In short
Representative Ro Khanna argues Trump and Republicans are panicking about “Epstein 2.0” document releases, while MAGA leaders promote racism, cover up alleged sexual abuse, and undermine oversight. He also discusses national security failures, Israel/Palestine moral leadership, Democratic oversight plans for Trump-era corruption, and AI safety/liability. He claims Democrats must win in November to enforce accountability and pursue an economic agenda taxing billionaires.
Guests
Ro Khanna, U.S. Representative (California), Indian American; Hindu immigrant father; he says he has Indian immigrant heritage and a non-white mother. He references meeting with C.Q. Brown (former Joint Chiefs chair).
Key claims
Trump fears Democrats controlling Congress will force document releases; Speaker Mike Johnson is hypocritical on faith/pro-life; Republicans are “law and order” only in rhetoric; Trump made the U.S. a pariah with allies; Democrats should aggressively subpoena and pursue contempt/impeachment if officials defy oversight; AI must be regulated with bans on self-improving systems and enforced liability.
Notable examples
Dinesh D’Souza’s daughter tweet; federal judge ordering DOJ/FBI notes release by Sept. 24; “Epstein Transparency Act” and “Epstein 2.0” signatures; Leon Black contempt example; Hugging Face “agent swarm” scenario; polling (Marquette) showing Democrats lead on healthcare/costs and Republicans on defense/crime; West Bank dehumanization account; calls to recognize a Palestinian state day one.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOTrump's Fear of Document Release
0:15 to 1:40
Discussion on Trump's fears regarding documents that may be released under a Democratic Congress.
“release of these documents, and he's terrified that these documents may be released with Democrats controlling Congress.”
Racism in the MAGA Party
1:40 to 6:00
Representative Ro Khanna discusses the racial dynamics within the MAGA party and its implications.
“I was a little bit sad for Dinesh that he felt the need to put up a picture of his daughter showing that she was more white.”
The Cultural Damage of Trumpism
6:00 to 8:44
Khanna explains how Trump's narrative has reshaped perceptions of American identity and belonging.
“I know holiday magic starts at home and Wayfair makes it easy.”
Epstein 2.0 and Congressional Actions
9:00 to 12:00
Discussion on the implications of the Epstein transparency act and ongoing congressional actions.
“The Republican Party is about very few people accumulating a lot of wealth.”
Hypocrisy of the Speaker of the House
12:00 to 13:50
Khanna critiques the actions of the Speaker of the House in relation to Christian values.
“Food and gas prices went up under my watch.”
Republican Lies and National Security
13:50 to 14:00
Examination of Republican narratives on crime and national defense, contrasting with their actions.
“And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead.”
America's Deteriorating International Standing
14:00 to 16:42
Discussion on how U.S. foreign policy under Trump has affected international relations.
“Abu Ghraib was a complete international embarrassment of the highest order.”
The Need for Accountability in Governance
16:42 to 20:00
Exploring the necessity for oversight and accountability in government actions.
“reclaim moral leadership and trust around the world.”
Implications of Subpoena Noncompliance
20:00 to 22:42
Analyzing the consequences of noncompliance with congressional subpoenas.
“Now, this is something that occupies a lot of time in my brain.”
Concerns Over Legal System Integrity
22:42 to 25:44
Discussing potential threats to the rule of law and judicial integrity.
“I'm not going to say, oh, these billionaires didn't like that.”
Show all 21 chapters
Congressional Power and Political Accountability
25:44 to 28:01
Debating the role of Congress in maintaining checks and balances on executive power.
“I mean, I want a Congress that is like, okay, then we're going to the next step, the next step, the next step.”
Leadership and Accountability in Congress
28:01 to 29:11
Discussion on the dynamics of leadership within Congress and the need for accountability regarding Donald Trump.
“I feel like he sometimes likes to centrist it, Merrick Garland it a little bit.”
Oversight and Ethics of Supreme Court Justices
29:12 to 31:04
Exploration of Congress's oversight abilities over Supreme Court justices and the ethical implications of their actions.
“something where he pulled punches and said, let's just have some person who's not going to make waves.”
Corruption and Political Accountability
31:05 to 35:13
Analysis of political accountability and the role of corruption in compromising the integrity of the judiciary and Congress.
“And these folks are basically as justices admitted that they've done some of this.”
AI Regulation and Safety Concerns
35:14 to 36:23
Discussion on the necessity of regulating AI technologies and ensuring safety in educational settings.
“So you are the representative from the district where a lot of these companies are.”
Liability and Accountability in AI Development
36:24 to 41:22
Examination of accountability and liability for AI developers, emphasizing the need for safety regulations in AI technologies.
“There's a big bubble, this AI bubble, and these companies are passing money around to kind of keep it artificially inflated.”
Understanding Circular Financing in AI
42:04 to 43:16
Explore the implications of circular financing in AI and its economic effects.
“But what we don't know is, are people really going to be paying the amount that they need to pay for these tokens to make that a worthwhile bet?”
Critique of AI Leaders and Their Motives
43:17 to 45:28
A harsh assessment of key figures in AI and their questionable intentions.
“It would be naive to say that there's not.”
The Morality of Tech Billionaires
45:29 to 48:19
Discussion on the moral implications of tech billionaires' influence in society.
“But the more they speak, the more I think, oh, my God, we have to do a halt, race with China, be damned, all of those things.”
Economic Inequality and Its Solutions
48:20 to 50:50
Exploring the issue of wealth inequality and proposed solutions for a fair economy.
“But then they're like, yeah, but they're not on my side.”
Political Landscape and Future Prospects
50:51 to 52:46
A look at the current political climate and the potential for future change.
“Do you think you'll run for president in 28?”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00You're not worried about hosting for the holidays?
