Will Literally Die

“People Will Literally Die.” America’s Youngest Congressman Sounds the Alarm.

On guns and climate, Rep. Maxwell Frost warns the choice in November is a matter of life or death.

Garrison Hayes

Rep. Maxwell Frost is the youngest US congressman—and every headline and article about him (including ours!) never fails to mention it. Hailed as the first and only (for now) Gen Z Representative, Frost rose from the ranks of activism as the national organizing director for March for Our Lives to Congress, when he was elected to represent central Florida nearly two years ago. He instantly aligned with several big progressive causes, especially ending gun violence, and joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus. He also became an outspoken defender of and campaigner for President Joe Biden. That’s come at a cost. More recently, critics singled him out for having betrayed his activist roots, accusing him of not being outspoken enough about the war in Gaza.

Having just won his primary this week, Frost is facing reelection in November and I had the chance to catch up with him in one of the DNC’s fancy “creator” spaces on the sidelines of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. During our sit-down interview, we talked about what he’s learned in his short time in Congress (it’s dysfunctional!), how to navigate big, contentious issues (it’s hard!), and what he wants to see from the Harris campaign in terms of policy (he’s very excited about housing! Not surprising when you recall his apartment-hunting headaches when he arrived in DC.)

Here’s a lightly edited transcript of the conversation.

Okay, so what have you learned? What has been most surprising for you as a Congressman? And, I wanna know how you’ve changed.

Honestly, what’s been really surprising for me, is we know there’s so much dysfunction in Congress. And oftentimes, we just blame the people there for that dysfunction, so I’m gonna give them 60 percent of the blame. Forty percent, or a good chunk, actually has to do with the institution itself. I’ll give you a very small example. Orientation, when the new members first get to know each other, before we start arguing, we’re just all humans, new people to Congress. You don’t really get a lot of time to spend time with the other side of the aisle. The only time I’m with the Republicans is during the classes, and what are you supposed to do in class? Listen. The last half of the day, the social aspect, is all separated by party. So it makes sense why there’s so much dysfunction here.

Here at the DNC, we are looking forward. We have about 75, or so, days until the election. What is it that you wanna see? What kind of policies? What do you want the Harris campaign to bring forward?

I’m really excited about the housing platform that Vice President Harris has put forth. Honestly, it’s one of the first times, I think, the Democratic party has put together a housing platform that’s really exciting. What else? I’m excited to see the Vice President continue to talk about her plans around preventing the climate crisis. Obviously, the Biden-Harris administration made history and dedicated the most resources and money towards defeating the climate crisis. Not in the history of our country, but the history of the world.

The Vice President has been very vocal on gun control—an issue that’s very near and dear to you and your work. What are you hoping to see around that? And what role would you play?

I’m proud that the first bill I introduced in Congress was to create a federal office of gun violence prevention. The President took that legislation with Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and used it as the foundation for an executive order. And he created the White House Office of Violence Prevention. Who’s its leader? Vice President Kamala Harris. So, I’m excited to see her expand that office, and what I wanna see is for us to put more money toward CVI, Community Violence Intervention. These are programs, community-based, that work at identifying people most likely to be shot, and the people most likely to shoot someone. And then, they intervene at the community level. We had this program in Orlando, and gun violence has gone down in the blocks it’s operating in. And how did we get the program started? Federal money. First from the American Rescue Plan, and then from the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.

So, let’s get a personal question in here. How do you grow as a politician and a leader with all of the complex issues here that we face in this country.

Yeah, there’s so much to learn. I have 10 meetings in a day about completely different subjects. I’m gonna be honest, number one, it’s a team effort. I have a great staff that really helps educate me. There’s a lot of resources that are available to us. There’s actually something called the Congressional Research Service. I can go to my staff and say, “I want an in-depth briefing on the situation in the Congo.” And they will get our government experts to come in and give me an in-depth briefing. That information, is always the basis for me to do more research, and speak to other outside groups, as well. So we have a lot of resources we can take advantage of to educate ourselves. We’re not gonna be experts on every issue. But we should definitely try our best to educate ourselves on every issue. That way we can legislate in a better way.

We have so many issues like, why is this important? What makes it more important than something else? And it all leads us to, why is this election important?

This election is important because if we elect Donald Trump again, it’s not a pause in progress, it’s a rollback. And there are communities that won’t survive. That word “survival” means something different for everyone. More people will die of gun violence. He wants mass deportations of certain communities. Nothing will be done about the climate crisis. People will literally die. We’re experiencing extreme heat right now that’s killing more people than ever before. So, lives are at stake. And from the gun violence movement, my work, and my organizing has always been about saving lives. So, we gotta make sure we don’t let that guy anywhere near the White House. Kamala Harris is gonna save lives.

Congressman Frost, thank you so much for your time.

Appreciate it man.