The following is a lightly edited transcript of the September 11 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Republican Congresswoman Nancy Mace lost her temper on the House floor on Wednesday during a debate over transgender rights, if “debate” is the right word for it. It all started when Mace unleashed a long, vile tirade about trans people on the floor. After that, Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, a Democrat, went to the floor and offered a cutting send-up of the absurdity of GOP anti-trans rhetoric. That’s what prompted Mace to fly into a fury and start shouting. We think this is a telling moment. We’re all supposed to just put up with it while the right unleashes nonstop vitriol and hate about their enemy of the moment. And then when a Democrat offers some admittedly provocative pushback, yet something that doesn’t come close to routine right-wing rhetoric is taken as this enormous affront as if the earth has been knocked off its axis. Today we’re talking to Representative Jacobs about what just happened. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, Congresswoman.
Congresswoman Sara Jacobs: Thanks for having me.
Sargent: So can you just set the stage for us? Representative Mace was in the process of offering amendments to the 2026 National Defense Authorization Act. What would her amendments have done and what’s her history on this issue?
Jacobs: Yeah, so she offered a number of amendments that would have prohibited gender-affirming care for service members and their dependents, which would have included mental health care that would have stopped trans people from being able to use the restroom that they need. There was a number of other things she was trying to do. This particular one we were debating was preventing trans service members from using the bathroom that they need to use. And she has, over the course of the last few years, said some pretty terrible things about trans people, constantly using the T-slur, using words like deranged and all these other really emotion-evoking terminology. She went after Sarah McBride when she first got here, and I think just generally has tried to get attention by targeting trans people and in particular trans kids.
Sargent: Well, with that in mind, let’s listen to what just happened. Nancy Mace gave a long, typically vile speech about trans people filled with all sorts of disgusting slurs and exaggerations. Here’s a little taste of it.
Nancy Mace (audio voiceover): No one wants biological men in women’s spaces. And because of this wacko ideology, not based in science, is now pervasive. We’re teaching it in schools. We’re forcing kids to use pronouns. And we want to protect women because the left has gone so far. Not just the left. This is mainstream Democrat policy going after our girls. The average American—we see it every day now. It’s everywhere, and people are sick and tired of it. And if they want this harassment to stop, then the trannies need to stop harassing the rest of America. This is not what the American people want. It’s not what they voted for.
Sargent: And then after that, Congresswoman Jacobs went to the floor. Listen to this.
Sara Jacobs (audio voiceover): I would just like to point out that I think it’s very interesting that my colleague from South Carolina is so obsessed with the issue of trans people, using horrible slurs to talk about them when many people in this body have received gender-affirming care. Filler is gender-affirming care. Boob jobs is gender-affirming care. Botox is gender-affirming care. Lots of my colleagues have received gender-affirming care. And let me be clear. I think everyone should have access to the gender-affirming care that they need. And I think we should respect everybody in this country. With that, I yield back.
Nancy Mace (audio voiceover): Ridiculous. You are absolutely ridiculous.
Mike Johnson (audio voiceover): This is not recognized. Order. The House will be in order. The gentlelady and the gentleman will suspend. The house will be in order.
Sargent: So the person you heard yelling there was Nancy Mace, according to C-SPAN. Congresswoman Jacobs, your response to all that?
Jacobs: Look, I didn’t actually say anything about Nancy Mace. I said many of my colleagues have had this kind of care. So I think it’s very telling that she thought that I was picking on her. It sounded like she told herself. And to be honest, I think everyone should get whatever gender-affirming care they want. Like you do you, girl. But the idea that she would use that to target this already vulnerable population is horrible. She knows it gets her headlines and clicks. She thinks it’s going to help her in her campaign for governor of South Carolina. And she’s targeting vulnerable young people to do that.
Sargent: Well, Congresswoman, I want to ask you about the personal dimension of this issue. It’s a personal issue to you, right? Can you talk about that part of it?
Jacobs: Yeah, absolutely. So my youngest sibling is trans, and my middle sibling is gender-nonconforming. And I’ve seen firsthand how much happier and healthier my siblings are when they’ve been able to get the gender-affirming care that they need. And let’s be clear, gender-affirming care is not only surgery, right? It’s someone using the correct pronouns. It’s mental health care. Sometimes it’s hormone therapy. Sometimes it is surgery. But there’s a full range of things. And I also know personally how impactful rhetoric coming from Washington, D.C., can be for trans people. My youngest sibling—in the first Trump administration, one of the things that actually got me thinking about running for office was how impacted his mental health was by what he was hearing coming out of the White House. And I don’t want any kid to have to feel like there’s something wrong with them or they don’t belong just because Nancy Mace wants to get some clicks and more media attention.
