Pod Save America - Sarah McBride's Challenge to Democrats
Episode Date: April 20, 2025Rep. Sarah McBride has found herself the target of GOP attacks since taking office in January. They've barred her from restrooms and misgendered her in Congressional hearings, but the freshman congres...swoman has risen above it all. Now she's got a message for her fellow Democrats: politics only works when you win over people who disagree with you. McBride sits down with Jon and Lovett to discuss the literal and figurative dangers of being a main character, Democrats' purity complex, and whether the party has abandoned the only strategy for social change that actually gets results.
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like simply safe. Welcome to Pod Save America.
I'm Jon Favreau.
I'm Jon Lovett.
So we just talked to Congresswoman Sarah McBride from Delaware and boy, that was a great conversation.
We're huge fans.
Yeah, we talked here for about an hour.
Really moving.
We talked about the Democratic Party,
the future of the Democratic Party,
the generational split, the obligations
and pressure she feels as the first transgender member
of Congress, some of her beliefs about where the party
should go, how they should handle certain issues.
I can't believe she said that about AOC.
And Schumer. And Schumer, wow, really said that about AOC. And Schumer.
And Schumer, wow, really?
Wow, what she said about Schumer.
Just kidding, just kidding.
She's probably listening to this now.
Anyway, it was like one of my favorite conversations.
I told her on the way out, like it made my week
because it's been a tough week in the news, politics.
And if you felt like you've been watching the news
and getting really anxious and losing sleep,
this conversation is like a bomb
because Sarah McBride is just a wonderful human being
and we're very lucky to have her in Democratic politics.
And she's very smart about what it means
to be tackling politics in such a dark moment,
so really worth listening.
Yeah, so enjoy the interview.
-♪ MUSIC PLAYING. -♪
Congresswoman Sarah McBride, thank you so much for joining. Thanks for having me.
So, you've wanted to be involved in politics since you were a kid.
You founded a young Democrats organization for high schoolers, got elected student body
president of American University, worked on campaigns after college, ran for state senate,
made history by winning this seat,
which I imagine is a job that you dreamed of as a kid,
but now Trump also wins, so do Republicans,
and now we're all in the bad place.
And I guess I wonder how you're processing all that.
Like, how have your expectations of serving in Congress
matched up with the reality of this moment
that we're all living in right now.
Well, thank you for revealing
that I was an insufferable young person.
I mean, so were we.
Yeah, please.
It's a table of insufferable young people.
I broke the first rule of politics,
which was to pretend like you just rolled out of bed one day
and found yourself in elected office.
I was really interested as a young person,
but for me, I think it was rooted
in my own journey to authenticity, I was really interested as a young person, but for me, I think it was rooted
in my own journey to authenticity,
my own struggle with how I fit into this world.
I think as a young person, I felt alone
and I worried whether the heart of this country
was big enough to love someone like me,
and I found hope in politics as a means to change that
and as a means to build
a kinder, more inclusive, fairer world.
And so I got involved.
And I think in many ways that journey into politics
prepared me for this moment.
Because I think right now people across this country
are wondering whether the heart of this nation
is big enough to love them too.
And I think similar to how I felt as a young person,
we're facing a crisis of hope.
So in many ways it's prepared me for this moment
because it's allowed me to understand
where so many people right now in this moment are, feeling like you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, feeling like you
are unsure whether our politics could ever work for you, but it has also left
me, I think fundamentally still hopeful because I have been able to bear witness
to change that once seemed so impossible to me as a kid that it was almost incomprehensible, not only become possible, become a reality.
Now this is not the moment that I would have hoped to be entering Congress in.
I hoped to be entering Congress at a time where we would be doing what I was able to
do in the Delaware State Senate, which was pass paid family and and medical leave and expand access to child care and make health care
more affordable.
And obviously, that's not the reality that I'm entering in writ large.
And then specifically, I'm entering in what is truly a perfect storm for a person like
me.
It's been disheartening to see that so much of success in Congress on the other side of the aisle is purely defined by attention,
not attention in pursuit of progress, but just attention for attention's sake. to be on the receiving end of pretty sustained
disinformation, misinformation, aggression.
But I think it's also strengthened my resolve
because I feel like these people cannot win.
And despite the ups and the downs,
and I know this sounds cliche, and I know it sounds trite, despite the ups and the downs,
and I know this sounds cliche, and I know it sounds trite,
but I am genuinely in awe.
Like I am genuinely in awe
that I have the privilege of being there.
I am so grateful to Delaware,
and every time I'm back in Delaware,
the love that people envelop me with,
in contrast to some of the experiences I have in
Congress just it fills my tank and rejuvenates my energy and it makes me fall more deeply in love
with my state and it allows me I think to defend them even more ferociously and persistently.
And you know when you are there I remember when I went on the floor for the first time,
and it is that the air is heavy with history. And I do genuinely think back to all of the challenges
that my predecessors have faced. And you cannot tell me that the reasons for hopelessness now
are greater than the reasons for hopelessness then.
We want to talk about your day-to-day experience.
But I think something we've struggled with,
and I'm wondering if you've struggled with this,
we started this company, it was right after Trump wins.
And everything about what we were talking about
was how you fight back from behind,
that we're gonna defeat Trump,
we're gonna come back stronger,
we're gonna learn the lessons of it,
and we're gonna build something better.
I think we all grew up in a more optimistic time
around politics, and even Barack Obama would talk about,
there are setbacks, take a step back,
and then there's two steps forward.
I do sometimes wonder if we were all a bit ill-prepared for a moment of genuine backsliding
that no, this isn't about just arresting this so we can keep this inward march forward,
but we are in a struggle right now that's not about progress, but about just protecting the country from a terrible slide into autocracy,
into radicalism. And I'm wondering if that's caused you to think back on some of your priors
to change how you talk about politics.
Yes and no. I think that this is obviously an existential moment.
