Maxwell Frost is Biden's Gen Z super weapon — and occasional critic

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WASHINGTON – Maxwell Frost has not been shy about criticizing Joe Biden’s administration – from climate change to border policy to Israel’s war in Gaza.

But the nation’s first Gen Z congressman has nevertheless seen his profile inside the Democratic Party rise. And despite Frost’s concerns, the 27-year-old Floridian is becoming an increasingly essential surrogate for the 81-year-old Biden.

To Frost, that push and pull is part of any relationship, and he doesn’t know why it should be any different in politics.

“I just refuse to fall for this, ‘I hate you or I love you thing,’” Frost said in an interview. “I'm going to be honest with you. And if I think that our values align, I'm going to work with you. And I think my values align with President Biden.”

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That dichotomy between publicly dissing Biden and supporting him, while unusual for a presidential campaign surrogate, reflects how Gen Z broadly feels about a certain Silent Generation commander-in-chief who’s off seeking a second term.

It also helps explain Frost’s appeal among young voters who are wary of Biden but aghast at the prospect of Donald Trump returning to power. Frost stands as a willing bridge to a new and skeptical generation of voters that the president urgently needs for general election success.

Much like Biden, Frost also sees a second term for former President Donald Trump as an “almost existential threat for this country,” one reason he is motivated to reelect Biden.

Florida is “the epicenter of fascism rising in this country,” Frost said of the home state he shares with Trump, and the former president “obviously represents that movement on such a larger scale.”

‘See themselves reflected in this administration’

While backing Biden is an easy decision for Frost, he said he realizes it might not be for other voters.

That’s why he wants to engage with them as he did recently in Southern Nevada, a state that will be a presidential battleground in 2024 — and one where an uptick in youth turnout during the 2022 midterms proved key in the state’s three competitive House contests and pivotal Senate race. The congressman headlined a roundtable with students at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas who had experienced the December 6 mass shooting at the school. He then held a happy hour with other college Democrats, where he spoke about Biden and addressed concerns the students had about the Biden administration.

“He is a symbol for Gen Z that they can see themselves reflected in this administration and in Congress and in Washington,” said a Nevada Democrat who worked with Frost on the trip.

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Biden’s age creates an understandable distance with these young voters, the Democrat added, but the people Frost met with came away saying, “If this guy, who is like me, is saying we should get on board, then we should get on board.”

Frost’s ability could become a campaign super-weapon for Biden, the oldest president in American history who, upon serving a complete second term, would be 86 years old the day he leaves soffice in early 2029.

Polls show younger voters are unsure about Biden, citing many of the same critiques – climate change and Gaza, primarily – as reasons to question him. Some are considering third-party candidates, such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. or Cornel West. Others are open to not voting at all, an outcome that top Democrats think could lead to losses nationwide.

That’s why Frost, who has said he will do whatever he can to re-elect Biden, wants people to understand the effect of non-participation.

“The main opponent here for me is not even Donald Trump,” he said. “As a campaigner, what I'm thinking is, ‘Our main opponent is the couch,’ it is no action at all. And that's how Republicans win, right?”

U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) gives a thumbs-up outside the Capitol after voting to continue funding the government for 45 days. Philip Yabut/Shutterstock

People who have worked with Frost said he gives younger voters cover for their anti-Biden feelings and demonstrates how you can both criticize a man who is old enough to be your grandfather and support him for four more years in office.

“Maxwell Frost gives younger voters the opportunity to see both sides of the coin,” said Jasmine Burney Clark, founder of Equal Ground Education Fund and Action Fund, a civic engagement organization in Florida that has worked with Frost. “The congressman has been critical of this administration and has applauded this administration at the same time. He has made that complexity available for other folks who are sitting in their [own] complex situations as well around whether to support or not.”

The congressman has “Gen Z gravitas,” added Burney Clark, who has seen Frost campaign with young voters.

Gen Z — four generations removed from Biden’s Silent Generation — is defined by the Pew Research Center as anyone born between 1997 and 2012. When voters elected Frost in 2022, the then-25-year-old became Congress’ first Gen Z member ever.

