he did as a teenager wasn’t online.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Senator Mullin and Vice President Vance for comment.
The leaked Telegram group chat featured roughly a dozen leaders from Young Republican National Federation, which represents Republicans ages 18-40.
One alleged member of the chat was Vermont Republican State Senator Samuel Douglass, age 27, who is said to have contributed to conversations about racial stereotypes. Vermont’s Republican governor, Phil Scott, called on Douglass to resign.
Another alleged member of the chat, former national committeeman for the New York State Young Republicans Club Peter Giunta, allegedly sent the “I love Hitler” message and called Black people “the watermelon people.” He’s 31 years old.