There is very real risk that this country backslides
into perhaps at best an illiberal democracy.
And I also think we have to recognize that the way to stop that is to change public opinion.
And we have limited levers at our disposal, but we still have the lever of public opinion.
And I do think that there are lessons from our politics that remain true in how we change public opinion.
Because I think one problem that we have had
over the last several years, and look,
we are not in this moment because of us.
We are in this moment because of Donald Trump
and a sustained right-wing disinformation
and misinformation campaign.
And I also think over the last few years,
we as a party, as a progressive movement,
lost the art of social change.
We became so consumed with being pure and right.
We rightfully responded to the abuse of people's grace, but we overcorrected.
And we eliminated grace from our politics.
And I think that we have to recognize
that in order to stop this, we have to win people back over.
I think voters ask two fundamental questions.
One is, do you like me?
The second is, what do you think? What are your positions?
They don't care about that second question
if they can't answer that first question
to their satisfaction.
And I do think that we have,
I think we did delude ourselves.
I think one of the priors that I have checked is,
I think I fell into a camp that overestimated
how far we had come,
that overestimated the sort we had come, that overestimated the
sort of cultural victory of the left.
I think that prior I have changed.
The prior that I have not changed is that there is an art to politics, there is an art
to building a coalition that I think we lost.
I don't think we are in this moment
because we didn't scream and yell enough.
I don't think we are in this moment
because we didn't cancel and shame enough people.
I don't think we're in this moment
because we didn't correct enough people.
I do think that we have to try something different
than what we've been doing over the last couple of years
as a movement, and I mean that broadly.
And I think that that means returning back
to basics in some ways.
I'm a big believer in the idea that we
have to broaden the coalition, persuade more people.
I also have felt, since Trump has taken office again,
you've probably heard us yelling about this on the pod,
especially the last couple weeks, that there is this need to stand up and speak out and fight.
I don't see reaching out to people,
bringing them in as mutually exclusive from fighting.
Agreed, 100%.
But it's hard to... I found it difficult to articulate that.
And because I think that everything is so black and white these days,
and social media fuels that and everything else.
And so you tell people, we got to reach out and say, no, it's time to fight.
And then you fight and some people are like, why are you fighting? You got to reach out.
How do you think about both of those strategies?
Sure. So I think this is a moment that calls us to fight hard and fight smart.
I don't think we should retreat from issues, particularly issues of basic principle. I mean, I think what we're seeing right now with the elimination of due process as people
are sent off to a foreign gulag as a matter of basic principle, it's a red line.
And even beyond that, we shouldn't shy away from fights.
We should just fight them in a way that meets people where they are. So let's talk about what's happening on immigration and let's make it not just about the folks
who are being sent off, but let's also make it about voters.
Because if they can do this to any number of folks who are here legally or who are undocumented, if there is no process,
that means they can do it to you. They can do it to me. And none of us are safe. That
might not have been an acceptable sort of path just a couple of years ago in terms of
messaging, right? Similarly, we can say in the same breath that we don't have to choose
between securing our border and protecting due process and that we are a party that wants to secure our borders.
A couple of years ago, we couldn't say that.
I think that's a lesson learned that we can fight, but we can fight smart.
I also think, and this is something that I've been thinking a lot about, because I do think
there's a lot of conversation about how Donald Trump breaks the rules and Democrats play
by the rules. And I think that there's truth to of conversation about how Donald Trump breaks the rules and Democrats play by the rules.
And I think that there's truth to that, right? I think clearly Donald Trump
breaks rules that he's held to and we hold ourselves back.
And I also think the reality is that there are two different standards for the parties.
And I've been thinking about how do you fight back against Trump in a smart way, sort of in a writ large,
back against Trump in a smart way, sort of in a writ large,
because we are so susceptible to sort of this Trump derangement syndrome dynamic.
We've been screaming about democracy and rights
and the rule of law for so long.
And clearly this country voted for someone
who incited an insurrection.
And I've been thinking about how do we fight smart
in a macro way?
And how do we recognize that there are two different standards for the parties?
And those two different standards make a lot more sense when you recognize that they are
just the replication of sexism and misogyny.
The Democratic Party is the woman of politics and the Republican Party is the man of politics.
It's why Donald Trump can scream and yell and people see him as strong and why when we scream and yell, we're
seen hysterical and shrill. It's why Donald Trump can hate and insult more than half of
this country because we tolerate deadbeat dads, but Democrats can't say anything about
any voters that impugns their motives and their good faith
because a mom has to love every single one of her children. And so I've been
thinking about how do you grapple with those, that reality, that is a real double
standard. We can't pretend that it doesn't exist. Marginalization doesn't
stop in politics. We recognize it exists in our individual lives, systemically, it exists in our politics.
And so we have to grapple with the world
as it is to change it.
And I've been thinking about how does a woman
successfully push back,
navigate a workplace, a world,
where so often her passion is held against her.
And the socially acceptable path
for a woman to fight back, unfortunately,
is when she is defending her flock,
when she is defending her family.
And I think we as a party would do well in replicating the strategies that women
so have to, have to employ to successfully navigate this world.
And instead of fighting back in a way that makes Trump the main character, fight
back in a way that makes consistently our constituents, individual people,
human beings, the main character, Trump can be a supporting character.
But we do fall in this trap of making him the main character. And I think if we
always, always, always keep it local, keep it centered on our constituents, on people that we're
defending, not only does it allow us to fight back and have that passion in a way that is heard the
way we want it to be heard, but I also think it helps to reinforce for a voter
the answer to the question that I said at the start, which is,
do you care about me?
Do you like me?
Yeah.
Because I think people think we don't like them.
Well, it's interesting because as you were talking about,
like, there's double standards for the parties.
There's also two different goals.
Sure.
And, you know, when people complain that Republicans are breaking the rules, Democrats are playing
by the rules, we're also trying to build a rules-based society.
