A 28-year-old Utah man is in custody after allegedly assaulting a Democratic congressman at a Sundance Film Festival event, telling him, “We are going to deport you and your kind,” police said.
Rep. Maxwell Frost tweeted on Saturday night that he had been attacked by a man “who told me that Trump was going to deport me before he punched me in the face. He was heard screaming racist remarks as he drunkenly ran off.”
Frost went on to thank the Park City police for arresting suspect Christian Joel Young.
According to authorities, Young is facing charges of aggravated burglary, attempting/assaulting an elected official, and simple assault.
The incident occurred at the High West Distillery in Park City on Friday night. During the altercation, Young is accused of assaulting Frost and his friend.
Bar staff told investigators that Young had earlier been denied entry to the venue after being told it was an invitation-only event. At one point, Young allegedly attempted to scale a perimeter fence in an ill-fated attempt to get into the venue.
Police documents accuse Young of having “weird conversations and comments referring to… race,” which were directed at Frost’s friend. During the conversation, Young was grabbing the pair “like he was hugging them around their necks.”
He then told the congressman, “We are going to deport you and your kind.” That was followed by an unspecified racial slur and a punch directed at Frost, police say.
In addition to allegedly punching Frost, Young is also accused of pushing the Democrat’s friend “against the bar.”
Young then tried to escape through the crowd before he was quickly apprehended by the bar’s security and another patron.
Young also told Frost’s friend, “You are the kind we are going to deport. You’re being deported,” the documents state. The suspect is described as becoming more agitated when Frost’s friend attempted to end the conversation “because it was becoming inappropriate and racially charged.”
During questioning, authorities say Young couldn’t remember his own name but did remember being served drinks at the venue, something the bar staff later confirmed. He had a Sundance Film Festival pass on his person at the time of his arrest, but it was in someone else’s name, police said. Young said he didn’t know where the pass came from.
A judge in Utah has ordered Young held without bail as he’s considered a flight risk who “would constitute a substantial danger” to the community.
Frost, who campaigned on gun control and Medicare for all and won high-profile endorsements from progressive U.S. Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, beat out a crowded cast of Democrats who ran for the seat in Florida’s 10th Congressional District, which includes the Orlando area.
He later became the first Gen Z member of Congress when he was elected in 2022. He was reelected in 2024.
Despite President Donald Trump and his acolytes’ constant claims that those on the other side of the political spectrum are the source of violence, the Anti-Defamation League found that from 2022 through 2024, all of the 61 political killings in the U.S. were committed by right-wing extremists. That changed on the first day of 2025, when a Texas man flying the flag of the Islamic State group killed 14 people by driving his truck through a crowded New Orleans street before being fatally shot by police.
Bruce Hoffman, who studies terrorism at Georgetown University, said that in modern history, the right has been responsible for more political attacks on people than the left. He said that’s because left-wing radicals are more likely to target property rather than people, and because the extreme right boasts organizations such as militias.
He added that after Trump pardoned more than 1,500 people convicted of crimes during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol to overturn his election loss, “there’s a belief in certain quarters that, if you engage in violence, the slate can be wiped clean.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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