Frost’s victory, therefore, became a milestone that garnered considerable attention, landed Frost on cable news and led Biden, then president, to call and congratulate him. He was also one of the few bright spots for Florida Democrats in that cycle, which otherwise saw the state’s ranks decimated by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ political operation.

“He is one of the few positive things out of Florida right now,” said a Democratic operative working in Florida who requested anonymity to speak openly about the shabby state of Democrats in the state.

Bashing — and boosting — Biden

But his election was not the first time Frost found himself in the public eye.

Frost grew up as an organizer, volunteering for Barack Obama, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. He survived his own brush with gun violence in 2016 at a Halloween event in Orlando, eventually leading him to become the national organizing director for March for Our Lives, the gun control organization sparked by the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that killed 17 people.

And Frost was a Biden critic long before he came to Congress.

In 2019, while working for the American Civil Liberties Union, Frost reportedly filmed a colleague confronting Biden about the Hyde Amendment, which significantly restricts federal funding for abortion.

“The goal of the program is to impact candidates,” Frost reportedly said at the time.

That would not be the last time Frost has confronted Biden.

When the Biden administration approved a large new oil drilling project in Alaska, Frost said he was “very disappointed” and argued that Biden was disrespecting young voters.

“Youth voter turnout was at its highest in 2020 & young folks supported him because of commitments such as no more drilling on federal land,” Frost wrote. “That commitment has been broken. We deserve a livable future.”

When the Biden administration decided to build additional miles of border wall, Frost called the decision “equivalent to sticking our heads in the sand,” adding he was “deeply disappointed in the Biden Administration for this hazardous move as the climate crisis looms and the humanitarian crisis deepens.”

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After war between Israel and Hamas broke out in Gaza, Frost called for an “immediate ceasefire,” a position that directly opposes the Biden administration’s support for Israel in the wake of the October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas that killed more than 1,200 people.

It would be hard to imagine a campaign surrogate speaking out against Trump’s positions and remaining on Team MAGA.

But part of the reason Frost said he’ll work to get Biden reelected is that administration officials have “never” asked him to tone down the rhetoric.

“In fact, they’ve said, ‘Talk to us, tell us what's up!’ They've listened to us,” he said. “It hasn't been some sort of House of Cards thing, where it's like you're shunned or you're blacklisted or you're strong-armed.”

It has not all been fighting with Biden, however.

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In 2023, Biden opened the first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, an idea Frost helped spur. In the announcement of the office, Biden thanked Frost for his work as they stood together in the Rose Garden, said he was a “big reason why I’m so optimistic about America’s future” and joked, “I remember when I was young.”

Frost said the office is doing “amazing things” and his city of Orlando received about $1.5 million in federal funds for community violence intervention.

“When I was protesting in Orlando, and I was tear-gassed and I was maced and I went to jail in the district that I represent, one of the things I was protesting for was money to communities to end gun violence, and President Biden has done that,” he said.

While he has disagreed with him on climate policy, he also credited Biden for pausing approvals of liquefied natural gas exports and for signing the Inflation Reduction Act, Biden’s signature law to fight climate change.

“Some of us joke that the Inflation Reduction Act is the downpayment of the Green New Deal,” he said, referring to the preferred climate change proposal of the far-left. “I care about that, and that’s a huge win.”

National Democrats have noted this balancing act, believing that Frost – unlike some other progressive members of Congress – represents the views of America’s youngest voters.

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“It is normal to have disagreements. You can’t expect anyone to be with you 100 percent of the time,” said a national Democratic strategist close to the Biden campaign. “What’s important is that you can have these disagreements and still be on board, and that’s reflective of the strength in the diversity of the Democratic Party.”

That ability to balance criticism with help has helped Frost navigate internal Democratic politics. In just a few years as an elected official, top Florida Democrats say, Frost is now seen as a “power center” in Florida Democratic politics.

“He is essential to the party apparatus in the state,” said Nikki Fried, chairwoman of the Florida Democratic Party who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2022.

“He ran a very grassroots campaign when he first got elected in 2022. And he created an atmosphere of hope,” said Fried, who has been open about how Florida Democrats were in a troubling place when she became chair in early 2023. “He's really important to not only energize our base, but to show the rest of the elected in the state of Florida what it looks like to be a true public servant.”