Sure. Absolutely.
And when you were talking about, like, women defending their flock, we're also trying to
build a country that is a multi-ethnic, multi-racial democracy where everyone has equal rights
and is protected under the law.
And so we're all about addition,
not just because we need to build a majority,
but because our belief is that everyone has worth
and that everyone can make it here
and that we don't need to pit people against each other.
So I do, when people are like complaining about that,
I'm like, yeah, well, we can't,
then we just be hypocrites.
Right, right, right.
I mean, you are 100% right that we want a rules,
the rule of law.
We want basic common decency
and we want a government that provides equality
under the law for every person.
And even if that weren't true,
we would have to grapple with the double standard.
Yeah, well, yeah, we're playing games against cheaters.
We are trying to prove to people
that it's a game worth playing, right?
We can't cheat too.
Let's break it, give us an example of this.
I'm interested in this,
Democrats are being treated like women
and Republicans are being treated like men.
One issue that I think where you see a classic, like a lot of kind of, no, no, we shouldn't
focus on that.
We need to focus on the economy.
We need to focus on tariffs.
We shouldn't focus on, say, the president attacking private universities and trying
to become basically dean of Harvard and dean of Princeton.
How would you now, let's test this new way of talking about it.
Your idea.
You're here.
You're trying to make people understand how dangerous it is that Donald Trump is coming
after basic academic freedom, but you're worried it's not going to resonate with people.
How do you talk about it?
Look, I think, one, with all of these actions that we're seeing against, whether it's immigrants,
whether it's against institutions, they are picking on the most unpopular, the most vulnerable.
They're picking on people who are easy targets.
And I do think in this instance, look, I'm talking from a macro level, right?
Like I think we should be, when we're talking about
the attacks of the administration, let's talk about
that they're stealing from farmers,
let's not make it Donald Trump.
But when we're going in on those issues,
when we have to go in on and respond to
what is a blatant attempt to silence and intimidate people,
I do think you have to go back
to what we were talking about before, which is that this isn't...if they can do it here,
they can do it to you. If they can do it here, they can do it anywhere. If they can do it
to this institution, they can do it to my constituents. I don't think it's a fundamental
change in the fights we pick. I don't think it's a fundamental change in the arguments
we're making. I do think it is a fundamental change in the main character in the story that we're telling.
And the main character in the story that we tell so often as Democrats is Donald Trump.
And I think we can do a better job by making the main character our constituents.
That doesn't mean that every single talking point and every single issue suddenly becomes,
well, they're attacking
Harvard.
Well, there's Farmer in my district, right?
No, I know.
That's the best.
But it is the story on a macro level that you're telling, right?
And so, yes, I respond to, you know, I've spoken out on a whole host of these issues
that some of my colleagues, I presume, think we shouldn't be speaking out on.
And we're still keeping the main thing the main thing. We can do both things.
And we can tell fundamentally a story that one in two kids in this country are potentially about to have their health care,
either undermined or eliminated, right? That one in five Americans are seeing their healthcare
ripped out from under them,
that Head Start is being defunded,
and that there are families in my state
that are about to lose access
to quality early childhood education, right?
When we talk about it, we should just keep bringing it back
to the people we represent, to the flock that we represent, to the families that we're protecting, and I don't think we always about it, we should just keep bringing it back to the people we represent, to the flock that we represent,
to the families that we're protecting.
And I don't think we always do that.
And I feel like that's a cliche thing to say,
but we've lost that.
I do think we've lost that because I think we have,
we are talking so often nationally that like in Congress,
we forget that we are representing our district
and we are each messengers in our own districts.
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You said something interesting a minute ago
that I think ties into this, which is a few years ago,
Democrats might not have wanted to talk about
protecting due process, right?
But at the same time, you said a few years ago, Democrats might not want to to talk about protecting due process. Right. Right.
But at the same time, you said a few years ago, Democrats might not want to talk about
border security.
What do you think led to the point where Democrats were unable to talk about both the basic values
of rule of law and the basic values of generosity and protecting basic rights.
How did we end up in a place where there was nothing you could say about immigration?
What do you really...
I feel like you have thoughts on this.
I think, first off, I think one of the problems in politics is that people will often, people
think that there are these binary choices between being true to ourselves and saying
everything we believe in exactly the way that feels viscerally comforting to us, or be completely
poll tested and only talk about the issues in the way that the polls tell us to talk
about them or not talk about them at all because the polls aren't good. And I think that that is a false choice in our politics. I think a lot of times you
see politicians who will say, if I can identify a risk to something, that means I shouldn't
do it. Right? Right? We are, we are as human beings very bad at evaluating risk and reward. And so I think on the one hand,
you've had a dynamic where I think we have been,
we were lured into a false sense of security
of the sort of cultural momentum of where we were.
And I think it created an absolutism that has increasingly shrunk our ranks
because it has excluded people who are with us
on 90% of things, but disagree with us on 10% of things.
I think people have been scared of getting canceled online.
They've been scared of getting canceled online. They've been scared of backlash to nuance.
They've been scared to do politics because it doesn't, it's not, you know, appropriate
performative outrage online.
So I think they've been scared into not employing an approach that meets voters where they are.
But then on the flip side, after the last election in particular, there was such a backlash
to that that people went, the lesson learned here is that we can never talk about these
things that we have to completely reject it.
It's all price of eggs.
Right? And it's all price. And there is, for lack of a better term, a third way here.
Oh no.
There is-
Oh, glass will ever see the ceramic glass. Nice to know ya.
There is a way to, again, fight hard and fight smart. There's a way of, I always think about a political leader
should be in front of public opinion. Like we are not, we are not completely without agency
in shifting and shaping public opinion.
But we do have to be within proximity of public opinion.
We have to be within arm's reach.
Because if we get too far out ahead,
we lose our grip on the public
and we are no longer able to pull them along with us.