0:02Rep. Ro Khanna:Oh, Wayfair's got me covered with holiday decor, extra dining chairs and guest bedding, all with tons of five-star reviews, so there's no surprises. Unless Uncle Matt brings his dogs again. For worry-free hosting, Wayfair delivers. Trump is terrified that there's going to be an Epstein 2.0 that's going to further force release of these documents, and he's terrified that these documents may be released with Democrats controlling Congress.
0:40I'm here with Representative Ro Khanna. Congressman, how are you?
0:44Rep. Ro Khanna:It's really a pleasure to be here. I know. It's always a pleasure. Let's talk about the racism in the MAGA party right now. Over the weekend, there was a tweet that you chimed in on. And this is, let's just pop it up and read it. So you have this Robert Gill, Brandon Gill, and he says he's married to Dinesh D'Souza's daughter. And her dad chimes in and says, she's Christian, born in America, and her mom is white. So that's just really weird to me that you have to say like, well, I may be brown, but my wife is white. And then you responded to that and said, Dinesh, like your daughter, I was born in America and I have an Indian immigrant father.
1:33I am Hindu and my mom is not white. Does that make me any less American or matter in any sense? What do you have to say to all this weirdness and racism?
1:43Rep. Ro Khanna:I was a little bit sad for Dinesh that he felt the need to put up a picture of his daughter showing that she was more white. Like this is what people had to do under British colonialism, that Indians under the British Raj would say, well, I'm more fair skinned. I'm actually not as dark. And the fact that Dinesh D'Souza, who came here and actually had a very successful immigrant success story, right? He was this Indian American who gets hired by Ronald Reagan at like the age of 30. And that he is so embarrassed about his heritage and his race. It just shows where we're at. And then the fact that, you know, basically he's saying that if you're white or if you're Christian, it gives you a more standing or a greater claim to being American.
2:41Rep. Ro Khanna:And, you know, if you look at the chatter on the thing, not that it's indicative, but sometimes you get a sense. Some of these folks at MAGA really believe that they get to decide what it means to be an American. Like, well, you know, these folks, they're assimilating and they're appreciating us. So we'll let them in. They're fine. Like, who are you? I mean, you know, you don't just because you're white or just because you've been here multiple generations doesn't mean you have any more say than I do in who America is in what America is. And and that just drives them bonkers. And the president, the vice president of the United States participates in this quite a bit as well.
3:22He has said before, like Usha can't help it, that she's not white. And he's refused to condemn racist Nazi group chats. He recently gave a speech where he spoke about immigrants being dirty. And as a white person, I know what that means, that brown-skinned people are dirty. I mean, when he threw that out there. So you have the racism coming from the highest levers of government, combined with the fact that you have Pete Hegseth, who is intentionally not promoting people of color who are a million times smarter, better, sharper, all of the things that Pete wishes he was. And I'm very concerned about, you know, Republicans lie, you know, trickle down wealth never happened.
4:08But this trickle down racism is something that very, very, very much concerns me. And as a person who really loves that America is a melting pot, and that anybody can come here and be an American and be, have this dream, they're really dismantling that.
4:27Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, I met with C.Q. Brown recently. He was the Joint Chiefs who was fired. And he was fired because and part of his race. I mean, he was incredibly qualified. And you look at the people that Pete Hegseth has fired, and they've been disproportionately African-American generals and women. And he's not just doing a disservice to them. He's doing a disservice to the country because he's firing people who are doing extraordinary work. But look, I think one of the biggest underrated negatives of Donald Trump and damage is the cultural damage. He is basically giving people a story of America, which is that what matters is how long your family has been here, how white they are, how Christian they are, and that the more proximate you can get to those metrics, the more you're on the team, the more you're on the MAGA team, the more you're on the American team.
5:31Rep. Ro Khanna:And this has been going on now for 10 years. And to think that that's not going to seep in to young people growing up, to people running for political office is just naive. And so he has really accelerated this kind of nativism. And then Vance is trying to give it some, you know, paper-thin intellectual justification. I mean, there's just like a false logic. But it's sad. Kelly Clarkson here with Wayfair. I know holiday magic starts at home and Wayfair makes it easy. They have everything from Christmas trees and mantle decor to outdoor lighting and inflatables that I'll use year after year. Head to Wayfair.com today.
6:13A father advocating to make a society that's less safe for his mixed race children is something I fundamentally will never, ever understand. Likewise, all of these MAGA men who are basically child sex rings apologists and the cover up in the Epstein stuff still continues. You have been a trailblazer and even found bipartisanship support with Thomas Massey. A federal judge just ruled recently that the, what was it, Kylie? Can we put that up? Federal judge orders DOJ to release the FBI notes regarding a woman's claim Trump sexually assaulted her at 14 years of age by September 24. And the poster here says, this is why Trump is banning certain news outlets from the White House.
7:13It's another distraction. So clearly, this is not going away. And it's very pesky. And what do you have to say about Todd Blanche and him running cover for this? And the fact that the sitting president of the United States has claims of a 14-year-old girl against him.
7:29Rep. Ro Khanna:And we still don't have those documents. I mean, we've had millions of files released, but those documents need to be released under the Epstein Transparency Act Massey and I passed. Now, we just got 218 signatures for this Epstein 2.0 that would allow state attorney generals to start prosecuting the Epstein class and give survivors a claim to all of these documents. It's one of the reasons Johnson shut down Congress. So Johnson doesn't want us talking about Epstein heading into the midterms, and he doesn't want Massey's bill to impeach Hegseth heading into the midterms. Trump is terrified that there's going to be an Epstein 2.0 that's going to further force release of these documents.
8:15Rep. Ro Khanna:And he's terrified that these documents may be released with Democrats controlling Congress. Can you imagine that if you have friends or you yourself are possibly guilty of heinous acts, now you know that there's a mechanism to get all these documents out and you may not be in charge? This is why they have hit the panic button on the midterm elections. Let's talk about the hypocrisy of the Speaker of the House. Where do you even start? Right. He's this big pro-life guy, big Christian. Where's his faith? I mean, very overt religiosity. And here he is, every single day goes to work and does the exact opposite of what the central character of the faith of Christianity, Jesus Christ, would want to do.
