Rep. Sarah McBride Won’t Be Baited by GOP ‘Provocateurs’

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

Government, Politics, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2025

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Freshman Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.) is the first out transgender member of Congress. Within days of her election this past November, she faced attacks from Republican colleagues who tried to draw her into a public conflict. Nevertheless, McBride has continued to find ways to forge ties across the aisle. In this week’s episode of The Conversation, Rep. McBride tells POLITICO’s Dasha Burns why she has prioritized bipartisanship: “Every person in this country goes to work in a workplace where there are people who think differently, live differently, look differently than they do. They figure out how to make it work. They treat one another with respect. This is the one place where we seem to not be able to muster the same maturity and mutual respect that Americans across this country muster every single day when they go into the workplace.” McBride says she hopes to bring “a sense of kindness and grace” to Congress despite the “reality TV show nature” of today’s politics. The two also discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, how the Democratic Party can rebuild its coalition without “reinforcing right-wing framing” over culture war issues and why her pursuit of bipartisan legislation is in part a direct response to President Trump. “If we can't figure out how to solve problems across our political divide,” she tells Burns, “then I believe Trumpism only grows and worsens in this country.” Plus, White House reporter Myah Ward on Trump’s trip to Scotland and what it revealed about the working relationship between the president and European leaders. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We have to get back into the business of public persuasion.
0:04.1	And that means being willing and able to meet people where they are.
0:07.8	It doesn't mean always fighting fights in ways that feel viscerally comforting to ourselves as scared as we may be.
0:15.8	Hello, hello, and welcome to the conversation.
0:18.6	Every week on this show, I invite one of the most compelling
0:21.8	and sometimes unexpected power players in for a chat to find out how they're navigating
0:27.8	and shaping this incredible era of American politics. This week was another big one. We had President
0:34.4	Trump over in Scotland negotiating trade deals. We had more fallout from the
0:39.2	Epstein saga and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza really took over the conversation in Washington
0:45.6	and the country really in the world because it has reached new levels to the point where even
0:50.9	President Trump, who has touted a strong relationship and a lot of support for Israel,
0:55.5	has started to break with Netanyahu.
0:58.2	And it is starting to split the Republican Party a little bit.
1:01.6	It had already been splitting Democrats over the course of the 2024 election cycle.
1:06.3	We saw that firsthand.
1:07.9	And my guess this week is a perfect person to talk about this and so much more.
1:12.4	Congresswoman Sarah McBride joins the conversation this week. She's a Democrat from Delaware.
1:17.5	She sits on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. So she's got a lot to say about Israel, Gaza.
1:21.6	But she also has a lot to say about the future of her own party, what she thinks Democrats have
1:27.4	gotten wrong and the
1:28.3	path forward that she sees. I also wanted to talk to her about her time in Congress so far.
1:33.7	She's a freshman. She just started in this role in January. She's the first out transgender person
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from POLITICO, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of POLITICO and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.