And I think you've got some people who want to be so far out ahead because it plays well
on social media, because they feel viscerally good about themselves, that they lose their
grip and they can't pull them along.
And then you've got other people who are so scared to be even an inch in front of public
opinion that they hide within public opinion and hope that no one notices.
Do you think this is a generational thing?
And by that, I mean, not old and young,
but like our generation?
Like, I feel like we were all came of,
and you're younger than us, of course,
but we all came of age in the Obama presidency.
Yeah.
And I think a lot of what you're saying,
what we're saying, I think we learned from watching him
and growing up in that time.
And I think, I always think that we're in an interesting
spot where like people younger than us,
younger Gen Zers, might not understand
or are frustrated with the idea of not being too far out
ahead of public opinion.
And then people older than us are like,
no, no, no, you can't lead on any of this stuff.
I think that is probably, that's probably right,
that we are a byproduct of witnessing firsthand.
Look, Barack Obama is still popular, even in our politics.
Barack Obama is still popular for a reason.
His approach to politics is still popular, even in our politics. Barack Obama is still popular for a reason. His approach to politics is still popular. And, you know, one of the things that frustrates
me as I navigate some of these issues and try to provide a glimpse into my approach
to changemaking, because I fundamentally agree with the goals of the progressive movement.
And I think that you have to be strategic in how you pursue those goals.
And I think, you know, we've got a lot of folks who don't realize that Barack Obama
opposed marriage equality for most of his political career.
I mean, he kind of like, he supported it, then he changed his position and then he supported it again.
But where would we have been as a party or for that matter, where would the gay rights
movement have had been if they excommunicated John Kerry for not being in support of marriage
equality?
If they excluded both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in 2007 and 2008 for not being
in favor of marriage equality?
Where would we have been and now though the mentality is if if we were replicating that now
They would be if evil bigots who have no place in our coalition and even making coalition with them
let alone supporting them would be
cavorting with the enemy yeah, and I
Remember the marriage movement. I remember that time in our
politics very well. That is a formative moment in my life. And we recognize that politics
requires people to do politics, that it requires people to be smart and thoughtful about how they
reach people and that accessibility, being accessible to voters
in how you talk and how you communicate
is a fundamentally progressive value.
Yeah, I remember, I think back on that
because that was very formative for me too.
And I remember I worked for Hillary Clinton
when she was navigating marriage equality.
And I remember when she went and spoke
at the human rights campaign
and she said, I am for civil unions. And it was when she went and spoke at the human rights campaign and she said,
I am for civil unions.
And it was a huge applause moment.
Yeah.
Right, in part because it was defining as Republicans
that were trying to put a constitutional amendment
banning gay marriage into the US constitution.
And then I remember about a year or so later,
or maybe two years later, she said the same thing.
And it was more like,
and it's interesting because that is not an example of political
leaders pulling people along, right?
I do think public opinion moved ahead of where Barack Obama was, where Hillary Clinton was,
where public figures were.
And I wonder if there's a lesson there too.
I think there's a lesson there too, but I also think that by providing people
with some space to have that conversation,
by not one, making it so clearly partisan, right?
You're a Democrat if you support marriage equality,
you're a Republican if you don't support marriage equality,
but by creating a little bit more space in our tent
in that conversation, it allowed us to be in coalition
and conversation with people who weren't yet there as an elect.
Like I'm not talking politicians, I mean an electorate.
We were able to have a conversation with an electorate
that had some space and grace for people to grow.
One.
Two, I also think that yes, public opinion
was a little bit ahead of them.
But one of the reasons why there was a change,
and that applause is obviously, that's the choir, right?
So there's a different level of enthusiasm over time.
But within the public, Barack Obama evolving on marriage
was helpful in changing public opinion.
And beyond President Obama, everyday people
who evolved on marriage were helpful.
We know the best messengers on the marriage movement
were those who previously opposed marriage equality
and changed their mind because it gave permission
to people that it was okay to have been wrong.
It's okay to be wrong.
We don't think you're a terrible person.
We understand that you're grappling with this.
And here's why we've changed.
And it created a path for people.
And that's the art of social change
that I feel like we've lost over the last couple of years.
There's been a lot of talk about sort of the generational
split in the Democratic Party.
You're 34, which in Congress makes you a child.
Basically a fetus.
Right, yeah.
And that is the only way Republicans
will acknowledge my rights.
Yeah.
Some of it is about age.
Nice, thank you.
Right, there you go.
Some of it's about age, some of it's about style and strategy.
Do you feel that split among your colleagues?
Do you think it matters?
I do think that there is a range in skill with certain media and a range of style and
approach.
But I also don't think it's exclusively that.
And I also think that we benefit from a range of messengers, right?
There are a lot of people on social media,
and we should be there.
And there are folks who do watch the nightly news
and do read the newspaper.
And yes, they are overwhelmingly favoring us,
partly because they're watching traditional media
and they're getting our message,
and that's where we've exclusively been,
and partly because they're predisposed to be Democrats, college-educated, all of those things.
But I mean, I think we benefit from a range of messengers and a range of tactics and a
range of strategies.
I don't want every single member of Congress to be employing the same strategy, right? Whether that's the strategy of someone
who is just talking on MSNBC,
or just talking to the New York Times,
or the strategy of someone who's just out there
killing it on TikTok, right?
And so there is a range.
I think that's a good thing.
And I think that some of us can get better
at certain parts of that,
and we can be more intentional about how we navigate all of the different diversified media, but, and the ways we do it. But I don't want everyone to do the exact same strategy. And I think, again, we sort of shoot ourselves in the foot by demanding that everyone be AOC and Bernie, I am so glad they're doing what they're doing,
but I also want someone who's like going
into the senior center and just having like a conversation
in, you know, about social security with their-
They don't need to do a TikTok dance while they're there.
Yes, right?