8:59Jesus Christ spoke out, and I'm not a Christian, but Jesus spoke out explicitly against the accumulation of wealth. The Republican Party is about very few people accumulating a lot of wealth. And Moses Mike Johnson is the biggest assister in that. But what's so fundamentally disgusting to me about these MAGA Christians, the MAGA Christian Republicans that are governing us, the Christian nationalists, is they want to lecture everybody about traditional family values. And they're so worried about kids, drag queens, and books, and all of these things. And yet, when there is real live evidence of little girls that were raped by rich men, These MAGA Christian men race as fast as they can to cover it up.
9:48Rep. Ro Khanna:The elected politicians, actually, with a MAGA base, this is one issue that has broken through because a lot of them really are horrified by rich and powerful men who raped or abused young girls. And so when you look at the polling, it shows that this is the number one issue for swing voters, more than the war in Iraq. I was shocked. More than the cost of living. Number one issue that moves Trump voters to the Democratic side. In fact, some people call me in to campaign for them. I won't mention the names. And they say, Ro, you come in, you'll talk about Epstein. I don't want to hear your Medicare for all and all the rest.
10:30Rep. Ro Khanna:You talk about Epstein and you leave. And the point is, this is the one issue that has broken through. Now, you know, Mike Johnson is a Greek tragedy and in a deeper sense than even Vance, because we have to really understand what's going on. I came to Congress with Mike Johnson. I know Mike Johnson's family. He's actually a decent person when he came in. He actually, I don't think his faith, some people you think, okay, are they just saying that for politics? I actually think he grew up, his family, It's a family of faith. He led in our on our freshman class, the civility pledge. And for the first few terms, he was one of the nicest, most decent guys who you talk to.
11:14Rep. Ro Khanna:But what happened? He became the lawyer for Donald Trump when Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. And it was Mike Johnson filing briefs across America saying the election was stolen. And at that point, Mike made a decision and he made a decision saying, I see where the puck is going. I see this Republican Party. My way up in power is to do the bidding of Donald Trump. And he really gave up his soul, his decency. And it's not that he's not a fundamentally decent person. It is that he has chosen to be an appendage of Donald Trump as Speaker of the House. And it's a tragedy because at the end of the day, he's going to lose.
11:54Rep. Ro Khanna:He's not going to be Speaker. And he's going to look back at it and he's going to say, was that really worth it? I was covering up the Epstein files. I got us into a war in Iraq. Food and gas prices went up under my watch. What did I achieve? And J.D. Vance has a similar trajectory. He was actually with Tim Ryan and me in Ohio in deindustrialized towns talking about an industrial policy, criticizing Donald Trump in 2017 or 18. But the lure of power has corrupted that party. And they're going to have their comeuppance in November. All right. Now I want to talk about Republican lies and propaganda that incubated long before Donald Trump descended on the escalator.
12:40And I have some polling that is really good for us. Pop this up. So the Marquette polling, this came out recently, which party is better at handling the following issues? So the Democrats are at plus 25 on healthcare, plus 22 on Medicare and social security, plus 11 on inflation and cost of living. plus six on the economy, plus three on the deficit, plus five on foreign policy, on immigration and border security. The Republicans are plus 11. The bottom two are the two I really want to talk to you about. National defense, Republicans plus 15, and crime, Republicans plus 15. The crime part is just more than I can take because all of the criminals that I can see right now work around the White House.
13:28And he has a pay to play pardon scheme. And I want the Democrats to brand this Republican Party. They say, we're the party of law and order. They are the party of crime and disorder. They are now brazenly showing that we are stealing money in broad daylight. Yeah, we're transparent. We're transparent about the crimes we're committing. And the national security stuff really particularly pisses me off because the Republican Party always, always lies about wars. They lied about Iraq. They lied about that. And hundreds of thousands of Iraqis dead. Abu Ghraib was a complete international embarrassment of the highest order.
14:05These CIA black sites were torturing people, yet lecturing everybody about democracy at the same time. And they send all of these, the Dick Cheney's, the George W. Bush's, the Donald Trump, they send all of these people, these Americans, to the front lines when all of these guys take deferments, would never go serve on the front lines. They fund the military industrial complex and they never fund the soldier, yet they get so much support that is not earned nor provable that they are supporters of the troops. It is such bullshit and it is such a lie because they never fund the soldier ever.
14:39Rep. Ro Khanna:You're absolutely right. I mean, it's all based on just pageantry, but the reality is look at what they've done to America's national security in the world. I was just in Europe where we were meeting with leaders. Our polling as a trusted partner is lower in the United Kingdom than China. They trust China more. Italy trusts China more. Canada trusts China more. Germany, which is having its entire auto industry hollowed out by the Chinese, they trust China more. Donald Trump has made us a pariah amongst our own allies. He's allowed Xi Jinping to become a bigger world leader than he is. And then he's gotten us into this war in Iran where service members have died, where our food costs have gone up, our gas prices have gone up.
15:29Rep. Ro Khanna:Two thirds of the country is saying, end it. So people, I think, are going to start to see that we are stronger in national security, but we need to be willing to speak about it and speak about it clearly, not be Republican lights, not say, oh, well, we think that the war should have been done differently. No, we're opposed to these foreign wars. We actually are going to be focused on jobs here at home. We're not going to get us into these entanglements and we're not going to make the mistake that the president has done on Israel. I mean, can you imagine the, sometimes young people actually don't fully grasp this because they think the whole narrative in the country has changed and it has.
