From Hospice Care, Democrat Former Rep. Barney Frank Warns His Party About Drifting Too Far Left (Video)

Last week, The Gateway Pundit reported that former Democrat Rep. Barney Frank has entered hospice care.

Barney Frank, 86, is in hospice care at his home in Maine, where he resides with his husband. Frank is suffering from congestive heart failure.

A frail looking Frank spoke with Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday and warned his party about drifting too far left.

Jake Tapper: You are a progressive icon, but now you are expressing some reservations about where the progressive movement has gone. Tell us more.

Barney Frank: Yes, I know. I’ve been trying to decide, by the way, personally, whether it’s better to be an icon or an emoji. I haven’t decided that yet.

But, um, as far as this is concerned, it’s precisely because I have been on the left that I’ve undertaken this. I think we’re in a situation where the mainstream, to my disappointment, for many years ignored inequality. And many of us fought to get inequality on the Democratic agenda.

But the problem was, as we succeeded in bringing the mainstream of the left into a concern with inequality, we also enabled people who wanted to use that as a platform for a wide range of social and cultural changes, some of which the public isn’t ready for.

Even when I agree with them on the end, I think they make a mistake by taking the most controversial parts of the agenda and turning them into litmus tests.

For example, same-sex marriage. Obviously, I’ve been working for gay rights starting in 1972 when I filed a bill. And we, in the movement, established fairness for gay and lesbian and bisexual people, we picked to work on those issues which were more acceptable.

We didn’t get to marriage until after these other things had been resolved. And that’s what I’m suggesting that we do today.

The analog is male to female transsexuals playing sports designated for women. I understand there’s a lot of anger about that, and I think in the interest of the transgender community as well as others, it would be better to go at that in a more gradual way and not simply announce that if you don’t support it, you’re a homophobe.

Watch:

Former Democratic Rep. Barney Frank has a message for progressives as he enters hospice: “I think they make a mistake by taking the most controversial parts of the agenda and turning them into a litmus test.” pic.twitter.com/duT7MRSu8O

— State of the Union (@CNNSOTU) May 3, 2026

Frank was one of the Democrat Reps who authored the Dodd-Frank bill, which was put in place after the 2008 bank crash.

The government arguably caused the failure and then turned around and put in a massive amount of regulations in response to the failure.

The Dodd-Frank bill put enormous strain on smaller banks, and eventually, some of the regulations were rolled back.

Ironically, Barney Frank sat on the board of Signature Bank, a New York-based commercial bank that collapsed in 2023 after depositors withdrew money in a panic amid a string of bank failures.

The post From Hospice Care, Democrat Former Rep. Barney Frank Warns His Party About Drifting Too Far Left (Video) appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.