President Joe Biden, Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost and Vice President Kamala Harris at a ceremony in the Rose Garden of the White House on Sept. 22, 2023 (photo credit: screenshot of White House video feed)
A rising star for the Florida Democrats who has previously called Donald Trump a “threat to the planet” said he intends to work with the incoming administration on certain issues but he vows that he is prepared to oppose “horrible” measures that he fears will be coming out of the White House.
Rep. Maxwell Frost, who just started his second term in office and at 27 remains the youngest member of Congress (he turns 28 next week), told the Florida Phoenix “I’m going to continue to do what I’ve done the past two years.”
Frost noted that despite his progressive reputation, a quarter of the bills that he’s introduced in the House of Representatives since being elected in 2022 have included more Republican co-sponsors than Democrats. (Congress.gov lists 20 bills that Frost sponsored during his first term in Congress. Five of them have GOP co-sponsors).
“We’re going to find ways that we can work with the administration, and I’m hoping maybe we can work on something related to guns,” he says. “I know that seems unlikely, but remember it was under Trump that we got the bump-stock ban. So maybe there’s room for that. We need to build more housing, and hopefully there’s room for that as well.”
Loud and effective
Despite his willingness to find common ground with President-elect Trump, Frost makes it clear that he remains part of the loyal opposition.
“We’re going to have to block and fight and resist ton a lot of the horrible extreme things that he wants to do,” Frost says. “And there’s a long list of those as well. So it’s going to be both. And what people elected me to do is be loud and be effective, and in D.C. oftentimes people frame it as one or the other.”
Frost rejects the notion that he should be categorized as being on one side of the equation or the other. He took exception to a recent article that compared him with South Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz in terms of their political styles and how they will work with the Trump administration.
“I thought it was funny because it played into this whole false binary where it’s like, “Are you going to resist or are you going to work with him?’” Frost says about the piece. “We’re going to do both. I don’t know why there’s any reason we couldn’t do both. That’s why people elected me.”
That said, the two Florida Democrats did vote differently on Tuesday when voting on the Laken Riley Act. That measure would require the Department of Homeland Security to take into custody undocumented immigrants who have been charged with burglary, theft, larceny, or shoplifting. The bill also would allow state attorneys general to sue the federal government if an immigrant who enters the country illegally and is released goes on to commit a crime.
Moskowitz was the lone Democratic member of the Florida congressional delegation to vote for the measure.
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Fighting against extremism
Frost sits on the House Oversight Committee, which he maintains will continue to provide accountability on the incoming Trump administration. How effective that committee will be in holding Trump accountable may be questionable, however, as it is chaired by a Republican supporter of the new president, Kentucky’s James Comer.
“We’re going to fight back on the extreme parts of his agenda, and the parts of his agenda that are going to target the most vulnerable people,” Frost says. “And when he said he wanted to mass deport people. When he said he wanted to reverse the legal status of asylum seekers in this country like Haitian-Americans, people from Venezuela, people from Cuba, Nicaragua. I believe that. We’re going to fight against that.”
With less than two weeks left in his presidency, Frost is hoping that President Joe Biden will continue to push the envelope in taking executive actions before he makes way for Trump. Biden announced an offshore drilling ban on Monday and the commutation of federal prisoners who were on death row (two of those 37 men are now trying to block Biden’s action).
“I’d like to see more on immigration,” he says. “The administration has been working fast on work permits but in terms of TPS (Temporary Protected Status) redesignation and extension, I’d like to see that.”
He also notes how President Biden is now able to boast about the fact that he has now appointed more judges to the federal bench than Trump during his first term.
“There’s more work to do, but I’m really happy with what we’ve seen,” he says.
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