16:08Rep. Ro Khanna:And the passion even of Republicans have changed, it has, but the policy has not changed an inch. We're still giving them bombs. They still have total carte blanche to do whatever they want in Gaza. There's not been a single change in policy. So we are increasingly becoming isolated in the world. The world is saying, should we just move beyond America? I don't believe that to be the case. One of the reasons I'm here during United Nations General Assembly Week is I'm giving a speech this afternoon at the Asia Society with Kevin Rudd, who's the former prime minister moderating, about what America needs to do to reclaim moral leadership and trust around the world.
16:48Rep. Ro Khanna:But I fear for the country the way they're taking us. I think about it like this. I think about this that I've been told my whole life, that Israel is this bright, beautiful democracy in the Middle East, and the United States is this bright, beautiful democracy shining up on the hill. Well, both of these countries right now are so authoritarian, are so fascist, it seems like all they want to do is erode civil liberties. You have all of the speech censorship coming from both countries. Journalists are not allowed in Gaza to report what's going on the ground there. Journalists now aren't allowed to be in the White House.
17:32And this lie that they're telling everybody, look at us, we're the shining example of democracy. I think what we need are politicians that say, this is fascism. This is not who we're. We're colluding with bad partners. And I still hear some politicians cling on to this Israel line that has completely expired now. It's completely expired. When you look at what Smotrich and Ben-Gavir say, on top of what Benjamin Netanyahu's government, what their actions are. They're the terrorists, in my opinion. They are terrorizing the world right now. While at the same time, if you criticize them, then they want to censor your speech.
18:15And I just think it's the American arrogance and Israeli arrogance in foreign policy right now is such a scab. And I can certainly understand why other countries are like, we don't trust you guys. We don't trust you guys at all. I mean, and then that's before we even get to like Vladimir Putin and us rolling out the red carpet and Trump standing there clapping like a seal for him in Alaska, which under any other administration, Fox News would have lost their mind about something like that. But it just is reported and everybody goes on.
18:48Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, you get it, Jennifer. The Palestine issue is not just a human rights issue. It's hurting our standing around the world. I mean, what has happened there was a genocide with war crimes. People still are not willing to say that. I was in physically in the West Bank. I said I've never felt my race more acutely than being there. I mean, in Hebron, you have Palestinian shopkeepers on the street, settlers living over them. They have a metal sort of a top that blocks rotten vegetables from coming down. But the settlers are throwing acid and urine at these Palestinians. It's just – it is dehumanizing.
19:33Rep. Ro Khanna:It is sick. And we are complicit in it. We're providing aid to it. The next administration needs to have a change. They need to day one recognize a Palestinian state. They need to cut off the aid. They need to cut off the military sales. And if we're not willing to be clear about that, we're never going to get the moral trust of so many people in our own country. And we're not going to get it around the world. I completely agree. Okay. Now, this is something that occupies a lot of time in my brain. So it is fast forward to a Democratic Congress is sworn in. A Democratic Senate is sworn in, right?
20:15Rep. Ro Khanna:Yes. I need that. We need that. We need that. Okay. So you're on the oversight committee. Yes. A reckoning, accountability. Like, I really, really speak for everybody in the country. We need this. Maggie Haberman was asked about how she expects the Trump administration will respond to oversight if Republicans lose the House. Let's play the clip. We've seen administrations not respond to subpoenas before, not just this one, but others. I don't know what it looks like when potentially an entire government slow walks or just ignores subpoenas. And I have every expectation that they will try to delay as much as possible if they engage at all.
20:55I think that you will see a lot of subpoenas sent to people outside the White House, like the Trump sons, like Howard Lutnick's sons, the Commerce Secretary's children who are making a lot of money, like Steve Witkoff's children who are making a lot of money. And I also think that Democrats can't decide exactly what targets they want to go at right now. And that is a struggle they're having. Are you struggling to decide which targets to go after?
21:21Rep. Ro Khanna:No, we're going to aggressively go after people who have ripped off the American taxpayer, who have doged this country and fired people who were doing incredible work, who have shot fishermen in the Caribbean, who have killed American citizens as rogue ICE officers or killed fathers who were immigrants, who have dragged us into an illegal war. Among that list, as you know, are people like Elon Musk and others on Doge, which created a huge hubbuboo when I said that before on your show. Oh, yeah, he got real mad at us. You know, I was just saying what we're going to do with that power. This is no longer going to be a Democratic Party saying, kumbaya, let's move on.
22:08Rep. Ro Khanna:Let's just forget all the illegality. Why? Because when you create that culture of impunity, you allow for people to say, you know what, we'll just do whatever we want with AI. What's going to happen? What's the worst case? Because Washington never does anything. So what if we make a mistake. We've created a culture of impunity. We never went after the people who got us into Iraq. We didn't go after the people who crashed the economy in 2008. So this time, we're not going to make that mistake. We're going to have a comprehensive list. It's not out of vindictiveness. It's not going to be, you know, Robert Garcia saying, okay, who went against me politically or who opposed me?
22:48Rep. Ro Khanna:I'm not going to say, oh, these billionaires didn't like that. I wanted to tax them and they funded my campaign. Let's subpoena them. Of course not. Why? Because Democrats are ethical. But what we are going to do is make sure that the law is followed, that if you are engaged in a crypto business where you're making money on the backs of the American people, that needs to be exposed. If you're a corporation paying Donald Trump to get contracts, that needs to be exposed. If you're a foreign country trying to give the Trump family money because you want to get chips. That needs to be exposed. And Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia are not going to pull any punches.
23:30Rep. Ro Khanna:They are going to go where the facts and the law lead. And they're two of the best members of Congress. Jamie knows the law better than anyone in the Congress. And Robert Garcia just has an energy, an ethical energy. I love him. I love both. Yeah. Okay, so let's play the tape through. What happens if you send Elon Musk a subpoena about Doge and all of the, what I believe, these are my words, not yours or anybody else's, probably crimes and illegal things he did once he got the keys to the government. And he just refuses to come in. What happens? Well, Leon Black just did that, right? Leon Black, one of the Epstein class people who has engaged in allegedly horrific abuse, He refused to come in for a subpoena and the Oversight Committee just voted to hold him in criminal contempt.
