Well, Maxwell Frost, congratulations
on being elected to Congress the same year
you were old enough to rent a car.
There we go.
Yup.
Who have you bonded with in Congress?
I mean, I'm guessing the squad, obvs.
But any oldies?
Yeah, well, I don't know if I want
to say their names now because now I'm calling them oldies.
SARAH SILVERMAN: I mean, more mature.
More-- yeah.
Look, there's so many people that I've
gotten to connect with, folks who have
been just doing great work--
Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Pramila Jayapal,
yeah, Jamie Raskin.
Yeah, so many amazing people out there.
I wouldn't call them oldies, but, you
know, senior members of Congress
who are doing amazing work. - Yeah, they're not oldies.
They're goodies. - Yeah, they're goodies.
There we go. There we go.
You have been--
and I find this so impressive and inspiring especially
to people out here-- you've been a gun reform advocate
since you were 15 years old.
[cheering]
Spurred on by Sandy Hook, which was in Connecticut.
You're from Florida, and you organized
the March for Our Lives.
All these things that--
I have my pin on too.
[applause]
It's the five-year anniversary
of the Parkland shooting.
There was a school shooting just last night,
Michigan State.
Now that you are in Congress, what do you think can be done?
How can we break this cycle?
Yeah, well, we saw Congress pass a bipartisan bill to help
end gun violence last year.
It's not everything that we need,
but it's a good step forward.
The fact of the matter is we need
a governing majority that's actually going
to care about this issue.
And, you know, this word bipartisanship
is supposed to mean what everyone can agree on.
Most NRA members and Republicans
are for universal background checks.
But the definition of bipartisanship in Congress
means what the NRA will allow.
And because they're a front for the gun lobby,
they have these politicians bought off.
And they're unwilling to stand up for what the people want.
So we can't get things like background checks passed.
And so there's a lot of work that needs to be done.
A lot of it involves kicking people out and replacing them
with morally just leaders who actually
give a damn about children's lives
and people in the country.
[cheering]
But in the interim, I think we have an opportunity.
I mean, overturning Citizens United would
certainly help with that.
Yeah, 100%.
[cheering]
That's one of the issues to end all issues.
Yeah, that's the big one, and that's the root of so much
of this.
So now that you've seen how Congress
operates kind of from the inside, are you hopeful?
Do you see that there is change possible?
Are you excited about America's future?
Or is it depressing?
Both.
[laughs] Right.
I'll say I'm very hopeful.
A lot of times on the outside, you might look in and say,
there's only a small group of good people,
and everyone else is a corporate hack,
and they don't care about anyone.
But having conversations with my colleagues,
I've been so surprised by so many people
who I get in the conversation with them,
and I find out what they're about and their values.
And I'm like, OK.
You know?
Like, you're actually a lot more progressive
and forward thinking than other folks might think.
And I think the problem is people have smaller goals
because they understand the landscape and the battlefield
that we have in Congress right now.
And I think when we show those politicians and everyone
that good policy equals good politics,
then I think people will get the courage
that they need to stand up for what we need in this country.
[cheering]
More of this.
I mean, I think a lot of Gen Z-ers
tend to not trust the government.
How do you think you can change their minds?
Well, I understand, first off.
And this is something I-- like, running for Congress,
I had to think about the fact that during the Black Lives
Matter protests, I was tear gassed,
maced, arrested, and jailed for nonviolent protests.
Now I represent those same streets in Congress.
But I still have to square the fact
that I'm a part of the system that causes a lot of harm,
and I get it.
And I think part of what we need to do
is make government more accessible,
bridging the gap between cool and consciousness.
And I think that's a really good way that we can bring
younger people into the fold.
And March for Our Lives did a great job of that.
And with the movement, it was like the cool thing
to be at the marches.
It was the cool thing to register to vote.
And I think the more we can get our culture intertwined
with the politics, I think it's going to lead to more
young people getting involved.
I mean, if the marches could translate to votes more
directly, it would be ideal.
Yeah.
But maybe Election Day off would be a nice start.
Exactly. And--
[cheering]
Yeah, I agree.
And voter turnout is up for young people.
We have record highs of youth voter turnout.
It's never been the largest piece of the pie,
but young people right now are voting
at higher numbers than any other generation
when they were our age.
And half of Gen Z can't even vote yet.
So we're not where we want to be,
but we're going in the right direction.
You brought pussy-ass bitch--
it's now in congressional record because of you.
So I just personally want to thank you for that.
[applause]
That was about a certain person too.
It was about--
well, it was about a pussy-ass bitch, so--
what's been so inspiring about you
is that you got involved as a teenager
and how that can manifest into real change.
And so I think it's exciting.
Gen Z is so exciting to me because they're so motivated.
They realize their power, and that can really change things.
I mean, trying to get Gen Z to trust
the government, how about just trying to get
Gen Z to be the government?
Yeah.
And I think you've done that.
Yeah.
No, it is exciting, and I think we
see a lot of young candidates running across the country.
And, look, it's not like Gen Z was
waiting to get in Congress.
I'm the oldest a Gen Z-er can be.
We just got old enough to run.
But I think the significance here
is that the first chance we got,
we jumped at the opportunity because we want
to be a part of the solution.
We want to be at the table.
We don't want to be the only people at the table.
But Congress does not look like our country right now, right?
Like, Gen Z and Millennials make
up a third of the country.
We're nowhere near a third of government,
both local and federal.
And so we need more people to run for office.
Yes, Congress, but also city council,
county commission, these seats that really are-- they're
not lower.
They're closer to the people and closer to the decisions
that matter on a daily basis.
Yeah, being involved in those-- the midterm
elections and all--
everywhere down the ballot is essential.
And I feel like the right realizes that.
Yeah, they do, and they're more organized around that
than we are.
That's why they've played this long game of taking
over these state legislatures.
It's why we woke up last year, and Roe versus Wade was gone.
That's a plan that has been a long time in the making.
So Democrats-- I feel like sometimes we're
too obsessed with these short-term goals.
We need to be about power building in these communities
long term.
It's not going to happen overnight.
But that's how we're going to wake up one morning
and have our freaking rights back, right?
SARAH SILVERMAN: Yeah.