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hi we're here with uh representative
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Maxwell Frost from Florida you are the
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first genz representative which I guess
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that's a good thing well you're going to
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tell us why and uh you were elected at
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what 27 25 25 so you're the youngest
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person in Congress right now again low
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bar but still um let's talk a little bit
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about what you're doing here how you're
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looking at what's going on and the big
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issues you think are important well I
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appreciate it um I got involved in
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politics when I was 15 years old because
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I didn't want to get shot in school um
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and so gun violence is the issue that
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really pushed me in the politics and um
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been organizing ever since worked at
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ACLU and then marched for our lives um
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the issues I'm working on are gun
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violence housing we have a a housing
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crisis in this country during my
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campaign I experienced homelessness uh
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for two months because my rent went up
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33% in just a month and then when I got
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elected I couldn't rent an apartment in
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DC and I got denied because my credit
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was bad because I was living off my
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credit card during the campaign and so
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I've experienced a lot of the brunt of
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the housing crisis and so that's one of
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the other issues that we're focused on
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such Just Happening is affordability
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Scott you talk about this a lot with the
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big issue for young people isn't
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necessarily the things you think they
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would be but it's the deficit for
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example Scott yeah so uh Congress person
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what if you talk about the housing
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affordability crisis What specifically
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or What legislation or programs would
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you Champion to make it easier for
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people of your age to think about the
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quote unquote American Dream well I'd
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give a shout out to my bill of a bill
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called the end junk fees for renters act
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this is really based on my personal EXP
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experiences what it does is and junk
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fees what's a junk fee well something
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that legally your landlord has to
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provide for you that you're being nickel
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and dimed for trash fee this fee lawn
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fee that fee in fact in my district we
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found a few different apartment
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complexes where your landlord can charge
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you between $40 and $60 every time you
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call text or email them for anything and
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so this would eliminate those fees the
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other thing it would do is eliminate the
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use of credit scores and being the end
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all Beyond deciding whether or not
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someone can rent a statistic show or
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studies show that credit scores are not
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a good indication on whether or not
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someone's going to pay their rent number
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one it doesn't impact your credit score
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at all if you're good at paying your
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rent and the other thing is when a
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working person or a poor person falls in
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hard times the first thing they cut from
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is not their rent in fact rent is one of
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the last things they cut from what's the
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first thing food and medicine so Scott
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talks a lot about sort of young people
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feeling left out and that that the
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country is oriented towards keeping
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seniors Rich richer than ever taking the
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stock market gains or whatever how do
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you think young people think about this
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I mean the the issues AOC talked about a
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little bit about it last night
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affordability and things like that um
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and among the things they should be
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concerned and you don't speak for all
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young people but what how do they look
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at the economy right now is it sort of
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Winner Takes all and old people win or
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what I think it all has to do with lived
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experiences right I mean young people
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aren't necessarily going on onl to
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reading all the statistics and data on
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what's going on they're just like saying
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you know I graduated school I went
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straight into Workforce I'm having a
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hard time finding a place to rent and if
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I have the money saved up I'm being
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denied a lot of these places because the
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barrier to entry is so high right now
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because as consumers and tenants we've
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lost a lot of power in the marketplace
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since Co because and ownership too and
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ownership that's where I was about to
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get to that being a tenant is often
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times the precursor to owning and owning
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a home is the largest asset a working
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person will own their lifetime we're on
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track to not even be owning homes like
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that right and so we need to figure out
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number one how are we going to take care
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of our tenants and make sure they have
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more power in the marketplace but also
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make sure that owning a home is actually
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an accessible dream and something people
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can actually obtain in the State of
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Florida right now we have a home
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ownership Insurance crisis which is
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impacting everybody potential home
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owners current home owners seniors I did
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a round table with um seniors and new
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homeowners we have seniors who are on a
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fixed income and because their insurance
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rates were just hiked up so much they're
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probably going to have to move out of
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the home they've been in their whole
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life what do you think of the idea of
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mandatory national service mandatory
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national service I'm I'm against that I
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mean I do think that we should
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incentivize national service but you
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know part of the the the the point and
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homework of our country is you know
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freedom and and I think freedom to to
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not serve is one of those things but we
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should incentivize it that's why we have
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to make sure we put good money into
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things like aeric core there's also job
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core um these different organizations
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also you can do military service or
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going to any kind of be a first
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responder and different things like that
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we could do a better job of making sure
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that these professions have higher wages
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75% of our military budget goes to
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contractors I think our service members
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could be paid a little bit more same
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thing with our teachers my mom's a
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public school educator of 37 years she
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actually just retired um and she has
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been making the same amount of money for
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a lot of that time yeah right I mean and
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she's our educator she's an educator so
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with a master's degree and so I think we
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have a lot of work to do in making these
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positions of service um actually be able
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to help sustain someone's lifestyle so
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some one thing Scott talks a lot about
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is the crisis of young men that's his
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one of his big topics um of young men
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young men which you are one of
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apparently um the crisis of young men of
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young men and there's a big gender gap
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right now between supporters between
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women who are supporting KL Harris and
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men who are becoming more conservative
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okay um can you talk about that what how
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can she appeal to that and close that
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Gap because Donald Trump scores ahead of
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her though it's not changed a lot and
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she scores way ahead of him on women so
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can you talk a little bit about that
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especially young men I think focusing on
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what we're talking about housing the
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economy how are we going to make sure
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which he is that young people can get