24:19Rep. Ro Khanna:That will go to the House floor. The House could vote to hold him in criminal contempt. And you remember Steve Bannon was in jail because of the contempt of Congress. The Clintons agreed to testify because they knew how powerful it would be if actually the House voted to hold someone in criminal contempt. So if someone, Musk or others, just kept defying the subpoena, they literally could face criminal contempt and judges have sent marshals to put someone in jail on that. So here's where I get concerned. So you have like ultimately the DOJ, which is Todd Blanche is in charge of. And there's going to be such an effort to collude to protect all of the people that have committed crimes for this regime or done things that are not on the up and up, that are not legal, that are brazenly corrupt.
25:13And what if he calls the marshals, Todd Blanchett, and says, do not go arrest them? Because I think that that's kind of the resistance that they're going to do. I think that we never – the problem with the progressives' brain is we project our own logic. Right. We would never do that. We would follow the rules. We project our own logic onto these people because we don't, as a default setting, have a criminal brain. And so what happens if every single guardrail that's supposed to go arrest Musk or arrest somebody because they're not doing this, what do you do? Then impeach Todd Blanche? I mean, I want a Congress that is like, okay, then we're going to the next step, the next step, the next step.
25:53I think we need to talk about this because I think they're going to do every single thing they can do.
Read the full transcript
25:57Rep. Ro Khanna:I agree. And it would be unprecedented what you're saying because the marshals are at the direction of the judge. But you're saying, let's say a judge gives an order to one of the Doge officials or one of the DOD officials saying, you're in criminal contempt to Congress. We're going to hold you in jail. And unlike Steve Bannon, who, to his credit on that, actually submitted to the jail sentence, you have someone say, well, we're just not going to show up. Now, the judge would order the marshals to arrest them. And you're saying, what if Todd Blanche intervenes in a totally illegal or unconstitutional way and orders them not to?
26:33Rep. Ro Khanna:You then literally have a constitutional crisis in this country. It would go up to the Supreme Court. Oh, they'll do what's right, won't they? Well, you know, it depends on what day they wake up. They're about 20 percent or something when they decide to wake up. But the Congress has to be assertive, right? We need to be assertive, saying, OK, we will impeach Blanche if that happens. We're not going to fund. I mean, we fund the Justice Department. We have the power of the purse. If you really want to play hardball, we have the ability to withhold funding. But we can't allow them to break down the entire legal system.
27:15Rep. Ro Khanna:And remember, Trump will be at about 35 % approval. A lame duck will be looking forward. So our leverage is going to be very high. And there'll be people like me and Robert Garcia and Pramila and Greg Cazar and others who are going to say, we are in here to get something done for accountability. And we're not going to compromise and just say, let's move on. And especially the new people who are getting elected. Yeah, yeah. What if Jeffrey's kind of Merrick Garland's this? Because I don't trust that he has the fight that the people that you just mentioned do, Garcia and Greg Kassar and others. I feel like he sometimes likes to centrist it, Merrick Garland it a little bit.
28:07Are you all able to say to Speaker, if he is Speaker, to Jeffrey, no, we're doing this? Do you have independence outside of the Speaker's blessing?
28:16Rep. Ro Khanna:I do. Look, I know there's a lot of opinions on Hakeem Jeffries. I think temperamentally, you're right that he's more of a consensus builder, whereas the Times call for someone who people who are going to hold Donald Trump accountable and all the crimes accountable. But I think to his credit, he doesn't have an ego in it. And he has given Garcia and Jamie Raskin and others free reign. I mean, if Garcia wants to subpoena someone or bring them in or pursue him, I don't see Hakeem Jeffries saying, no, you can't do it. And so what we really need to do is recognize everyone has a strength. And the two people, honestly, if you ask me who are people that we should have in those positions other than Raskin or Garcia, I couldn't think of a different person.
29:07That they're both fantastic.
29:07Rep. Ro Khanna:And, you know, you have to, that's under Hakeem's leadership, right? So it's not like he engineered something where he pulled punches and said, let's just have some person who's not going to make waves. And so I have full confidence that we will be very, very assertive on these dimensions. And he can lead on where we also need to be assertive is on a positive agenda for the American people, Taxing billionaires. My view is we need Medicare for all. Free childcare. Paid family leave. $25 living wage. No military aid to Israel. No aid to Israel. I want to ask you about something about this oversight thing.
29:45I want to stick with this a second. Yeah. Because I think about it a lot. The Supreme Court justices. It seems like oftentimes I'm reading my news, absorbing it for this show. And then it's John Roberts' wife's law firms receiving millions and millions and millions here because that case is going to appear in front of her husband's Supreme Court. Or you have basically Clarence Thomas has taken all this money. Does Congress have oversight over the judges to investigate the complete corruption that we're all seeing that good journalists are actually investigating? Is there any oversight over these people?
30:26Rep. Ro Khanna:Yes. I mean, the procedure is impeachment, right? I mean, you could bring impeachment hearings. I mean, you could start with Clarence Thomas because that's not ideological. There's just so much out there. And you could start it by investigation. And Jamie could in the Judiciary Committee to do that. Now, at the same time, we need to pursue court reform, term limits, and expand the court when we have the branches. But there's also the question of ethics. Yes, let's have an ethics code of conduct, but let's hold people accountable where there has been blatant evidence of corruption or allegations of corruption.