And that's actually the problem is that we've like,
we've tried to universalize this approach
and it gets pretty cringe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
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So you mentioned AOC,
part of I think we face this challenge here,
I'm sure you face it,
that more and more it's not about,
yes, what the message is is important, but
it's becoming more difficult to get that message to the people that need to hear it.
We have the people that are watching Mad Ow or just consuming newspapers.
There was this fight over whether AOC or Jerry Connolly would lead, be the ranking member
of oversight, there was a moment where Connolly went back and forth with Nancy Mace over trans issues.
And in that moment, I thought, wow, do I wish AOC
was the person in this colloquy rather than Jerry Connolly?
Just seemed just from another era.
And I wonder if your colleagues view that vote as a mistake, if we would be better off
if AOC were in that position over someone like Jerry Connolly.
Sorry to put you on the spot.
I can see you have a face you make when you're on the spot.
That's helpful to know.
Yeah, I'm a bad poker player.
Here's what I'll say.
I think AOC is one of the most talented political leaders, messengers,
communicators we have in the party. And I would love to see more opportunities for her
to lead not just, you know, by creating her own structures to lead, which she's doing
a great job of alongside Bernie
with the tour, I would love to see opportunities
for her to have an institutional microphone
in the house, in the caucus.
I mean, AOC overperforms.
She does very well, right?
I think we would benefit from having her her with a microphone with a gavel.
Whether, you know, I'm not going to make a comment on where my other colleagues are on
a particular committee conversation.
I think you can gather that I want to see her have more opportunity in the party.
And I think that that conversation is a good example of if you can identify risk, you say,
well, then we can't do it.
Yeah.
Well, I was gonna say like that goes to your point
about nuance too, right?
Which is AOC is very progressive,
but I also think she is very focused and very talented
at the outer persuasion.
Agreed. Agreed.
And I actually think trans issues have been a great example of that.
When the bathroom thing came up,
she led on a message around the impact it would have on all women.
Yeah.
And now I got to tell you, if it wasn't AOC making that argument, they might have gotten
a lot of critique from the trans community, that the argument that they were putting forward
was not an argument off the trans community, it was an idea about cisgender women.
But she was absolutely right.
And then in the weeks and months afterward, when there was an anti-trans bill before the House, what messaging did the caucus
use? Two or three messages in particular was a message around local control. There was
a message that sort of was about the efforts to distract and divide. And then there was
a message about this would empower grown men to ask invasive questions
or even require the bodily inspection
of girls as young as five, right?
And that was an AOC forged message, so I agree.
So it's been a good segue into,
you made this point when you were talking to the Atlantic
about the ways in which we took certain things for granted,
and that maybe that some of the glow off of a lot of work
on the LGB was hopefully carrying over quickly
to the protection of the T.
And that maybe we didn't do enough work
on helping people understand the T part of the LGBT,
and that made the support a little bit more shallow
than we realized.
Can you talk a bit about that?
Sure, so I remember back in 2015, 2016,
when it felt like we were on this unending,
cresting wave of progress for the entirety
of the LGBTQ community as we saw,
the bathroom bill blow up in Pat McCrory's face
in North Carolina, the governor who had signed it into law.
As general public support and cultural acceptance
of trans people seemed to be growing and growing
and growing pretty rapidly, people would say,
why do you think this is happening so quickly?
And I think I rightfully observed, I was like,
well, I think, one, there was, to your comment,
there was a transfer of support from the LGB to the T,
because it's all one acronym. But I think, two, there was a transfer of support from the LGB to the T because it's all one
acronym. But I think, too, there was another lesson that people had in that moment, which
was they were like, I remember not understanding gay people. And because of that, I remember
being wrong on marriage. And I don't want to be wrong again, just because I don't understand
trans people. So I'll get on board with trans rights, even though I don't understand trans people. So I'll get on board with trans rights even though I
don't understand trans people. And what that meant was that that support was
sort of a mile wide but an inch deep. It was a house built on sand. And I think
because of that we were lulled into a false sense of security, which I've said
multiple times here, and I think didn't sort of do the necessary work, as unfair as it might
be because changemaking is not always fair.
We didn't do the necessary work that the gay rights movement had done over a period of
20 years of deepening understanding of gay people so that the support for marriage was
built on genuine understanding, we didn't do that work
because we thought we were past it.
And I think one of the lessons for me now
is that if we wanna have any fighting chance
of getting this thing back on track for trans people,
we've gotta return to the basics.
We've gotta fill a knowledge gap that exists and still exists.
And that is unfair.
It feels like we've been fighting for a while.
But again, you can't overcome marginalization
if you aren't going to grapple with the fact
that marginalization is inherently unfair
and ending it is unfair.
Yeah, it really resonated with me
because it helped explain something
that I feel has been missing
because the public debate ends up being around these issues
like bathroom bills, sports,
and even gender affirming care.
This is really important.
I'm not saying it's only focused on these other issues,
but even that, we've skipped the step
of just helping people understand.
What is it like to be trans?
And even on a forum like this, we talk about how we never had that conversation.
And I'm just wondering what your experience has been
just talking to people in Delaware
when they ask you about this.
Like how much do you find it helpful
to just talk about the experience
of what it was like to realize you were trans?
Like I haven't heard you talk about that very much.
So, I mean, I wrote a book about it.
I had spent a decade doing that.
And I think in many ways, one of the reasons why Delaware has, I think, interacted with
me and trans rights in a way that has felt a little bit different than politics elsewhere is because I feel like Delaware had a 10 to 15 year
conversation about what it was like,
what it means to be trans.
And I think one of the challenges
that we have in conversations around trans identities that's
different than conversations around gay rights
is that most people who are straight can understand
what it feels like to love and to lust.
And so they're able to enter into conversations
around sexual orientation with an analogous experience.
And people who aren't trans don't know
what it feels like to be trans.
And for me, the closest thing that I can compare it to
was a constant feeling of homesickness,
just this unwavering ache in the pit of my stomach
that would only go away when I could be seen and affirmed and live as myself.