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Fox News host dogpiled by own viewers after joking about Epstein crimes: 'Hit a new low'

Fox News viewers revolted against the network this weekend after hosts on its political talk show “The Five” erupted in laughter after joking about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged crimes, and fiercely defended the Trump administration’s botched release of Epstein-related files.

“If you read the Epstein files, Epstein got his money from two Jewish billionaires – Les Wexner and Leon Black – and a little bit of money from the Jewish banking dynasty, the Rothschilds in Europe,” said Fox News’ Jesse Watters, who was among the five panelists.

“It looks like he's mostly just a fixer! A guy who advises, he helps people with their problems – sometimes those problems are 'you need a girl.’ If you need it, he's got it!”

Watters’ fellow panelist, political commentator and comedian Greg Gutfeld, appeared to have thought up on the spot a new title for Epstein.

“He's a sex rabbi!” Gutfeld exclaimed, sparking the room to erupt in laughter.

Video of the segment was uploaded by Fox News to its official YouTube channel, where viewers couldn’t contain their outrage over the failures of the Justice Department to prosecute any potential co-conspirators of Epstein, and at the cast of “The Five” for making light of the issue.

“Fox News has hit a new low,” wrote one YouTube user in the comment section of Fox News’ upload of the video.

“So FOX NEWS just [skips] over the fact that The Dear Leader's name [is] mentioned 1 [million] times in [the Epstein] files,” wrote another, making reference to a claim from Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who said that Trump’s name appears more than 1 million times in the unredacted Epstein files.

“Holy hell, not you guys down playing it too,” wrote another.

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Ex-Trump ally warns GOP on Epstein: 'Good luck getting women to vote for Republicans'

Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has a warning for MAGA influencers and the GOP more generally for the midterms.

Greene, who over the weekend said Trump was ultimately responsible for everything GOP officials do, on Sunday said that certain "MAGA influencers" are going to regret mocking survivors of Jeffrey Epstein.

"All of you MAGA influencers and the rest mocking the seriousness of women who were trafficked and raped as teenagers and young women look like cult fools," the ex-lawmaker wrote on X. "Good luck trying to get women to vote for Republicans in the midterms you insensitive clowns."

Greene added, "The Republican Party already has a woman voting problem. Keep mocking those of us who take rape and pedophilia seriously and demand accountability for corruption."

This forgotten case can stop Trump's plot to steal elections

By Derek T. Muller, Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame.

The recent FBI search of the Fulton County, Georgia, elections facility and the seizure of election-related materials pursuant to a warrant has attracted concern for what it might mean for future elections.

What if a determined executive branch used federal law enforcement to seize election materials to sow distrust in the results of the 2026 midterm congressional elections?

Courts and states should be wary when an investigation risks commandeering the evidence needed to ascertain election results. That is where a largely forgotten Supreme Court case from the 1970s matters, a case about an Indiana recount that sets important guardrails to prevent post-election chaos in federal elections.

Congress’s constitutionally delegated role

The case known as Roudebush v. Hartke arose from a razor-thin U.S. Senate race in Indiana in 1970. The ballots were cast on Election Day, and the state counted and verified the results, a process known as the “canvass.” The state certified R. Vance Hartke as the winner. Typically, the certified winner presents himself to Congress, which accepts his certificate of election and seats the member to Congress.

The losing candidate, Richard L. Roudebush, invoked Indiana’s recount procedures. Hartke sued to stop the recount. He argued that a state recount would intrude on the power of each chamber, the Senate or the House of Representatives, to judge its own elections under Article I, Section 5 of the U.S. Constitution. That clause gives each chamber the sole right to judge elections. No one else can interfere with that power.

Hartke worried that a recount might result in ballots that could be altered or destroyed, which would diminish the ability of the Senate to engage in a meaningful examination of the ballots if an election contest arose.

But the Supreme Court rejected that argument.

It held that a state recount does not “usurp” the Senate’s authority because the Senate remains free to make the ultimate judgment of who won the election. The recount can be understood as producing new information — in this case, an additional set of tabulated results — without stripping the Senate of its final say.

Furthermore, there was no evidence that a recount board would be “less honest or conscientious in the performance of its duties” than the original precinct boards that tabulated the election results the first time around, the court said.