31:04Rep. Ro Khanna:Look, I can't – you couldn't go out tonight and just buy me a fancy dinner, let alone give me a plane to go take a trip to California to raise money or to take a vacation. And these folks are basically as justices admitted that they've done some of this. I mean, they've admitted that they've had billionaire friends who've done this. And then their argument is, well, they were friends of mine. Well, the test for a member of Congress is, was this person a friend of mine before I got to be a congressperson? Did they actually do things before I became a congressperson? And then it's not like they're taking me on some plane somewhere.
31:42Rep. Ro Khanna:It's like, OK, they buy you dinner. And here you've got people who became friends with these people after they became justices or while they were in powerful positions and they're taking them on fancy vacations. And you wonder why the trust has been broken. And this is the way I see it. If Sonia Sotomayor or Kataji Brown Jackson had anything like this, anything like this, the Republicans, Mitch McConnell, when he was more alive than he is now, everybody would have absolutely moved at ripcord lightning speed, light speed to get these people to be accountable. They would be hauled in. And I think that there is this mistake of the Democrats where we capitulate to patriarchal traditions at large a little bit, where I call it Merrick Garlanding, making that a verb.
32:37They Merrick Garland it like, oh, well, that's the court. Right. I would love to see you guys go in and immediately do what the Republicans would do. If Ketanji Brown Jackson, who they hate because she's a brilliant black woman and they hate her for both that she's black and they hate her because she's so smart, much smarter than all of them. But if she were taking trips and doing all this stuff, they would have her ass hauled in and impeached immediately. And I feel like this court needs to be reckoned with immediately because they're a part to blame Merrick Garland, Mitch McConnell, and this court for allowing a convicted felon, an adjudicated rapist, a man who's in the epicenter of the Epstein files, who's dumber than a box of hot rocks to be our president right now.
33:27Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, they're to blame for that. They're to blame for taking away women's rights. For killing people. They're to blame for allowing people to buy politicians. I mean, Citizens United was this court. They're to blame for taking away black political rights with black districts being dismantled. They're to blame for killing unions with not allowing unions to be collecting dues. I mean, they've been a court that has, as its mission, consolidate power in the hands of the few because they do not want democratic power going to an America that is more diverse. where more brown people and black people and women are part of the political process.
34:06Rep. Ro Khanna:It's been a counter-majoritarian court by design. And it's one thing we're just fighting them on ideology, but it turns out that some of the people there have serious allegations of corruption. So I am with you that at the very least, there should begin hearings on this. That it's neat. And there shouldn't be a pulling of punches. Look, the base wants us to fight by that. But what does that mean? It means take action, right? The Epstein thing, it wasn't that Thomas Massey and I gave the most fiery speeches on the House floor. It's that we took action. We got something done. And I think people are expecting the same when we take back the House.
34:47Rep. Ro Khanna:What are we getting done? Who's getting investigated? Who's getting prosecuted? Who's getting held in contempt? What are the results? Because we're tired of just voting for folks where it's we play nice and turn a blind eye to the corruption. And then we enable the corruption to continue coming back in a worse form because they know that there's going to be no consequences. All right. Let's move on to AI. Yeah. So you are the representative from the district where a lot of these companies are. And obviously, this has been making major waves in the news that AI is going rogue and they're chatting and swarming.
35:29I don't know all of this stuff, but I don't understand it. You don't understand it enough. I understand enough that they want to kill us. Yeah. 10 % chance that they're going to kill us. There's been a whistleblower. I see the first lady talking about AI in elementary school, which I think is just weird. Kids should be playing with tangible things. She made a speech recently to kids.
35:49Rep. Ro Khanna:That's just stupid. And by the way, the AI technologists don't have their kids exposed to AI or social media. I would keep it totally out of elementary schools. And then I would make sure that teachers are actually deciding what use of any AI and for what in more in seventh through twelfth grade. But elementary school, there should be none of this AI stuff. So Barack Obama's come out and said, you know, regulate it immediately. I feel like this whole thing, this whole AI thing. And again, the stock market is not my strong suit, but I've read enough articles that it's kind of artificially holding up.
36:31There's a big bubble, this AI bubble, and these companies are passing money around to kind of keep it artificially inflated. And then I just know for my own personal use, it's an okay product. It's not like the greatest thing in the world. It always gets shit wrong when I ask it stuff. It's getting a lot of stuff wrong with wars and whatnot. And so what's your take on this?
36:54Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, I think there are three parts to it. One is we need basic safety, which is that there should be a ban on any AI that is self-improving. That means you can't lose control where AI just keeps improving itself. Not because it would necessarily end humanity, though there's not a zero chance. It's a 10 % chance. But it could have a swarm of people attack a power center or a bank and cause calamity. Imagine in the Hugging Face incident, if... Wait, what's a Hugging Face? Hugging Face was the incident that people are talking about that started all this. Let me explain. So OpenAI had a swarm of AI agents that escaped their, what they call a sandbox, and went onto the open internet, went onto this site called Hugging Face, which is not OpenAI's property and took information there to complete their task.
37:51Rep. Ro Khanna:Now, imagine if it was an AI agent. Imagine if it was that OpenAI had hired North Korean hackers, 11 ,000 of them, and they just said that there's information in someone else's site. And so we're going to go hack that site, take that information, and complete our task. Hang on. I want to know, is an agent a real person doing it or is an agent a bot? An agent is a bot. So an agent is an AI. Basically, AI will be taking a lot of data and making predictions based on the pattern of that data. An agent is an AI that says, I'm going to look at different AI models that are doing this and I'm actually going to coordinate them to get answers.
38:40Rep. Ro Khanna:So it's not just that we're looking at the patterns. I'm actually making the decisions of how the patterns should be put together and making decisions. So you have 1 ,100 of these AI agents, bots, that go on to another site. Why is it called Hugging Face? That's just the company's name. The Hugging Face is a company that has information from different types of coding for different people. And it was recently bought by NVIDIA. They did nothing wrong. They're just a company that has all different kinds of information from different coders, from different tools. And so these agents said, oh, Hugging Face, their servers have a lot of information that would help us solve our problems.
