A young Democratic lawmaker thinks his Republican colleagues are suffering from a lack of courage.
Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, 29, laid into Republican lawmakers as the midterm elections loom large over their tenuous majority in Congress—all while they try to keep both their constituents and President Donald Trump happy.
“What are you hearing from your Republican colleagues in Congress, some of whom are just as appalled about what’s going on as you are, but are either terrified of being primaried or being singled out by Donald Trump? What did they say to you behind closed doors when no one is listening?” The Daily Beast Podcast host Joanna Coles asked.
“I’m not sure any of them are as appalled as I am, but let’s say some that are appalled or not feeling good, they just have no courage. They have no backbone to stand up to this president. And that’s why they haven’t in the last year,” Frost said.
But Frost acknowledged that more and more Republicans have begun to break from the Trump administration on a variety of issues.
Over the past year, Trump has made enemies out of a handful of Republicans who have crossed him by voting against his controversial policies and calling for the release of the Epstein files, including Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia.
More and more Republicans are slowly speaking out. After Trump posted a video depicting former President Barack Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama as gorillas, Republican lawmakers fell in line to condemn the blatant racism, including Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, and Ohio Rep. Mark Turner.
“Now, we’re starting to see cracks, right?” Frost said. “More and more of them are deciding to do something about it, but little by little, we see people stepping up.”
“But it is really a question of courage and whether or not they say, ‘I don’t care what this president does. I don’t care if I put my own reelection at risk. I’m going to stand up for this country because right now we have a dictator and a regime that is seeking to completely destroy democracy to enrich billionaires and enrich people like him’,” he continued.
When reached for comment on Frost’s remarks, the White House responded with an attack on The Daily Beast Podcast, which regularly draws in hundreds of thousands of views.
“Anything said on the Daily Beast podcast is equivalent to screaming into the void. No one listens to this Trump Derangement Syndrome therapy session,” spokesperson Abigail Jackson said.
The latest episode of The Daily Beast Podcast has received over 210,000 views on YouTube alone.
Tensions between Trump and Republican lawmakers have also been brewing behind the scenes. Officials and White House insiders told The Washington Post that the 79-year-old president sometimes appears detached and noncommittal when asked about his plans for midterms spending and endorsements, with one source saying Trump outright does not seem to care on some days.
But other sources who were at an Oval Office meeting with Trump last week told the outlet that he wants to defy the trend of the sitting president’s party losing seats in the midterms.
“We’ll spend whatever it takes,” one person recalled Trump saying. “Go get it done.”
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles announced last month that Trump would go on a domestic traveling blitz to address voters’ concerns about the cost of living and rally support for the GOP ahead of the midterms.
Frost, meanwhile, expressed confidence in Democrats’ ability to win in the midterms, citing strong pushback to the Trump administration’s hardline immigration operations in Minnesota.
“We do have the ability to win,” he said. “I just hope people know that there are things we can do to push back.”
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