The president of Florida International University’s Turning Point USA chapter has resigned after a series of racist, antisemitic and homophobic group chat messages were leaked.
According to The Miami Herald, which obtained and published two and a half weeks’ worth of WhatsApp logs dating from September and October 2025, participants in the TPUSA group used the N-word more than 400 times and issued a string of slurs against Black, Jewish, gay, and disabled people, also referring to women as “whores” and invoking Nazi lore.
The group has since posted a statement on Instagram, announcing that chapter president Ian Valdes has resigned.
“The Turning Point USA chapter at Florida International University has been made aware of the recent incident involving chapter leadership,” the organization said.
“The chapter president has stepped down from leadership, turned over social media, and we are currently reconstituting our leadership team.
“Our chapter remains focused on fostering constructive conversation, supporting our members, and continuing our mission of engaging students in meaningful discussions.”
Miami-Dade County Republican Executive Committee Secretary Abel Carvajal reportedly started the chat last year following the assassination of TPUSA co-founder Charlie Kirk, who was shot dead by a rooftop sniper while addressing students at an outdoor event on a Utah university campus.
Carvajal has not stepped down over his own messages in the chat, but his organization’s chair, Kevin Cooper, said a majority of the party’s board had voted to request his resignation last week.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms Abel Alexander Carvajal’s racist group chat,” Cooper said. “His words and actions are reprehensible.”
Florida state representative and former Miami-Dade County GOP chair Alex Rizo told the Herald that a full party meeting and vote on Carvajal’s position will take place imminently.
Another Republican state representative, Juan Porras, has issued a condemnation of the secretary and called for him to go, as have GOP state senators Alexis Calatayud, Ileana Garcia and Ana Maria Rodriguez.
Caravajal, however, has refused to budge, telling the Herald over the weekend: “No action has been taken to remove me from board. If you have been told otherwise, that is a blatant falsehood.
“I have received the support of countless members of Miami-Dade [executive committee] – who have known me for several years and know who I truly am.”
The same university’s TPUSA chapter previously caused an uproar in 2018 when The Miami New Times published logs from an earlier chat that found its members joking about rape.
A similar scandal erupted last fall when Politico published 2,900 messages posted in a Young Republicans Telegram chat in which its members described sexual assault as “epic,” made light of the Holocaust and praised Adolf Hitler.
Vice President JD Vance duly defended the group during an appearance on the ongoing Charlie Kirk Show in October, saying: “The reality is that kids do stupid things, especially young boys. They tell edgy, offensive jokes. That’s what kids do.
“And 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.”
He later rejected the idea that prejudice was “exploding” on the American right in a December interview with NBC News.