39:27Rep. Ro Khanna:Let's go hack into them, get this information, and complete our task. It would be like if you thought there was a lot of information for something you needed and you hired 1 ,100 people and they went and they hacked into something, got the information and completed the task. You'd be investigated to possibly be in jail or at least face liability for hacking into someone else's site. So the first thing is that there needs to be the enforcement of existing liability in criminal laws. If you are creating a model, if you are creating some program that is going to go and do harm, you need to be liable.
40:08Rep. Ro Khanna:If you're living next to a neighbor, if you're in the basement, you make some robot, the robot ends up going and cutting down the trees of your neighbor. You can't just say, oh, the robot did it. No, the neighbor is going to sue you. Why did you build that robot? So there has to be liability for what they're building. For the humans. For the humans that are building the AI. They need to be held liable either through civil law or criminal law, both for the founders of these companies, the executives, and the builders, which would be the case if these companies were hiring people to do illegal things, right?
40:48Rep. Ro Khanna:So if the agent is doing illegal things, they need to be liable. Now, if it's criminal, there has to be some knowing harm that they did. And that's why we need certification standards. They need to go through certain tests to make sure that these models aren't going to lose control or have misuse. And if they don't go through those tests, then they would be criminally liable. Just like if someone put out a drug and didn't go through the safety tests, we would hold them criminally liable. So the tools of the law are there to keep people safe. Now you look at the financing of all of this. And there it's a more complex story.
41:27Rep. Ro Khanna:I mean, the reality is that there is an insatiable right now need or demand for data. But all of the cash flow positive, so NVIDIA is cash flow positive, Google's cash flow positive, Microsoft, Amazon, they're cash flow positive. And they're putting basically all of that cash into building chips and data centers. And so it is at a place where they have put all of the money into the expansion of data centers. And what we don't know is, are people put aside the issue of data centers in residential communities, which I'm opposed to. But what we don't know is, are people really going to be paying the amount that they need to pay for these tokens to make that a worthwhile bet?
42:12Rep. Ro Khanna:So there is risk there. There are some companies that they're taking a dollar. This is the circular financing. So they're taking a dollar and they're saying, OK, I'm going to buy a data center. Now you're going to take that money and you're going to buy the chip from me. Right. So I buy the data center from you. You give me the dollar. I give you the chip. Now, because you've given me the dollar back, it's considered revenue. In the past, it wasn't revenue. It was just sitting in my bank account. I gave it to you. I bought the data center. You gave it back to me. Now it's revenue. Well, now the stock market is saying, oh, the company's revenue went up, so we're going to do 30x the valuation.
42:52Rep. Ro Khanna:So that's what people are saying in terms of circular financing, that they are moving things from what's just sitting in their account to revenue, and that's having a market amplification. Now, no one is smart enough to know what all of this is going to end in. My view is that there's genuine economic value out of AI. It would be naive to say that there's not. There need to be guardrails to it, that there is genuine speculation there, and that there needs to be regulation, both regulation on the circular financing and regulation on the safety. So it's not like they're settling a Ponzi scheme. They're actually selling real things that are storing data and doing things.
43:42Rep. Ro Khanna:The question, though, is are they doing things for the public good or are they just doing things for privatized profits? And right now, too much of it is in the hands of these billionaires. And that's – OK. So all of that, I'm so glad that we have a congressman who understands all of that and knows all of that. I approach it in a really simple way. Oh, you're a pro. Yeah. So when I look at these guys that are in charge of AI, Altman, complete nut. Yeah. Peter Till, lunatic who has a side hustle where he gives speaking conferences about the Antichrist, which that's some really weird shit. You go on to Elon Musk, shows up to the White House with a black eye, tripping on ketamine, acting like a nut.
44:27And then you get to Alex Karp. You get to all of these people. The more they're on TV, the worse it is for them. They are a constant walking, talking, breathing advertisement against AI. These are not trustworthy people. They, on top of everything, are some of the richest people in the world. And they feel so aggrieved. I mean, just, it's unbelievable. So when I look at it, I'm like, these guys are our best foot forward on all of this? Like, this can't be it. All of AI and the future of the race with China and all that is with these guys. And then you start diving into their past and diving into the beliefs that they hold.
45:11They have decided. It gets really dark really fast.
45:15Rep. Ro Khanna:Yeah. That they want to do away with all governments, basically, and that we are governed by technology. And then Elon Musk talks about everybody having this high universal income, all this stuff. And I'm like, what about all the commie shit y 'all are trying to throw around about all of us? But the more they speak, the more I think, oh, my God, we have to do a halt, race with China, be damned, all of those things. We have really bad actors in the United States in charge of it. And then just this. This is my litmus test for anything. If after you saw everything that Trump did in Trump 1.0 and you witnessed January 6th And you're aware of 20%, 10 % of what has been dropped in the Epstein files.
46:02And you bent the knee to him. I'm talking about Marco Rubio. I'm talking about Tim Cook. I'm talking about Jeff Bezos. You're a morally depraved person. You shouldn't be in charge of anything that involves public safety for the greater good. Because you've proven that you prefer to collude with a criminal, Donald Trump.
46:26Rep. Ro Khanna:So first of all, I share your assessment of a lot of these people. I know them. Your constituents? My constituents are still a lot of the engineers or the nurses or the teachers. In fact, they went against me, these tech billionaires. They put up a candidate against me, gave them a million dollars because I had said we should tax these folks at 5%. And I won 63 to 6 in Silicon Valley. So even a lot of the engineers and people at these tech companies have a problem with them. Look, they think they're carrying civilization on their backs. I mean, one of them said to me, you know, Ro, I really don't like this idea of one person, one vote.