And while I thought for so long that as I, if I grew up it would go away, it only grew with time.
I thought if, if, if I,
it only grew with time. I thought if I, you know, my interest in politics
was rooted in that crisis of hope,
and to some degree, my path toward politics
was rooted in this notion that like,
if I can just, if I can live a fulfilling life professionally,
if I can make my life in the closet
so worth living for other people, then it will make it worthwhile to life in the closet so worth living for other people,
then it will make it worthwhile to stay in the closet.
And at a certain point, I had to go through different stages of grief.
Yeah.
And it was only when I accepted the loss of any kind of future,
I was able to then accept myself.
But I think,
like I don't think my constituents benefit
from me going out there and like regurgitating the stuff
that I've done for the last 10 years,
but what I do think is beneficial to both my constituents
and the trans community is for me to be seen
as a full human being.
People might not be able to understand it.
I might not be spending my time talking
about that homesickness,
but if people can see trans people beyond the caricature
of unfair caricature of a self-obsessed,
inherently political being,
I think that benefits the community.
And I think it helps to at least implicitly
fill that knowledge gap.
How do you and you must have thought about this quite a bit before you took office, but like how do you handle that burden?
Right, which is you are the first and
it's you're the first at a time where your identity is a very
intense political issue you You, like you said, believe that one really
effective way to bring more people on board is to show that here's a trans person just
living their life and doing their job. But at the same time, like you can't completely
ignore it and you don't want to. How do you think about balancing that on a day to day basis?
When to engage, when not to engage, when to tell stories, when not to?
When I announced in June of 2023, I knew that trans issues were going to be at the center
of politics, but I did not anticipate that we would see
a $200, $300 million sustained campaign, that you'd have a Republican trifecta, that they
feel like they built on the backs of attacking trans people. Like I said at the start, I
sort of entered at a perfect storm, within a perfect storm on these issues.
And I'll start by saying I'm not always going to get it right.
There are going to be times where I don't respond that I should respond in times when
I respond when I shouldn't respond.
The way I have thought about it is that broadly speaking, if I am the topic, then it is my job to make the people who are trying to make me the topic seem small.
If my constituents who are trans me the way they are treating
me for a couple of reasons.
One, it's because they want attention, right?
They want to employ the strategies of a Bravo TV show to get attention in a body of 435
people and the way to do that is to pick a fight with someone and throw wine in their face.
They want to clout chase off of me,
and I'm just like, part of my power
is not giving them as much opportunity,
because I gotta tell you, the media coverage
when I respond versus when I don't respond
is night and day.
So like, I'm giving them what they want
when I respond in a way that might feel
viscerally comforting to me in the community, but I'm giving them what they want when I respond in a way that might feel viscerally comforting to me in the community
But I'm giving them precisely what they want and my power is not giving them that
That is that is that is how I take care of myself. It is how I think I
slowly
remove some of the incentives for coming after me and
Again, I think it it allows me to reinforce that they're the ones that are
obsessed with trans people.
We're just trying to live our lives.
And I do think that we have to reorient the narrative around trans people to sort
of a libertarian perspective of like, we're just trying to live our lives.
Why are you, why are you consistently coming after us when we're just trying to
live our lives, when we're just trying to live our lives,
when we're doctors and teachers
and law enforcement and soldiers,
and we're just trying to live the best life we can
to live our lives in a way that's authentic to ourselves
and be contributing productive members of society,
and you keep coming after us.
And I think that I can kind of model that in that way
while not giving up the fact that
my trans constituents need a defender. Now, I also can't be the only defender of trans people. And my
colleagues have been amazing, right? Like, my colleagues, both privately and publicly, have been
amazing. And I think some people need to recognize that when I, just to be frank, when I talk
for an hour, I mean in this interview I'm obviously like we're talking, I'm saying
the word trans a lot more, but like if I was out there giving a speech for an hour and
I spend 59 minutes talking about the economy and spend one minute talking about trans people,
people will go, there she goes again only talking about trans issues. And that's, there she goes again, only talking about trans issues.
And that's just, that is the reality, right?
That is the double standard,
and that is the unique double standard
that I face as a trans person.
And so part of my challenge is figuring out
how to stay true, how to speak out for trans people
on trans rights in ways that are true to my values and true to
my principles and also don't give the right wing this capacity to consistently
reframe me as someone who is focused on one set of issues at the expense of all
issues. And again, I'm not always gonna get it right. I have to give myself some grace on this. I would hope some folks would give
me that grace too, because I have tried to look for examples of people who have had similar
experiences in Congress. And I have yet to find an example of someone coming into Congress as a first
when the identity that makes them a first
is at the center of political discourse
and the district that they represent
isn't significantly or predominantly
made up of that identity.
Right, we still haven't figured out
how to make a district of trans people.
And once we do, then we'll be, boy, things will be great.
Well, you know, you ask this rhetorically
because I think, and I think it's right to ask,
why are they so focused on it?
But I think it's worth thinking about
why they're so focused on it.
And you made this point that, you know,
people can understand love, right?
But they have trouble understanding
what it's like to be trans.
I do think one of the reasons they're so focused on it
is because transness does call into question
some assumptions about gender roles
that make them very uncomfortable.
And you talked about how AOC would have,
if it was someone else, they might've been criticized
for making it about cisgender women.
But I think that calls out the issue here, right?
Because there is a connection between their discomfort
with trans people and their desire to protect
kind of traditional gender norms.
I noticed when, you know, and you've said
you regretted saying this,
but when you were misgendered in that committee hearing,
and then you said, Madam Chair, right?
That gets obliterated because the two men start arguing as if you weren't there.
And I've just never seen you treated more like a woman in your whole life.
And I just wonder if you could just, if you've thought about that.
God bless trans icon Bill Keating.
Right, for sure. For sure did a good, yeah, for sure.
