It took two seconds for a Fox News host to irk a Democratic congressman during a live interview that went sour on Tuesday night.
Following a segment on an immigration agent’s fatal shooting of a Minneapolis mom, Will Cain, 50, welcomed Florida Rep. Maxwell Frost, 28, to the show.
“Joining now to debate all of this is Democrat Florida congressman, Maxwell Frost,” Cain said as his guest joined the broadcast. “Congressman, welcome back. Thank you for being here today.”
Frost didn’t let the faux pas slip by unnoticed.
“Of course, thank you so much,” he began. “And it’s democratic congressman, Will, but it’s good to be with you.”
Cain quickly defended himself, but made the same mistake again anyway.
“I think I described you as a Democrat. Not as a Republican, certainly,” he said. “I think I said ‘democrat,’ and if I didn’t, I stand corrected. Democrat Congressman Maxwell Frost, do you, congressman, agree with Mayor [Jacob] Frey that what is happening in Minnesota is unconstitutional, or virtually every other legal scholar that says it’s obviously constitutional?”
This time, Frost decided to ignore the error to focus on the issue that has caused a firestorm.
Apart from Cain committing a grammatical error by using the noun “democrat” as an adjective, the term has long been viewed as an epithet meant to disparage liberals in America.
Political columnist William Safire traced the term back to 1940 when it was used pejoratively by Republican Harold Stassen, who argued that the Democratic Party was not actually democratic at the time because it was controlled by powerful city bosses Frank Hague of Jersey City and Tom Pendergast of Kansas City.
In 2006, The New Yorker commentator Hendrik Hertzberg noted that “‘Democrat Party’ is standard jargon on right-wing talk radio and common on winger websites like NewsMax.com.” The following year, then-President George W. Bush was forced to issue an apology to his liberal colleagues over his use of the term.
“I referred to something as the Democrat Party,” he said. “Now look, my diction isn’t all that good. I have been accused of occasionally mangling the English language. And so I appreciate you inviting the head of the Republic Party.”
Cain appeared to be keeping Republican tradition alive, but it wasn’t just his use of the word “democrat” that Frost found disagreeable.
The two men spent over eight minutes talking over each other in a heated debate about ICE agent Jonathan Ross shooting Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mom of three, point-blank in Minneapolis last week.
Frost called out Trump officials for being quick to brand Good a “domestic terrorist” even as the investigation into her killing is ongoing. Cain, meanwhile, quizzed the Florida lawmaker for calling the incident a “murder” even though Ross has not been proven guilty.
“What I am saying is yes, that officer is entitled to due process. Yes, there should be a process. But two things: number one, Renee Nicole Good was not given due process. That ICE agent was the jury and executioner in that moment for that woman,” Frost shot back. “But number two, and this is very, very important: within minutes, do you know who the first person to come out and label someone in this was? It was this administration.”
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