Maxwell Frost Challenges GOP to Say What They Love More: Trump or Guns

A Florida Democrat issued a call to action Friday for House Speaker Mike Johnson to hold a vote on legislation that would ban assault weapons, suggesting that the Republican Party should reverse its yearslong course of enabling mass shootings in light of the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump.

Representative Maxwell Frost, a Democrat who represents Florida’s 10th district, shared his letter to Johnson in a post on X, formerly Twitter.

“This past weekend, we saw that the need to act against political violence is not a partisan issue; it is a matter of public safety and common sense,” Frost wrote. “That’s why [Representative Lucy McBath] and I are calling on House Speaker Mike Johnson to bring a vote on legislation that would ban assault weapons and protect the safety of every American.”

The full letter urged Johnson to bring H.R. 698, Assault Weapons Ban, and H.R. 8600, McBath’s bill that would ban gas-powered firearms like the one used by Trump’s assailant, to a vote. The Assault Weapons Ban was originally introduced in February 2023, and its primary sponsorship was taken over by McBath that June.

“What we saw on July 14, 2024, is that the need to act against political violence is not a partisan issue, it is a matter of public safety and common sense,” Frost and McBath wrote in the letter. “It should not take the attempted assassination of a former President for the Speaker of the House to act. A failure to respond in the face of a brazen attack almost certainly invites a future tragedy.”

As a former national organizing director for March for Our Lives, the gun control advocacy group, Frost helped to establish the first federal office focused on preventing gun violence.

While Frost’s push isn’t expressly tongue-in-cheek, it seems to be a checkmate for the Republican-led House, which has repeatedly torpedoed attempts to expand gun restrictions.

The pressure building on Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race has reportedly led to his family gaming an exit strategy. 

NBC News reports that Biden’s family is discussing how the president can step aside on his own terms, with a well-thought-out plan. Biden’s health, his family, and the country’s stability are reportedly the chief concerns, along with the final plan being one that gives the Democrats the best chance to beat former president and convicted felon Donald Trump.

Officially, the White House denies that such discussions are taking place.

“That is not happening, period,” said White House spokesman Andrew Bates. “The individuals making those claims are not speaking for his family or his team—and they will be proven wrong. Keep the faith.”

Biden’s family even discussing his exit could be a big turning point. It comes after news this week that top Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, and Representative Nancy Pelosi, have all spoken with Biden about dropping out. Even former President Barack Obama has voiced concerns, and one West Coast donor has taken the liberty of drafting an exit speech for Biden. 

Earlier this week, the White House announced that Biden was diagnosed with Covid-19, fueling more discussion about health concerns. As each day goes by, more and more Democrats in Congress are calling on Biden to step aside, including five more lawmakers who joined the public calls on Thursday. Biden could drop out within a few days, according to reports. Still, some of his supporters think that a switch at this point could imperil the Democrats, especially if it is not well planned.

The Democratic National Convention in Chicago is only a month away. If Democrats want to make a move, they will need to present a unified party to the country at that point, otherwise Trump and the GOP will see a lot of weakness to exploit.

At a pro-Israel event in Milwaukee on Thursday, House Speaker Mike Johnson described his plans to target Democratic lawmakers who protest Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s upcoming speech to Congress.

“There’s a number of Democrats in the House who have said they are going to boycott the event, and then some others are gonna protest,” said Johnson. “We’re gonna have extra sergeants at arms on the floor, and if anybody gets out of hand the Speaker of the House will bang the gavel. We’re gonna arrest people if we have to do it. We’re gonna get the message out.”

According to PBS, Johnson was the one to initially lead the charge to invite Netanyahu, after Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer criticized the Israeli leader as “an obstacle to peace” due to his handling of the war on Gaza.

A number of Democrats are considering objecting to the upcoming speech. Several intend to boycott it, including Representatives Jim Clyburn, Pramila Jayapal, Greg Casar, and Loyd Doggett. Justifying his stance, Doggett pointed to Netanyahu’s encouragement of the “indiscriminate bombing” of Gaza and the resultant “loss of lives that should never have happened.” He said of Netanyahu, “He has not prioritized the hostages; he ought to be doing that instead of coming here.”

Others have considered different forms of protest. According to Axios, an unnamed House Democrat has said some of his colleagues plan on “going and disrupting” the speech. Wisconsin Representative Mark Pocan suggested “dressing in a certain way” or “sitting together”—but specified that he will not be “going MTG.”

