I Know Why Spineless MAGA Bow to Trump

The Daily Beast Podcast

The Daily Beast

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4.6 • 8.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2026

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Joanna Coles speaks with Rep. Maxwell Frost about the hate crime assault he was a victim of at the Sundance Film Festival—and why he says it’s part of a much darker national pattern tied to political rhetoric, emboldened extremists, and a collapse of accountability in Washington. Rep. Frost describes how GOP lawmakers acquiesce to Trump and remain silent out of terror of primaries, retaliation, or being singled out by the president. He argues that this spinelessness has real-world consequences, linking escalating political violence, authoritarian instincts, and a system increasingly warped by greed and profiteering. As Frost warns that democracy itself is under threat, the question lingers: will Republicans ever find the backbone to stand up to Trump—and what happens if they don’t? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	They just have no courage. They have no backbone to stand up to this president.
0:04.8	And that's why they haven't in the last year. It is really a question of courage and whether or not they say, I don't care what this president does.
0:11.2	I don't care if I put my own reelection at risk. I'm going to stand up for this country because right now we have a dictator and a regime that is seeking to completely destroy democracy to enrich billionaires and
0:21.1	enrich people like him. That's what all this stems to, by the way. It's not just the vanity
0:25.7	project of Trump. This leads directly to profiteering, making money and making money for his
0:31.9	friends. I'm Joanna Cold. This is the Daily Beast podcast podcast and today we're talking to one of the nine
0:40.1	Democrats who insist that President Clinton show up in front of the Oversight Committee to talk
0:45.8	about Epstein and what he knew about Epstein. He's also, however, someone who wants to impeach
0:52.6	Christine Ome, Pam Bondi, Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr.
0:57.1	The moment the Democrats win back the House, if they ever do. I am talking about Maxwell
1:03.4	Frost, the youngest member of the House of Representatives, he was 25 when he got elected. He's 29 now.
1:10.0	He's in his second term.
1:11.5	And you might have heard of him recently because he was just having a drink at Sundance
1:16.1	when a stranger came up and just hit him in the face and said, that's what's going to happen to people like you and you're going to be deported.
1:24.1	So no time to waste.
1:25.7	Let's get into it.
1:29.1	So Congressman Frost time to waste. Let's get into it. So, Congressman Frost, just tell us about the attack that happened on you in Sundance.
1:37.0	Are you fully recovered? What happened?
1:41.6	Yeah, I'm okay. And, you know, actually at the time of the assault, I wasn't bruised or bleeding or anything like that.
1:49.7	I mean, it was painful, but I didn't bruise or anything.
1:52.5	Essentially what happened is that I was at a private event that Fred had invited me to at a bar.
1:58.5	And a guy broke into the event, ran straight up to me, and started, I first thought
	...

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