Rep. Sarah McBride (D-Del.), the first openly trans person elected to Congress, let her brutal criticism of President Donald Trump’s administration do the talking on Thursday after Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) misgendered her on the House floor.
Miller, a Trump ally who has backed anti-trans policies including the president’s wave of executive orders, presided over the House where she referred to the freshman lawmaker as “the gentleman from Delaware, Mr. McBride.”
Instead of immediately replying to the swipe ahead of what marked her first-ever speech on the House floor, McBride went after the president instead.
“Thank you, Madam Speaker. When I was elected, I promised to work with anyone who would help Delaware and Delawareans and to stand up to anyone who seeks to harm my state,” said McBride, who became the center of Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) anti-trans crusade late last year.
She added, “Instead of seeking common ground, the Trump administration from day one has waged an unrelenting attack on working people in Delaware and across the country, seeking to freeze funding for first responders, domestic violence shelters, schools and health care facilities that my constituents rely on.”
McBride went on to note that doctors, nurses, students and military families in Delaware were “terrified” by Trump’s funding freeze.
She noted that federal funds from her state were appropriated by Congress and signed into law only for the Trump administration to threaten to “illegally freeze funding” and “gut the federal workforce tasked with helping my neighbors,” all with the goal of “chaos.”
McBride argued that the “attacks” on workers and “lifesaving programs” administered by USAID — the agency responsible for distributing billions in foreign aid, one that Trump and billionaire cost-cutter Elon Musk are looking to shut down — don’t just put security and global health at risk.
“They lay the foundation here at home to gut federal support for education, for health care, for housing, for child care, for workers,” she said.
McBride would later turn to the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt who, in 1941, declared that “necessitous men are not free men.”
“Democracies can’t survive if people are hungry or out of a job,” she said.
“They want Americans hungry. They want Americans scared for their future. They want Americans to stay angry because that is the fuel of Trumpism. That is how Donald Trump keeps his power.”
She continued, “My constituents, my constituents reject this administration’s cycle of chaos, corruption and cynicism. Delawareans sent me here to make government work better for people, not to make it worse.”
You can watch McBride’s full speech on the House floor in the clip below.
