CNN Newsroom: Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL) Is Interviewed On Student Loan Forgiveness And Rep. James Comer's Comment On The President's Late Son

Interview

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Well, the fight isn't over then. You know, what we're saying is no matter what the verdict is, the fight isn't over. There are still more actions that the administration can take. It might take some creativity, hopefully not much, in ensuring that the administration can use their executive powers and we can do our job in the legislative branch to ensure that this can be done.

It is constitutional for the government to forgive student debt for not just students -- a lot of times when we think about this problem, we think about this issue we're just thinking about young people. It's young people, but it's a ton of older folks. It's seniors, it's people with working -- it's people with families, working class people who have shackles right now, economic shackles because they have this crushing student debt.

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That's all they want to do. And we heard it from Jim Jordan out of one of these conservative conferences. He said, look at the Judiciary Committee, look at Oversight, we're setting ourselves up, were his words, for 2024. Setting ourselves up in terms of messaging. So, in terms of getting things done on that committee, not much is going to get done on that committee to be honest. They are more interested in talking about Hunter Biden's laptop, the disgraceful comments from Chair Comer relating to the president's late son. It's just disgraceful, right.

They spent two years during the midterms talking about inflation and education and all these issues, hitting Democrats, hitting the president, and now that they have the house narrowly, they're not talking about it at all. They're not talking about Housing. They're not talking about lowering costs for working families. They want to spend our time talking about Hunter Biden's laptop and made-up fantasies of an open border. And if you look at this Oversight Committee, we are rebutting those,

you know, what they're saying and we're really shooting down those comments' day by day because they're not true. It's a waste of time and we really need to focus on what's going to help working families and the growing class of what we call the working poor.

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We take that on by, number one, being bold in our messaging and calling it out for what it is. He isn't acting on education, we have to be clear. He's acting on scapegoating vulnerable communities due to his failures. He's not talking about how we're going to increase the amount of money per student in classes. He's not talking about ensuring that we raise teacher pay, that we ensure that parents do have a say in the way that their students are being educated outside of this bigotry that he has.

He's talking about targeting queer students, targeting LGBTQ+ kids. It's not just the broader community. He's going for the kids. A piece of legislation that was just introduced pretty much would allow the state to seize, to kidnap trans children if they feel like they're at risk of gender-affirming care, and a lot of times, lifesaving health care as well.

This is what we're up against in Florida right now. And it's hard to keep track of because it seems like there's a new victim. There's a new bill every day. But we have to call it for what it is. He is abusing his power and using the state to target political opponents and political enemies. And there's a word for that, and it's fascism. And we have to be honest about it.

It's just a problem for Florida now, sure. But in a few years, it could be a problem for the nation. We need everybody to pay attention and talk about it, how he's targeting trans folks, targeting not just black history but black people in general, which is American history, and targeting marginalized communities across this entire state.

And here's the sad, sad part, Jim. He's doing it because it's polling high for him in the Republican Party. And I think that says a lot about the state of that party right now.

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I think generally it's really important for young people to be at the table. But to be clear, I'm not one of these people that say, you know, wipe everybody out and just have young people at the table. We need a representative body, and young people, Gen Z and millennials make up a third of this country. We're nowhere near a third of the electorate.

As far as President Biden is concerned, if he decides to run, I am going to back the president. You know, he's been one of the most pro- union presidents we've seen and I believe the most progressive president we've seen in modern history and I want to continue on that track of the amazing bills that Congress passed and the president signed last session.

And so, we'll see what his decision is, but either way, I'm saying generally about politics, state and local politics, a lot of times we focus on the national. We need younger, good progressive legislators all across this country. The battles going on in Florida right now wouldn't be as big of a deal if we had more state legislators up there who actually gave a damn about people's lives.

So, we need to pay attention to the full picture holistically here and not just the presidency, which is incredibly important, and I'm backing the president. But there's a lot of work that needs to be done on the ground level to build power across this country to protect our freedoms, our liberty, and our rights.

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Thanks for having me on.

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