Sarah McBride's Challenge to Democrats
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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 to her 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. And we talked about the future of the Democratic Party.

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? Wow. What she said about Schumer. Really went on 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, you know, 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 about

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. 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. 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, 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 today.

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 medical leave and expand access to childcare and make healthcare 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 hard. 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. And obviously it's been hard personally 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, but I am genuinely in awe. Like I am genuinely in awe that I have the privilege of being there. I am...

I'm 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 sort of your day-to-day experience, but I am...

I think something we struggled with, and I'm wondering if you've struggled with this, you know, we started this company, it was right after Trump wins and everything about what we were, we were talking about was how you fight back from behind that we're going to defeat Trump. We're

We're going to come back stronger. We're going to learn the lessons of it. And we're going to 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, 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 I think that this is obviously an existential moment This is this is this is there is very real risk that this country backslides into at perhaps at best an illiberal democracy and I also

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 of cultural victory of the left. Yeah.

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.

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 of 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 decision.

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 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, 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 and

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, you know, rights and the rule of law for so long. And clearly this country voted for someone who incited an insurrection.

Right. And I've been thinking about how do we fight? How do we fight smart in a macro way? And how do we 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 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 as 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 faiths.

because a mom has to love every single one of her children. And so I've been thinking about how do you grapple with 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

you know, 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 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 itself.

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,

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. 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...

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'd just be hypocrites. Right, right, right. I mean you are 100 percent 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, women.

One issue that I think where it's this is 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 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 is how would you now let's let's test this new way of talking about it. It's your idea. Yeah.

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, as with all of these actions that we're seeing against whether it's immigrants, whether it's against institutions, right, they are picking on the most unpopular, right, the most vulnerable. They're picking on people who are easy targets. And I do think in this in this instance, yes.

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, this farmer in my district, right? 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...

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 and 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 health care ripped out from under them and

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 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 about

nationally, that like in Congress, we forget that we are representing our district and we are each messengers in our own districts. Pod Save America is brought to you by Strawberry.

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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. 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 kind of protecting basic rights? How did we end up in a place where there was nothing you could say about immigration? Well... 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 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 lulled 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 with are with us on 90% of things but disagree with us on 10% of things I think people have been scared of getting cancelled online. They've been scared of of Backlash to nuance they've been scared to do politics because it doesn't it's it's not you know appropriate performative outrage online and

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, the last we'll ever see is Sarah McBride. Nice to know you. 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 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 – 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 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.

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. Yeah.

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 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. 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. Yeah.

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 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. I'm not talking politics, 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. Yeah, 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 was 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 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. And that is the only way Republicans will acknowledge my rights. Yeah. Some of it is about age. Thank you. 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 don't.

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 have 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 areas.

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 tried to universalize this approach and it gets pretty cringe. Yeah. Today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Is there something about finances you learned later in life you wish you had known about when you were younger? Yeah, don't leave all your money in the bank. Yeah, put it in your walls.

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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 that out or just consuming newspapers. There was this fight over whether AOC or Jerry Connolly would be the ranking member of AOC

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? He just seemed just from another era. And I wonder if the

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. 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 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? It

I think we would benefit from having her with a microphone, with a gavel. 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 going to 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 art of persuasion. Agreed. You know? 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. But the argument that they were putting forward was not an argument off the trans community. It was an argument 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 democracy.

grown men to ask invasive questions or even require the bodily inspection of girls as young as five. Right. And that is that was an AOC forged message. So I agree. So it's a good a good segue into you. 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, you know, 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 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.

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 change making 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 want to have any fighting chance of getting this thing back on track for trans people,

We've got to return to the basics. We've got to fill a knowledge gap that exists and still exists. And that is unfair. It feels like we've been fighting for a while. 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. Yeah.

But even that, we've skipped the step of just helping people understand what is it like to be trans, right? And even in 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 if I grew up, it would go away, 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 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, 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.

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 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 and 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 are the topic, then I will fight back. I don't – I think it clearly –

Some of my colleagues are treating 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 attention.

as much opportunity. Because I got to 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 and the community, but I'm giving them precisely what they want. And my power is not giving them that. 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 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 we're just trying to live our lives.

Why are you consistently coming after us 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 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 going to 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. Yeah. And then you said, Madam Chair. Yeah. Right. That gets obliterated because the two men start arguing as if you weren't there. Yeah. 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 job, 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. Yeah.

I don't think that's limited to Republicans in Congress. I mean, I think that, you know, the folks who are really leading from the far right wing, from the manosphere, this anti-trans attack are also the same folks are leading a larger effort to roll back progress on gender equality writ large.

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 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 pushly 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 also love that story that she has to run and get Nancy Mace. Like a bad signal goes out. Yeah. Sherlock Holmes and Watson with their magnifying glass. I'm so sad I missed this. It sounded pretty hilarious from the reporters, but it's also...

Like you laugh because you don't want to cry. I mean, it's just it is 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 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 Mason-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 we're 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. Yeah. And any kind of concession is.

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, right?

I'm not saying it always feels good. But like I said before, we clearly were 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 excommunicate you because of 10%.

The right's very good about saying, well, welcome on in. Yeah. 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% basically. 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. 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 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 is pluralism. It absolutely is. And I think we are so, it cannot be a binary choice between either you were with us on everything or you were a Nazi. Yeah. Yeah. It's, 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 they're, 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 Zs, 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. And I might be wrong, right? This theory of change might 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, right? 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. 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, right? Like 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 fell 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 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. 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 then to speak out. I think we are seeing so many people in positions of power afraid to speak out because they are afraid that they will be speaking out alone. And we can't convince every single person in positions of power to

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 going to 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 was inevitable. Yeah.

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 had absolutely no reason to believe that an emancipation proclamation was on the horizon. You think about the hopelessness of

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. Let's hope. Hey, do you want to 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. 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? Okay.

Well, it's a great, great theory. And I love that you're engaged to a trans person. You can make trans jokes now. That's one of the perks. Believe me. One of the perks. Believe me. Congratulations. Thank you. Sarah McBride. Thank you so much for having me. We're so lucky to have you in Democratic politics and politics and public service. Thank you. 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. Lior 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 at podcasts. Really gave us a what for that AI did. ChatGPT has us dead to rights. Yeah. Listen to Offline Now wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube.

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