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ahead and I'm actually on the vice
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president's National Advisory board for
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the campaign so I travel the country for
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her right after this I'm going on a back
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to school tour hitting Six States and
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I'll tell you when I'm talking with
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young men young everybody they just want
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to know about how can the vice president
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show us that government can actually
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work for us right the record's important
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and what I always tell politicians when
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I was working on campaigns and tell
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candidates they want to know your record
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but that's what they got with their last
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vote they also want to know what they're
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going to get with this next vote and she
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put for a very aggressive and good
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housing platform that I think is going
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to be help a lot of young why do you
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think some young men are attracted to
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Trump it's a very strange phenomena lot
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for a lot of people yeah maybe not all I
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think the first thing is polling Young
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Folks young men young people can be a
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little difficult I've worked in the
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youth vote space for my whole career
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pretty much it's really volatile and can
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change very quickly so I wouldn't
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necessarily buy that uh you know Donald
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Trump has this overwhelming majority of
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young men or that they're all fleeing
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towards him but you know I think that
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something Donald Trump did in 2016 is he
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really appealed to people who may not
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have felt heard in politics before it
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was a fake appeal right he was saying he
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went to drain the swamp but he is the
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swamp he was talking about this fake
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populism when he is he he's part of that
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billionaire class which is the reason so
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many people are in the conditions they
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find themselves in and I think now
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that's being exposed um and so we just
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got to keep making sure people know
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about that events like this help us make
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that case to the nation but again what's
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really going to help us do this is going
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on the ground going speaking with people
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across the entire country and that's
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what we're doing all right Scott last
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question then I have one more do you
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think Tik Tok should be
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divested um I voted no on the Tik Tok
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ban bill um would I prefer that Tik Tok
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be owned by an americ or Not by a Ford
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adversary
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110% however what we need to do and
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Congress tends to do this a lot is we
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don't actually do the work of
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legislating the regulations to ensure
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that we protect all the data privacy of
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people we select one platform have a
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bill that will probably ban it or end up
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in litigation that won't actually solve
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the problem this you know we could ban
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Tik Tok and be back at the same problem
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with some other uh uh platform in just
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five years and so what I think we need
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to do is take a step back past really
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good data privacy bills um 2.0 is a
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great one there's some other ones as
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well um but Banning Tik Tok I just don't
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think is a is a solution you're not
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worried about it as a propaganda vehicle
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for the CCP I'm worried about every
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single uh uh social media a site being
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used for propaganda but there's number
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one there's not really any proof that
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it's been done on a large scale and we
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we know that um so a lot of his
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speculation am I am I concerned yes I am
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concerned um but again we can handle
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that problem and the problem for our
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domestic social media companies which
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take our data buy it sell it and sell it
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to China we talk about it a l y yeah of
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course so you y all know uh but you're
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asking me the question and so either way
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um yeah so in that vein so a lot these
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these are great things they're fun to
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come to these events and things like
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that and TV used to be a big deal and
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now it's not how do you look at how how
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this is going to be consumed and what
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stick what has stuck out for you well
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now we're in the era of people really
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consuming things and bite-sized portions
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right and so snackable they're called
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snack snackable okay snackable portions
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um and so uh you know a lot of people
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are going to be seeing smaller clips of
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these speeches and there'll be a lot of
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people watch the whole speeches as well
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um which is you know we saw yesterday we
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had some of our best speakers out there
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um really exciting we have you know
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great speakers for the rest of the week
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and I think we're trying to get this
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agenda out here make sure people know
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that in terms of the economy security
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safety opportunity making sure people
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have what they need K Harris is the
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candidate that we need to elect here and
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what do you think stuck out last
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night you know the president's speech
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was really heartfelt um I I'm a big Joe
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Biden fan um you know when I first got
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elected and he called me we spoke about
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the fact that we shared something in
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common he was elected to the Senate 29
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and was the youngest member of the
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Senate I was the youngest member of the
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house when I got in the Congress my
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first bill was create a federal office
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at gun violence prevention the president
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took my bill used it as the framework
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for an executive order to make the
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office and then he invited me to go to
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the White House to be a part of that and
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we've been very highly involved with the
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White House the old and the young come
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together then yeah I mean we I've
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collaborated done so much work with Joe
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Biden and his entire Administration I
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have so much respect for the man and I
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think yesterday we really cemented the
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fact that he said himself he loves this
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job but he loves saving our democracy
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and people even more and the decision he
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made you know when we talk about one of
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the greatest presence of our country we
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of talks about George Washington and the
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point that we usually point to is the
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fact that he knew when it was time yeah
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selflessness and that's the difference
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between selfish goals and selfless
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people and selfless people I think Joe
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Biden showed that he's a selfless person
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who cares one more quick question kamla
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Harris has caught up do you think she
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has a big chance of winning here she
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certainly has momentum yeah we're we're
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going to win this campaign but what I'm
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telling people too especially because
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I'm an organizer is we can't let this
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excitement Cloud us and that's what the
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Republicans did yeah yeah we're not
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going to win no matter what we're going
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to win when we do the work if we do the
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work and we will do the work and that's
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what as I've been traveling I'll tell
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you people are excited and they're
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getting to work this excitement will
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translate into votes and here's the good
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thing especially on the youth vote I
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think we're going to have the highest
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youth vter turnout we've ever had but
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the young people we get to vote now
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they're going to be lifelong voters and
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so it's not just even about this
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election it's about the one 10 years
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from now 20 years from around 30 years
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from now great thank you so much
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appreciate it be here