A state recount, then, is perfectly acceptable, as long as it does not impair the power of Congress.

In the Roudebush decision, the court recognized that states run the mechanics of congressional elections as part of their power under Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution to set the “Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives,” subject to Congress’s own regulation.

At the same time, each chamber of Congress judges its own elections, and courts and states should not casually interfere with that core constitutional function. They cannot engage in behaviors that usurp Congress’s constitutionally-delegated role in elections.

Evidence can be power

The Fulton County episode is legally and politically fraught not because federal agents executed a warrant — courts authorize warrants all the time — but because of what was seized: ballots, voting machines, tabulation equipment and related records.

Those items are not just evidence. They are also the raw materials for the canvassing of votes and certification of winners. They provide the foundation for audits and recounts. And, importantly, they are necessary for any later inquiry by Congress if a House or Senate race becomes contested.

That overlap creates a structural problem: If a federal investigation seizes, damages, or destroys election materials, it can affect who has the power to assess the election. It can also inject uncertainty into the chain of custody: Because ballots are removed from absentee envelopes or transferred from Election Day precincts to county election storage facilities, states ensure the ballots cast on Election Day are the only ones tabulated, and that ballots are not lost or destroyed in the process.

Disrupting this chain of custody by seizing ballots, however, can increase, rather than decrease, doubts about the reliability of election results.

That is the modern version of “usurpation.”

From my perspective as an election law scholar, Roudebush is a reminder that courts should be skeptical of executive actions that shift decisive control over election proof away from the institutions the Constitution expects to do the judging.

Congress doesn’t just adjudicate contests

There is another institutional reason courts should be cautious about federal actions that seize or compromise election materials: The House already has a long-running capacity to observe state election administration in close congressional races.

The Committee on House Administration maintains an Election Observer Program. That program deploys credentialed House staff to be on-site at local election facilities in “close or difficult” House elections. That staff observes casting, processing, tabulating and canvassing procedures.

The program exists for a straightforward reason: If the House may be called upon to judge a contested election under Article I, Section 5, it has an institutional interest in understanding how the election was administered and how records were handled.

That observation function is not hypothetical. The committee has publicly announced deployments of congressional observers to watch recount processes in tight House races throughout the country.

I saw it take place first-hand in 2020. The House deployed election observers in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District to oversee a recount of a congressional election that was ultimately certified by a margin of just six votes.

Democratic and Republican observers from the House politely observed, asked questions, and kept records – but never interfered with the state election apparatus or attempted to lay hands on election equipment or ballots.

Congress has not rejected a state’s election results since 1984, and for good reason. States now have meticulous record-keeping, robust chain-of-custody procedures for ballots, and multiple avenues of verifying the accuracy of results. And with Congress watching, state results are even more trustworthy.

When federal investigations collide with election materials

Evidence seizures can adversely affect election administration. So courts and states ought to be vigilant, enforcing guardrails that help respect institutional boundaries.

To start, any executive branch effort to unilaterally inject itself into a state election apparatus should face meaningful scrutiny. Unlike the Fulton County warrant, which targeted an election nearly six years old, warrants that interrupt ongoing state processes in an election threaten to usurp the constitutional role of Congress. And executive action cannot proceed if it impinges upon the ultimate ability of Congress to judge the election of its members.

In the exceedingly unlikely event that a court issues a warrant, a court should not permit seizure of election equipment and ballots during a state’s ordinary post-election canvass. Instead, inspection of items, provision of copies of election materials, or orders to preserve evidence are more tailored means to accomplish the same objectives. And courts should establish clear chain-of-custody procedures in the event that evidence must be preserved for a future seizure in a federal investigation.

The fear driving much public commentary about the danger to midterm elections is not merely that election officials will be investigated or that evidence would be seized. It is that investigations could be used as a pretense to manage or, worse, disrupt elections – chilling administrators, disorganizing record keeping or manufacturing doubt by disrupting custody of ballots and systems.

Roudebush provides a constitutional posture that courts should adopt, a recognition that some acts can usurp the power of Congress to judge elections. That will provide a meaningful constraint on the executive ahead of the 2026 election and reduce the risk of intervention in an ongoing election.

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