On X (formerly Twitter), progressive political analyst Omar Baddar said that Johnson’s promise to meet protest with a heavy hand revealed a double standard, as Republicans have heckled State of the Union addresses by Obama and Biden in the past without consequence. The Intercept’s Prem Thakker contrasted Johnson’s remarks with those of Trump in his RNC speech Thursday: “We should not criminalize dissent or demonize political disagreement.”

Donald Trump promised a nomination acceptance speech that would “bring the country together” in the wake of his attempted assassination, but the meandering rant he delivered on Thursday night missed the mark by a long shot. It doesn’t appear that everyone got the memo, though, as some publications proceeded to publish glowing reviews of the former president’s supposed pledge for unity.  

To be fair, Trump’s speech started off sounding more controlled, as he delivered remarks as written on the teleprompter. “The discord and division in our society must be healed, we must heal it quickly. We are bound together by a single fate, a single destiny,” Trump said. “We rise together. Or we fall apart.”

“I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America. So tonight, with faith and devotion, I proudly accept your nomination for president of the United States.”

Of course, this was within the first 10 minutes of the former president’s speech—the rest of his address was a severe departure, as he used a pledge for unity to further create a wedge between Democrats and Republicans, claiming that his party was just way more into unity than the other guys. 

“If Democrats want to unify our country, they should drop these partisan witch hunts—which I have been going through for approximately eight years—and they should do that without delay, and allow an election to proceed that is worthy of our people,” Trump said, transforming his impassioned call for unity into just another one of his stump speeches about his many legal battles. My unity is bigger than your unity, and so on. 

Predictably, Trump spiraled off-script into the same old baseless, racist claims about immigration, crime, and election denialism, and he delivered lies about a vast array of other topics that stretched on for 90 minutes. It seems Trump’s lengthy speech may have interfered with publications rushing to get to print, as some wrote headlines that ran with just the first few beats of the speech as front page news. 

In its print edition, The Boston Globe published its story under the headline, “In a departure, Trump calls for unity, healing in America.” The Dallas Morning News published the headline “Trump emphasized unity.” Both headlines could be improved with the addition of “momentarily.”

USA Today’s Weekend Edition featured the question, “After attempt on life, can Trump unite US?” 

Writer Parker Molloy posted the covers on X, formerly Twitter, remarking that the headlines seemed to match the prepared remarks, but not the ones Trump actually delivered. Another possible explanation for their eerie break from reality. 

It’s worth noting that some of these publications supplemented their coverage online. For example, The Boston Globe provided a steady stream of updates about the speech as the night went on. But headlines—especially front page ones—are important, as they’re often the only part of a story anyone will actually read. 

The most egregious offender was the New York Post, which touted “A NEW DON” on its front page. “Trump preaches unity, vows to heal divided America in RNC speech,” read the subhead. In reality, Trump demonstrated that despite everything, he is still the same as ever: deeply divisive, and bent on winning no matter what. 

Trains and planes around the world were stalled and grounded Friday due to an international Microsoft outage during what was supposed to be a routine update from a cybersecurity firm, CrowdStrike.

In what has been described as the “largest IT outage in history,” CrowdStrike’s catastrophic error fumbled every sector of the working world, from banks to hospitals, law enforcement, and McDonalds. But an update from CrowdStrike’s CEO, George Kurtz, early Friday was surprisingly unapologetic and so bogged down in legalese that it was immediately read to filth by its customers.

“CrowdStrike is actively working with customers impacted by a defect found in a single content update for Windows hosts,” Kurtz wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “Mac and Linux hosts are not impacted. This is not a security incident or cyberattack. The issue has been identified, isolated and a fix has been deployed.”

“We refer customers to the support portal for the latest updates and will continue to provide complete and continuous updates on our website,” he continued. “We further recommend organizations ensure they’re communicating with CrowdStrike representatives through official channels. Our team is fully mobilized to ensure the security and stability of CrowdStrike customers.”

Critics quickly observed that, despite the fact that the failure likely caused millions of dollars’ worth of damages around the globe, Kurtz refused to take any modicum of blame by writing the statement entirely in customer service jargon and by aggressively dodging any word combination that precisely identified the problem, offered a solution, or simply said, “I’m sorry.”

“It comes off as cowardly and callous,” wrote former Activision Blizzard CCO Lulu Cheng Meservey. “People might have died. And the CEO is not sorry.”

Kurtz had a significantly more human—albeit still callous—update in an interview with NBC News.

“Many of the customers are rebooting the system, and it’s coming up, and it’ll be operational because we fixed it on our end,” Kurtz told the news outlet. “Some of the systems that aren’t recovering, we’re working with them. So it could be some time for some systems that just automatically won’t recover.”