I’ve talked to young trans kids in San Diego who are fleeing other parts of the country because they feel like they can’t live there safely and freely because they can’t get the care they need. This is not just some theoretical debate. The words that we use here in Washington, D.C., have real impacts on people’s lives, and we need to stand up for young people everywhere. Look, I think there’s a lot of misunderstanding on both sides of the aisle. I spend a lot of time educating my colleagues. A lot of people just are not familiar with this. But let’s be clear, what Nancy Mace is doing is not about misunderstanding. She is intentionally targeting a vulnerable group of people because she wants the attention. It is cruel. It is mal-intended. And it is not just about she said something wrong once. This has been a very strategic targeted approach she has taken.
Sargent: I want to home in on what you said before about this not being theoretical. Can you paint a broad picture for us about what’s going on nationally? One of the things that I found offensive about Mace’s performance was she tried to assume the victim mantle, but we’re in the middle of a really vicious national anti-trans moment right now that is working its way through many, many state legislatures—reactionary state legislatures—and it’s having an impact on millions of people. Can you talk about that dimension of it?
Jacobs: Yeah. We are seeing state legislatures across the country enact really stringent and horrible anti-trans legislation. And it means that trans people are losing their health care. In particular, trans kids are losing their health care. Parents of trans kids are at risk for just supporting their children. They’re being outed in schools. They’re being bullied. This is a really dangerous moment. And I can tell you when I’m talking to trans kids, they feel it. They feel how dark and scary things are right now for them. We are seeing a lot of families move to California because it’s the only place they feel like they can get the health care that they need and be safe as a family. You should be able to live safely and freely everywhere in this country regardless of your gender identity.
Trans youth are more likely to be homeless. They’re more likely to have mental health issues. And let’s be clear, it’s not because they’re trans. It’s because of all of these societal things that are put on them, like the things they have to hear from my colleagues here in Congress. I know everyone’s not familiar with this topic or as familiar as I am. That’s OK. You don’t need to understand everything. Imagine if your kid came to you and said, I don’t feel right in my body, and this is the only way that I’m going to feel right. And you as a parent want the ability to talk to their doctor and figure out what makes the most sense—not have the government tell you what you can or cannot do or have the government come and say you’re a bad parent because you’re supporting your child.
Sargent: Well, I want to get at the cruelty dimension of this, because I think it’s really important. I want to point out that unless you had prompted that reaction from Mace, her long diatribe on the floor would have passed entirely unnoticed, at least outside of right-wing precincts, right? Mainstream media barely registers it anymore when people like Mace do things like this. It’s just treated as Republicans being Republicans, Nancy Mace being Nancy Mace. That strikes me as a real problem. She’s able to continually feed this stuff to her people—to her base and nationally as well—rile them up, fill them with hate, and nobody acts as a check on it. Can you talk about that problem?
Jacobs: Yeah. Look, we can’t let it go unchecked and we can’t normalize hatred. Now, we also know some of what she wants is the attention. And so sometimes it is strategic to just not give her that attention because that’s what she’s seeking. But I also think it’s important that we don’t let their narrative be the only narrative that’s out there because in many cases, it’s that people don’t really understand trans issues. They’ve never met an openly trans person, right? I totally understand why people have concerns and fears around this. That’s totally normal. The answer is not what Nancy Mace is doing. And if that’s the only argument they’re ever hearing, then it’s really dangerous for all of us.
Sargent: Well, that brings me to the Democratic Party. There is some debate inside the Democratic Party about how to deal with these issues. I want to get to that in a second, and first point out this. People may remember that Mallory McMorrow, a state legislator from Michigan a few years ago, got an immense amount of national attention because she erupted at a colleague over issues like these. I believe trans issues were central to why she erupted at them. And there was almost this hunger that was revealed among the Democratic base across the country for Democratic legislative officials to talk that way, to step up and defend trans people and all their vulnerable groups from this right-wing vitriol and hate. Do you sense that out there? And what’s your take on the debate among Democrats right now about how to talk about this stuff?
Jacobs: Absolutely. I’m not going to lie to you, I think many of my colleagues took the wrong lesson from the last election. I think they took the lesson that the American people hate trans people, the American people don’t want us talking about it. And I just don’t think that’s true. When I talk to people—I traveled all across the country—it’s not that they hate trans people; it’s that they hate that someone is getting health care while they can’t afford it. They don’t hate asylum seekers; they hate that someone is getting government paid housing when they can barely afford rent. What we need to do is actually build a society where everyone gets what they need and not say that you aren’t getting it because this other population is. There’s no actual scarcity here. It’s false. We need to get away from that scarcity mindset and actually build the economy and social structures that everyone needs so that everyone can afford health care and rent and all of the other things that they need.