But I wonder if you feel that, I wonder if you feel that from your Republican colleagues,
this connection between their discomfort
with trans identity and their discomfort
with any challenge to gender norms generally.
I don't think that's limited to Republicans in Congress.
I mean, I think that the folks who are really
leading from the far right wing, from the Manosphere,
this anti-trans attack, are also the same folks who
are leading a larger effort to roll back progress on gender
equality writ large 50 to, you know, 50
to 60 years in the past. I mean, there is no question that these are all linked. Transphobia,
anti-trans sentiment is inherently rooted in misogyny and sexism because it's rooted in
the notion that one perception at birth, the sex you are assigned,
should dictate who you are, how you act, what you do.
And it is all about control.
We are already seeing the very predictable consequences
of this particularly inflamed moment in trans rights.
We saw it in an example just a couple of days ago where a cisgender woman was fired from
her job because a customer thought she was trans.
She used the bathroom, the customer complained, and the employer, instead of responding the
way they should have responded, they fired the cisgender woman because the customer was
uncomfortable.
We saw it in the Capitol a couple of months ago when Lauren Boebert accosted a member of the Democratic caucus in the women's restroom telling her that she didn't belong there.
She went and got Nancy Mace. They ran into the restroom and then apparently a couple seconds later, she pushily walked out
because they thought this woman was me.
I mean, like, there is one trans person in Congress.
They cannot even police the one bathroom off the floor
with the one trans person in Congress correctly.
I was worried about that story that, like,
she has to run and get Nancy Mace,
like a bad signal goes out.
Yeah, yeah. Like Sherlock Holmes in Watson with their magnifying glass.
I'm so sad I missed this.
It sounded pretty hilarious from the reporters,
but it's also, you laugh because you don't want to cry.
I mean, it's just, it is entirely predictable.
And this is a deeply unserious effort
that has serious consequences for trans people,
but for people who aren't trans as well.
You know, you're not woman enough.
You don't look woman enough.
You don't act woman enough.
And you're told that you don't belong,
whether it's in the women's room,
whether it's in a job or whether it's in public life. Apparently if you
have shoulder-length hair and glasses you're told you don't belong in the
women's restroom under their regime. I mean it's it's it's it has consequences
for people and it is all connected because it is about control of bodies, it
is about control of gender, and it is about
rolling back the clock 70 years so some folks can
feel better about their place in our society
and maybe feel less competition.
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When Mike Johnson announced the Nancy Mace inspired bathroom policy. You responded, I thought, with such grace and poise
and it's everything you've been talking about today.
I was taken aback by sort of the number of trans activists
who criticized you because they wanted you to do more to protest the policy.
You have probably heard all these criticisms before,
you know, if you want to create a big tent,
you know, make, I think you call them imperfect allies,
right, because trying to build a coalition,
you know, the response is sometimes,
well, the other side doesn't believe
that trans people have a right to exist.
And any kind of concession or any kind of embrace
of anyone who believes that is just fueling that.
Yeah.
And how...
First off, I'm not talking about electing anti-trans people
to public office, right?
Like I'm not talking about nominating someone
who's throwing trans
people under the bus. I'm talking about a tent of voters who are still on a
journey. And again, I'm not saying any of this is fair. I'm not saying it always feels good, but like I said before, we're clearly, we're not in
this spot because we weren't correcting people and shaming people and excommunicating people
enough.
I think what happens, what human nature is, so if you're 90% with someone, but we actually communicate you
because of 10%, the right's very good about saying,
well, welcome on in, right?
Welcome on in, you're being oppressed by the left,
you're being silenced by the left,
you're being punished by the left
because of your quote, common sense,
welcome into our club.
We'll look past the 90%.
And then you go into that club.
And then human nature is you start to then adopt
those policies and those beliefs too.
And instead of being against us on 10% and with us on 90%,
then you flip to being against us on 90%,
maybe with us on 10%.
That is human nature.
And, you know, we can continue to shed allies
all the way until we have an exclusive morally pure club at the gulag we've been sent to.
And it won't even need to be that big.
Right. It'll have a cap on 29% physically.
I mean, how are we going to defend anyone, including trans people,
if we don't include a portion of the people
in the 70% who oppose trans participation
in sports consistent with our gender identities.
Like the math just doesn't add up.
And I'm not saying we should nominate those people.
I'm not saying we should change our votes on, you know, blanket bans that are both invasive
and treat trans experience like it's one size fits all and every trans person is exactly
the same.
But when we're talking about an electorate, we have to be willing to have
people in our coalition who are not all the way there, not only to win, but if we want
to be in conversation with people to ultimately get them to our side on all of the issues.
Democracy only works if you're willing to have conversations across disagreement and
if you are willing to join forces with people who might agree with you on most things,
but maybe disagree with you on some things.
And again, that's back to that's one of our goals as a party.
And that's one of our political beliefs.
It's pluralism.
It absolutely is.
And I think we are so it cannot be a binary choice between either you are with us on everything
or you are a Nazi.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's a part of it too.
It's I think maybe what has maybe inoculated millennials
is that we've seen that kind of politics work.
And it's hard, right?
Cause I think there's a lot of young people
who feel like they haven't seen that kind of politics
work in a while.
And then there, and so it's like,
this is why I think millennials are the greatest generation.
We are, we are.
It's the theme of this podcast.
I'll say it before I've said it again, Gen X,
there was lead in the gasoline, that fucked them up.
The baby boomers didn't build a road in 50 fucking years.
Gen Z's, they're flirting with the alt, right?
Millennials.
We have been the most consistently oppositional
to Trump in polling.
And look, let me just say this.
I get why people would be skeptical
of this theory of change.
I understand.
It hasn't delivered enough change
and it certainly hasn't delivered enough change fast enough.
I get it.
But we've been trying something different
for a couple of years now and it hasn't worked.
Yeah, yeah.
