Why So Many Racist Group Chats?

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🗓️ 22 October 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

Right after JD Vance was done dismissing concerns about racism in a group chat of GOP staffers and Young Republicans, POLITICO released messages from Trump nominee Paul Ingrassia that were so explicitly racist it may cost him the support of what has been an extremely compliant congressional GOP. And lest any vice presidents tell you otherwise, racism is as evident in policy proposals as it is in the chats. Guest: David A. Graham, staff writer for The Atlantic. Want more What Next? Subscribe to Slate Plus to access ad-free listening to the whole What Next family and across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe today on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of our show page. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to get access wherever you listen. Podcast production by Elena Schwartz, Paige Osburn, Anna Phillips, Madeline Ducharme, and Rob Gunther. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	It feels like the political class is having a real masks-off moment, doesn't it?
0:11.8	Like yesterday, we get this news that a Democratic candidate for Senate in Maine has a Nazi tattoo on his chest.
0:19.5	Over the weekend, the president posted an AI-generated video of
0:23.9	himself, dumping shit on protesters. And then there are the group chats. So many group chats.
0:35.9	You know, I was, I've been thinking about Nixon had his tapes, and it feels like the Trump people have group chats or at least DMs.
0:44.9	I think that's a good analogy. I feel like we're in the era of the toxic group chat.
0:49.8	It's true, yeah.
0:51.8	David Graham writes over at the Atlantic. As the group chats piled up, I called on
0:56.4	him to walk me through them all. First, there was the chat with about a dozen young GOP operatives
1:02.0	referring to black people as monkeys and the watermelon people, while calling rape, epic, and joking
1:08.6	about gas chambers. Then this week, a whole other chat went public.
1:13.8	In this one, a Trump staffer compared Martin Luther King Jr. to George Floyd and mused about
1:20.0	ending the annual MLK holiday.
1:23.1	It's really astonishing.
1:24.8	Is there one exchange that caught your attention?
1:30.3	I mean, it's just hard to outdo. I love Hitler.
1:32.3	It's interesting because I think some members of the GOP, they want to point at Democrats
1:37.3	in this moment and say everyone is getting coarser these days.
1:43.3	Like in Virginia, you have this Democratic candidate for a attorney general who's been caught texting some pretty vile things.
1:50.4	And the difference in that case to me seems like there isn't a whole community built up to support what he's saying.
1:57.6	He's pretty quickly slapped down by the person he's texting.
2:01.4	Right. And there's no egging on or joking there. Is that important?
	...

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