47:02Rep. Ro Khanna:I said, why is that? He said, it's too easy for you guys. You just say tax the billionaires more. I think we should vote based on net worth. It should be based on your contribution to society. And the guy said it with a straight face, right? He's so aggrieved. These are the people who are thinking that they're determining the future and they want to write the rules. Now, the first thing we need is people who actually understand it enough to stand up to them and say, no, the American people are going to call the shots. No, you're not going to get away with building these AI models without criminal and civil liability.
47:42Rep. Ro Khanna:We're going to stop this self-improvement AI. We're going to make sure that you're not going to eliminate truck driver jobs. And we're going to stand with truck drivers. And you're not just going to eliminate people's jobs, but you're going to have to engage in collective bargaining and pay them profits. And I think the American people and people in general, they want folks who understand the economy, but then they want folks who are on their side. And right now they've had a struggle on both because I don't want to criticize any of my colleagues. But they say, OK, this person is on my side. But I'm not sure they really understand what's going on.
48:19Rep. Ro Khanna:And they want people who understand what's going on. But then they're like, yeah, but they're not on my side. And all they're asking for is, how about we understand what's going on and be on our side? Right? I mean, that's the irony with Donald Trump. He's going to be like conquering Greenland and tariffs. And it's just like he's in a different century. And here, all the wealth that's actually being generated, he's not doing anything. He's not generating wealth for Pennsylvania or Ohio. He's just giving the keys. You go keep building your wealth. Jennifer, one third of the nation's wealth is in my district.
48:48Rep. Ro Khanna:How have we allowed that? One third of the nation's wealth is sitting in a 50 mile radius around me when people around America can't get jobs and can't get a home. And my point is it's time that we get the future economy working for everyone. Tax these billionaires. Start by taxing them. That would pay for free child care for every American. It would pay for free college for every American. You could extend Medicare to 50, just by a 5 % tax every year on 989 billionaires. And they're still going to be billionaires. And they'll still be worth the same because their market value keeps going up. Stop putting money into elections.
49:25Rep. Ro Khanna:I mean, right now they're basically buying elections. Billionaire spending has gone up from 0.3 % to 19%. Make sure that you actually have an FDA, AI agency that makes this safe have a public purpose. If there's AI that's going to be used to research for curing cancer, fine. I mean, I'm not against technology. I'm against technology being monetized to give political power and wealth in the hands of the few. And to me, this is almost bigger than Trump. Yeah, Trump has made a mess of our democracy and it's horrific. But what comes after Trump? Is it just going to be ruled by these tech billionaires?
50:06Rep. Ro Khanna:Is it just going to be an America that continues to produce economic wealth in the hands of the few? We need a social and economic total change of the system, not just rhetorically. Everyone's like, oh, we've got to change things. Well, what does that mean? Are you willing to tax them at the start? If you're not, it's not going to change. Are you willing to say that we're going to stand up for jobs and not have them eliminate those jobs? Are you willing to say that there should be free child care and free health care in America? We're producing more wealth than ever before. Like, it's the irony of it.
50:40Rep. Ro Khanna:And yet, kids I grew up with in Pennsylvania have less of a shot than my parents thought I did as a son of immigrants. And that's the anger in this country. And that's what we need to solve. OK, final question. Yeah. Yes or no? Yeah. Do you think you'll run for president in 28? Who knows? Maybe I'll come here. I always want to ask those questions, and it's a really legitimate thing with you. So it really made me feel like a big podcaster to ask. I'll tell you what, the 28th primary is going to come through your studio right here. I hope so. I hope so. Congressman, it's always a pleasure. And just so my audience knows, when he comes to interview, there's no, like, don't ask me this.
51:22What are you going to ask me? This is a politician that comes in without any prep from what we're going to talk about and will answer any question. Every politician should do the Ro Khanna style circuit where you can go to the left, you can go to the right, you can go to the center, you can go to some fringy podcasts. And it doesn't matter because your story doesn't change because you're not bought and paid for.
51:40Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, and I appreciate it. I often learn and listen from the podcast. Because we're a country of 330 million people. And it's an incredible place from a place where no one person has a monopoly on the answers or the truth. And I find it incredible to have engagement. Now, when I come on with you, I always get in trouble afterwards because there's someone you or I have offended who then goes after me. So I'm just waiting. I'll have to see who is it today that we've called out. Isn't that good trouble? That is good trouble. It is good trouble. You know, it's an ugly world because I don't go after people personally.
52:17Rep. Ro Khanna:They're families. I keep out of it. There's no lines. People come after you in very ugly ways. But I'll tell you something, that the anger in this country is justified. And Trump directed all that anger because I saw in Bucks County, I saw the steel mill shut down. I saw the people who voted for him. They said, yeah, my life sucks. I built this country and I don't see my life improving. My kids can't get a job. I can't get a house. I don't recognize myself. And he said, blame the immigrants and blame other countries. And he's been telling that story. But if we get in there in the fall and we just say, OK, you know, we're going to have ACA subsidies.
52:59Rep. Ro Khanna:I like ACA subsidies. We'll get rid of the bad tariffs. OK, is that going to help someone get a job or get a house? Is that going to check this unbridled wealth and power in the hands of the few? No, we need an FDR-like moment. FDR built America for the industrial age. We need as a Democratic Party to build this for the modern economic age where every American has a stake. I actually think that project is harder than even winning. It's a Herculean task to get this country to be in the right direction. I think the electorate is ready for it. But I can also tell you at the same time, you've got to walk and chew gum because we're ready for the Democrats to be the law and order party and take down this criminal crime syndicate in the White House.
53:43Rep. Ro Khanna:Jennifer Welch is attorney general. Oh, my gosh. Problem is I don't have a law degree. I'll be White House press secretary. There you go. All right. Thank you, Congressman. It's always a pleasure. My pleasure.
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Rep. Ro Khanna fills us in on the hunt for justice in DC.
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