And so to me, it’s really disheartening to see some of my colleagues think that doubling down and blaming trans people for our loss is the answer because it is not the answer. Attacking trans people is not going to fix our broken system. Taxing rich people is going to fix our broken system. Investing in our social services is going to fix our broken system. Blaming trans people is not going to fix our broken system. And it’s just going to further marginalize an already marginalized population. The reason that ad—the they/them ad—was so powerful was not the they/them part about it. It’s that people didn’t believe we were fighting for you. If they believed we were fighting for you, they wouldn’t care if we were also fighting for they/them. And I think that’s the key. How do we show that we’re actually fighting for everyone? And to me, that means standing up for everyone, not doubling down and scapegoating a population.
Sargent: Right. Just to clarify for listeners, the they/them ad that you’re talking about is an ad that the Trumpworld ran against Kamala Harris, spent enormous, enormous sums on it. And it basically said Kamala Harris is for they/them, Trump is for you. And look, I think Democrats really took the wrong lesson from the widespread use of that ad. It strikes me as highly implausible that that ad really was all that decisive in an election that was so heavily focused on the cost of living and maybe on immigration to some degree. But for some reason, a certain segment of the Democratic Party decided to pretend that that ad was the decisive factor or something close to it in order to advance an agenda inside the Democratic Party to the effect of, Maybe let’s stop talking about these issues. Let’s moderate in a major way on them.
Jacobs: It’s easier to believe that we lost because we support trans people than to really do the hard introspection we need to do about why people don’t trust us and why they don’t think we’re looking out for them and why people don’t like us, right? That’s hard work, especially if you’ve been here for 30–40 years and the very things that you’re most proud of are the things that people are now criticizing. I get it. But we need to do that hard introspection work. We need to recognize that we became painted as the party of a status quo that was not working for people, and that we need real solutions to do things differently and to rebuild people’s trust in us to actually fight for them. And that’s not because we talked about trans issues too much.
Sargent: Well, you’ve got some Democrats who are trying to carve out a place in the party where they’re essentially mostly for protecting the civil, political, and human rights of trans people. But at the same time, they want to say, OK, let’s move away from trans people and sports, that kind of thing. What do you think is the sweet spot for a mainstream Democrat here who wants to get right in that pocket? Is there a message that you think respects the rights of trans people but also somehow doesn’t look too “extreme” or whatever? What’s the sweet spot?
Jacobs: Yeah, absolutely. Look, trans people deserve the same rights as everyone else. Just like I don’t want the government in the doctor’s office when I’m getting my reproductive health care. So, too, trans people don’t want the government in the doctor’s office when they’re getting their gender-affirming care. Health care should be between you and your doctor and your parents if you’re a minor. Full stop, the end. Get government out. That is something most Americans agree with.
Sargent: Absolutely.
Jacobs: You don’t want Congress legislating the very specific details of how every sports league implements their rules. You do not want Congress deciding what a seven-year-old soccer game’s rules are, right? That is not the role of Congress. That should be each individual sports institution’s decision to make. And you don’t want Congress involved in that in the same way that you don’t want Congress to be the ones making a number of rules that would be for the whole country when each individual place needs something different. That’s why we have a federal structure. It’s why we have different people making different kinds of rules. And so to me, it’s about understanding what the role of Congress is. The role of Congress is to protect everyone’s rights, to make sure everyone has access to rights and benefits that they are eligible for—and then mostly to get out of the way and stop telling people how to live their lives.
Sargent: Right. And that provides a frame for Democrats who maybe want to look a little more moderate or whatever to find their way on this issue, right? They can essentially say, Look, I’m leaving it to local institutions to make these decisions.
Jacobs: Exactly.
Sargent: So let’s go back to Mace. When you when you live in a world where right-wing vitriol and hate is just basically the oxygen you breathe—can you talk about that sense of what it’s like to be trying to make progress on this issue when an entire political party has just essentially declared it normal to talk that way about a large group of Americans? It seems like we have a major problem on our hands now that that’s gotten normalized.
Jacobs: I think that’s exactly right. I’ll be honest, it’s hard to be in Congress right now. But it’s not harder than the lives of trans young people right now. And that’s what I try and remember. And I try and think about how I can be most effective. And sometimes how I can be most effective is getting in a public squabble with someone because I think it’s important that their words don’t go unchecked. But oftentimes, the way to be most effective is to really humanize this issue. Introduce folks to my little brother. Talk about the real human impacts of this. Because I think for a lot of people, it feels like an easy political slam dunk because they don’t understand that it’s actually real people that they’re implicating. But my little brother, he’s like a goofy little dude. He wears Mickey Mouse socks. I’m like, This guy, this is who you’re so afraid of? No, you’re not. And I think the more we can humanize this issue, the more we can talk about the real human impacts. I’m hoping we can get my colleagues to see, OK, you don’t have to accept if your kid is trans. You don’t have to accept whatever, but government should not be making this decision for families.
Sargent: Congresswoman Sara Jacobs, thank you so much for talking to us. It was super enlightening.
Jacobs: Thanks for having me.
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