From WNYC, I'm Brian Lair. This is my Daily Politics podcast. It's Thursday, May 21st.

We learned yesterday that former Massachusetts Congressman Barney Frank has died at the age of 86.

Frank is a significant figure in American

history, at least for being the first member of Congress to come out voluntarily as gay. That was in

1987. I say voluntarily because one other member had been involuntarily outed four years earlier.

Barney Frank was also co-sponsor of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street

Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as it was called, which newly regulated the banking industry

in 2010 to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis that was underway at the time. Before

Frank's passing on Tuesday, he had actually been making some news in his final days by offering a critique of his Democratic Party.

As he gave interviews to the New York Times and others, Frank, who was Jewish, told the Jewish telegraphic agency, that news organization, that, quote, I held on longer than I should have, unquote, to the degree to which

he supported Israel. He said, quote, I've been talking about the importance of repudiating positions

from the left and from the far left. That's most of what we'll talk about regarding him, by the way.

But he said, but the Israel one is almost 180 degrees.

It's the one area where we are not doing enough.

And he said it should be what the Democrats are advocating is giving an ultimatum that Netanyahu

either changes things substantially in Gaza and the West Bank, or we cut off any aid,

particularly due to what they're allowing to happen in the West Bank, that it is important

morally and politically to repudiate the policy of supporting Israel's military activity,

unquote, from Bonnie Frank. But it's the first part of that quote that he's been

repudiating positions from the left and the far left, as he put it, that's been making the most

news, given his history as a progressive leader during his time in Congress. Now, to be clear,

he's disgusted by Trump, and it's not that he disagrees with the goals of the

...