Florida GOP leaders, candidates, and a university president are denouncing a group chat in which local Young Republican leaders made numerous antisemitic and racist remarks. Some are calling for its orchestrator to be removed from his position in the local Republican Party.
But a prominent Jewish Republican in Florida, Rep. Randy Fine, responded to a request from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency for comment without condemning the group chat.
“Given your stories are fabricated, you don’t need me to comment to make them up,” Fine, who is part of the party’s far-right flank, said via a text. Fine has previously objected to JTA coverage of him.
James Fishback, a fringe GOP gubernatorial candidate who has courted the online far right, meanwhile, told JTA, “I condemn all forms of hatred.” He also said that one of the chat’s participants, whose social media profile reportedly claimed he was a Fishback campaign staffer, had no association with the Fishback campaign.
The WhatsApp chat’s racist and antisemitic content was first reported this week by the Miami Herald and the Floridian, a local conservative outlet.
Second Young Republicans chat under fire
The reports mark the second time in months that a Young Republicans group chat was revealed to have featured Nazi jokes and racist comments. The revelations come as the party is experiencing deepening divisions over antisemitism and sentiments about Israel.
Chat participants last fall used the slur “kike” to refer to Jewish women and babies, said they would “definitely not marry a Jew,” renamed the chat in reference to the imagined “Nazi heaven” of Agartha and joked about undergoing “reverse Zionism” to a Nazi paradise. They also used a racist epithet to discuss killing Black people in the manner of mass Jewish extermination during the Holocaust, according to reports about the texts.
Participants included the secretary of the Miami-Dade GOP, who also started the group chat and, according to The Floridian, reportedly sought to recruit racist and antisemitic participants into the party. The president of Florida International University’s chapter of Turning Point USA, the conservative group founded by Charlie Kirk, and the school’s former College Republicans recruitment chair also participated.
The Florida GOP as well as the Miami-Dade County GOP’s Jewish chair condemned the chats. In a statement, the Jewish chair, Kevin Cooper, indicated that the Miami-Dade GOP had started removal proceedings against its secretary, Abel Alexander Carvajal, who started the chat.
“The Republican Party of Florida consistently stands against racism, antisemitism, and bigotry in all its hateful forms of expression,” the Florida GOP said in a statement that called the chat “repugnant,” adding that the party would be conducting an internal review.
“Anyone associated with this chat should resign immediately,” Cooper told the Miami Herald, adding, “Racism and antisemitism have no place in the Republican Party. I am proud to be the first Jewish chairman of the Miami Dade Republican Party, which is comprised of a diverse group of members from every race and background.”
Carvajal said he had been unaware of the offensive messages. “Had I known and had I seen some of these messages I would have called the police,” he told The Floridian, adding that he would not resign because “the messages that were stated were not mine.” He also told the Miami Herald that he had not glanced at the group chat in months and said, “I’m at a loss for words.”
“Racism, antisemitism, and hatred of any kind have no place in our party, our community, or our country, and the language that has been revealed falls far below the standard expected of anyone in a leadership role,” Miami-Dade’s GOP chapter said in a statement.
Sen. Rick Scott, the president of FIU, and several local GOP elected officials joined the chorus denouncing the texts and antisemitism specifically. The university says it will also open an investigation into the chat, which primarily included FIU students.
Ian Valdes, the president of FIU’s Turning Point USA chapter, posted several of the texts that spoke negatively of Jews, including “I would def not marry a Jew lmao.” He had also renamed the group “Gooning in Agartha,” using an online slang term for extreme masturbation.
“Chances are you could have a little kike running around,” another chat participant, former FIU College Republicans recruitment chair Dariel Gonzalez, told Valdes after the latter discussed having sex with Jewish women. Gonzalez added a lewd admonition against sex with Jews.
Florida GOP Rep. Byron Donalds, who is Black and has President Donald Trump’s endorsement in his current gubernatorial bid, also condemned the chats. Donalds is polling in the lead in a crowded GOP field for governor, which also includes James Fishback.
'Free speech doesn't entitle someone to hold a leadership position'
“Everyone has the First Amendment right to say what they want, even when it’s vile and offensive. But free speech doesn’t entitle someone to hold a leadership position within the Republican Party or the conservative movement,” Donalds said in a statement. “The comments reported run counter to the values our party stands for. The Republican Party rejects racism, antisemitism, and bigotry.”
The Florida revelations came after the statewide New York Young Republicans chapter was disbanded last fall after antisemitic and racist messages between chapter leadership were leaked to the press. Those chats at the time were condemned by GOP leaders, including House Speaker Mike Johnson, though Vice President JD Vance notably declined to denounce them.
Two months later, a gala for the New York City Young Republicans chapter hosted several far-right and antisemitic figures, while a Jewish GOP councilmember scheduled to receive an honor backed out. (Similar chat scandals have also befallen Young Republicans chapters in North Dakota and Kansas.)
Jews hold several prominent roles in Florida’s Democratic Party, including state chair Nikki Fried; current Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Jared Moskowitz; U.S. Senate candidate Alexander Vindman; and Lev Parnas, a former Trump figure who has swapped parties and is running for Congress in the state’s 27th district, which is located entirely within Miami-Dade County. Several figures associated with the far right are also running for office in the state as Republicans, including former U.S. Rep. Madison Cawthorn (running for Congress) and pardoned Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang (running for Senate).
Miami-Dade County’s mayor, Daniella Levine Cava, is a Jewish Democrat currently facing a recall effort that is being supported by the county GOP.