In a television interview from his hospice care facility, a long-time Democrat who is nearing the end of his life took aim at the far-left members of his party.
Long-time liberal standard-bearer Barney Frank, who wrote legislation on everything from banking bills to permitting gay marriage, criticised how far left Democrats have gone in an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper that aired on Sunday.
“It’s precisely because I have been on the left that I have undertaken this,” Frank told Tapper, criticising some of the most radical policies of a party he once led. Frank is now 86 years old and in hospice care due to congestive heart failure.To get inequality on the Democratic agenda, many of us battled.
“But the issue was that, while we were successful in getting the left’s mainstream to take an interest in inequality, we also made it possible for those who wanted to use that as a platform for a variety of social and cultural changes, some of which the public isn’t ready for,” he continued.
Frank, who will also publish a book later this year, pointed out that Democrats no longer know how to advance progressive causes in the modern era.
Frank told Tapper, “We didn’t get married until these other things had been resolved.”
And I’m proposing that we do that today. Males and female transsexuals participating in women’s sports serve as an analogy.
On May 3, 2026, former Democratic Congressman Barney Frank spoke with CNN’s Jake Tapper from hospice care about the status of American democracy today, his recommendations for progressive Democrats, and his message for young people who are fed up with politics.
On December 8, 2022, Frank speaks during a bill enrolment ceremony for the Respect For Marriage Act at the US Capitol Building in Washington, DC.
Prior to the publication of his book later this year, Frank spoke to Tapper about hospice care. “I understand there’s a lot of anger about that,” he continued. “And I think it would be better to go at that in a more granular way and not just announce that you’re a homophobe if you don’t support it, for the benefit of the transgender community and others.”
Frank used the candidature of controversial oyster farmer and veteran Graham Platner—who just had a Nazi tattoo removed—as an illustration of his party’s flaws.
Following the withdrawal of the state’s current governor, Janet Mills, who was supported by US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Platner became the presumed contender for the US Senate in Maine.
Frank told Tapper, “I think Platner actually shares this capacity toward making the most out of the anger that people feel.”
“But I’m worried that, among some in my party, there has been a flavor-of-the-month tendency, so that someone who is new and hasn’t been able to do much is somehow preferred over people who understand the importance of hard work to get controversial things adopted,” Frank continued. “What I’m afraid of is that he won’t be able to translate that into enough votes.”
Younger and older Democrats alike are increasingly criticising the radical left.
John Fetterman, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, attacked his party’s members who oppose anything connected to Trump in an exclusive interview with the Daily Mail last week.
On June 25, 2000, Barney Frank and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who was later running for the US Senate, waved to fans as they marched in the yearly Gay Pride Day parade on Fifth Avenue in New York.
When Barney Frank arrives to speak on the last night of the Democratic National Convention at the Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte, North Carolina, USA, on September 6, 2012, he examines the gavel that was left on the podium.
After last Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, which Fetterman attended, Fetterman argued in an interview with the Daily Mail on Monday that Democrats should “drop the TDS” and support President Trump’s proposed White House ballroom. “The leader of the Democratic party is TDS,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said of so-called “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” contending that “our nation needs and deserves this [ballroom].”
Trump supporters created the phrase “Trump Derangement Syndrome” to characterise what they perceive to be an unreasonable and compulsive opposition to President Trump.