And I might be wrong, right?
This theory of change might not work,
but I do believe that if you look through our history,
not work. But I do believe that if you look through our history, you do see that it is the theory of change that most consistently works. I mean, the civil rights movement,
and I'm not talking about trans rights, right? I'm talking about sort of this broader moment
in our politics. The civil rights movement was incredibly strategic.
Mm. Disciplined. Incredibly disciplined.
They picked their fights.
They picked their battles.
They didn't take every battle.
For instance, you didn't see, despite the fact
that bathrooms were segregated, you
didn't see the civil rights movement choose
to fight the fight in bathrooms.
There's a reason for that.
People are really uncomfortable in bathrooms. There's a reason for that. People are really uncomfortable in bathrooms. Right?
They chose the ground that they were most likely to be able to win over public opinion
quickly on or even have public opinion already on its side on. I think we have forgotten
so many of the lessons of history. I mean, civil rights movement, incredibly
pragmatic. Which civil rights act brought all equality all at once? Was it the Civil
Rights Act of 1957, the Civil Rights Act of 1959, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Civil
Rights Act of 1965, which was the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which Civil Rights Act brought everything
They piece by piece moved toward
Legal equality, but they didn't get it all in one foul swoop and that is sad and tragic and unfair and time is the one resource We don't have
We can't afford to waste
But it is the theory of change in our system that has most consistently worked, and I think
it's worth a try again.
Last question.
A lot of people are scared to speak out, challenge the government right now, including elected
officials.
Lisa Murkowski, senior Republican, was just saying that she, that we're all afraid.
You've had to summon quite a bit of courage in your life
and your career in the realm of politics as well.
Do you have advice for people in this moment
who might be horrified by what they're seeing,
but a little scared?
I mean, I think there's fear both around repercussions and just fear that it doesn't matter.
And one, I think that there is strength in numbers. My dad likes to say, this is a classic Joe Bidenism, quoting my dad, but he does genuinely say this.
I'm not just making up a quote from my dad
and saying it's my father.
Your dad said, hey, there are two guys kissing in 1852.
Wilmington, Delaware, classic San Francisco Mecca
of the 1950s.
Placid.
Um, my dad likes to say that if everyone
has just a little bit of courage,
then no one has to be a hero.
And it might feel scary and be scary, but the more everyday voters, everyday citizens
that we have speaking out, the more elected officials, the more cultural leaders, the more business leaders will have a little bit more courage than to speak out.
I think we are seeing so many people in positions of power or authority or influence to summon that courage to be a hero.
But I think if everyone just demonstrates enough courage.
And look, we can catastrophize.
But if folks are speaking out, if folks are marching and protesting right now for the most part,
you're safe. You can do it. And if you do it and your neighbor does it and your neighbor's neighbor does it,
it's gonna give a backbone and a sense of momentum to other people who just need that extra little push,
who maybe are putting even more on the line to speak out and to fight back. But I
think I want to go back to what I said at the start because I think this moment feels so different than the Obama moment when
it felt like if we simply worked for it, change, yeah. Change was inevitable, right?
Yes, it doesn't come without effort,
but if we put that effort in, it'll happen,
and it doesn't feel that way.
And I think we are victims of sort of the hindsight
of history in this moment because we remember that moment.
A lot of people over the age of 20 something remember that moment. Remember really
the post 1960s world where it did feel like we were on that cresting wave of cultural
momentum. And we've never experienced a moment like this where we can't see the light at
the end of the tunnel, where we don't know if we vote and volunteer and speak out that change will come. But you think about all of the
reasons for hopelessness for an enslaved person in the 1850s who would absolutely no reason to
believe that an emancipation proclamation was on the horizon. You think about the hopelessness
of an unemployed worker during the early days of the Great Depression who had never heard of a New Deal. You think about the hopelessness of gay folks and trans folks in the 1950s who never knew of an America
where they could live openly and authentically as themselves without violating the law.
They had every reason to give up. They could not see the light at the end of the tunnel.
And I have to believe that if previous generations
could do it, then so too can we.
Let's hope.
Let's hope.
Hey, do you wanna hear my solution
to the whole bathroom thing?
Sure.
Because my partner has gone from using women's rooms
to men's rooms and they find them disgusting.
And it's like, well, you wanted this.
Uh, it's like you went through a lot of work
to come use this bathroom.
So I'm sorry, it's not up to your standards.
I just think we need two kinds of bathrooms, all right?
Clean and disgusting.
And then everybody gets to decide
what kind of person they are that day.
Because I'm telling you, there's a lot of gay guys
that have no business being in a normal men's room.
All right?
All right.
Okay.
It's a great, great theory.
And I love that you're engaged to a trans person so you can make trans jokes now.
That's one, yeah.
Yeah, that's one of the perks.
Believe me.
One of the perks.
He's pretty excited about that part.
Believe me.
Congratulations.
Oh, thank you.
Thank you.
Sarah McBride.
Thank you so much.
Thanks for having me.
We're so lucky to have you in Democratic politics and politics and public service.
Thank you.
Really.
Thank you.
I'm lucky to be there. Thanks for having me. Quick note before we go, be sure to check out this week's Offline with me and Max.
Max back from vacation.
We dug into Mark Zuckerberg taking the stand on the antitrust suit against Meta. I talked to Dr. Liora Zmigrod about her book,
The Ideological Brain, which explores the neuroscience
behind why some people are more susceptible
to conspiracy theories and extremist ideologies.
And special AI correspondent, John Lovett joined us.
Oh yeah, I was there.
And told us what ChatGPT thinks about all of us.
ChatGPT really gave us the business.
And how well we do it in podcasts. Really gave us a what for that AI it did. ChatGPT has about all of us. ChatGPT really gave us the business. And how well we do in podcasts. Really gave us a what for that AI it did.
ChatGPT has us dead to rights.
Yeah.
Yeah.
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