The Democrat Who Split MAGA Over the Epstein Files

0:01This is The Opinions, a show that brings you a mix of voices from New York Times Opinion. You've heard the news. Here's what to make of it.

0:14I'm David Leonhardt, an editorial director in New York Times Opinion. Today, the House of Representatives is voting on a bill to force the Justice Department to release the Jeffrey Epstein files. And in a major reversal, President Trump is now calling for the House to pass the bill. This issue has been a divisive one for Republicans. And today I'm talking with a man who helped make it so, Congressman Ro Khanna, a California Democrat. Khanna is the co-sponsor of the House bill to release the files. He believes the bill is about getting justice for Epstein's victims. And he also thinks it's about something larger, about the best way to take on Donald Trump and MAGA and to win.

1:01Congressman Khanna, nice to see you. Thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. So Donald Trump reversed course on social media, where he makes many of his big announcements on Sunday night. Where were you when you found out that he was reversing himself? As I was about to get to bed, my phone starts to blow up and they said someone says Donald Trump endorsed your bill. And I said, what do you mean? Because Massey and I were working all weekend texting Republicans we knew trying to get a veto proof vote in the House. And Massey is Thomas Massey, the Kentucky Republican with whom you've been working very closely.

1:38He has been an instrumental partner. So the underlying bill is my bill. But Thomas Massey has the discharge petition that would get the bill to vote in the House. But Donald Trump saw that he was going to lose. I mean, this is the first time it has happened that probably almost 100 Republicans would have voted for a Democratic bill for the Kana Epstein Transparency Act. And he was having Rasmussen, the Republican pollster, a people's pundit, a Republican pollster, say, what are you doing, Donald Trump? You've forgotten the forgotten Americans you campaigned against. So I think he bowed to a reality and now is endorsing our bill.

2:24And so just to walk people who haven't been following this as closely as you have through what happened, you spent months scraping to get just enough Republicans to get their signatures on this petition that then forced the House leadership to hold a bill. The House leadership didn't want to hold a bill. How many Republicans did you ultimately get to sign that petition? We got four. Four. All Democrats and four Republicans. All Democrats, four Republicans. I've been in Congress nine years. It was the most Herculean effort to get that discharge petition through for a few reasons. You had a full court press here by the White House and the Speaker to make this not possible.

3:05You had the Speaker adjourn Congress early in the summer, if you remember, trying to get the whole issue to go away. At the same time, you had the White House launch the most intense pressure campaign on Marjorie Taylor Greene, Nancy Mace, and Lauren Boebert to get them to remove their names from this petition. And they have the three along with Massey. Those are the only four Republicans. They're only four. So with Massey, they came out right away. We're going to primary you. The president's team is going to run the campaign against you. Why? Yes, they didn't like what Massey was doing, but they were also sending a signal to every other Republican in the caucus, don't defy Donald Trump.

3:43And Donald Trump unendorses Marjorie Taylor Greene. I mean, can you imagine this? Someone said to me he's treating Ghislaine Maxwell better than he's treating Marjorie Taylor Greene these days. Once Trump starts to unendorse Marjorie Taylor Greene, we think, OK, people are going to have understandably cold feet. I mean, do you really want Donald Trump endorsing a primary challenger against you over this vote? And yet Massey thought, and from the people I was talking to, that we thought that some Republicans would still defy him. And obviously that's what Donald Trump calculated. And ultimately it was a surrender to justice.

4:22But it shows that you can get Donald Trump to come to your side as opposed to having to cave to his side. We'll come back to that. One more thing. Once we get this vote, now that Trump has endorsed it, what's your prediction? What do you think the vote's going to be? Nothing is done until it's done, but I'd be surprised if it's not close to unanimous. Close to unanimous. I mean, at this point, what does a Republican gain by voting against the release of the files? Basically, Trump has told you, don't do it. I mean, Trump saw that his MAGA coalition was splintering, and the last thing he could have had is 100 Republicans vote for a Democratic bill in defiance of what he wanted.

5:02Obviously, he has enough political instincts to realize how much he was losing on this issue. Okay, let's go back. You and I have known each other for years. We don't normally talk about things like the Jeffrey Epstein files, which is this sweeping conspiracy. You and I normally talk about wonky subjects like economic policy. Well, I taught economics before I was in Congress, and if I hadn't won on my third try for Congress, I'd be teaching economics somewhere at some school. And for people who don't know you, you represent Silicon Valley, but you are a populist in many ways. You endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2016.

5:38Co-chaired his campaign. Co-chaired his campaign in 2020, correct? 2020. I'm sorry. Yes, I endorsed him in 2016 and co-chaired it in 2020. And so I'm curious, how is it that you got interested in the Epstein files of all subjects and decided to push this issue? The truth of it is that I have been going on podcasts to argue for my economic patriotism agenda, an agenda that says we've got to focus on factory towns that have been hollowed out in rural communities. And I was going and visiting these communities. And so I was on Theo Vaughn and I was on the flagrant and I was going to places like Johnstown, Pennsylvania and going to places like Warren, Ohio.

6:19And when I was there, the issue would come up about the Epstein class. That's what they called it. They said, well, are you on the side of the forgotten Americans or on the side of the Epstein class? I realized how much the abuse by rich and powerful men of young girls and the sense of a rape violent that Epstein had set up for people embodied the corruption of government. And then many of them saw Donald Trump as fighting this corrupt government. and standing up for forgotten Americans. And this was the symbol for the most disgusting abuse and corruption of our government. And so when the issue came up that Pam Bondi said that there was nothing to release, I knew that this was a betrayal of the core promise that Trump had made to MAGA voters.

7:10And I said, we should push for the release. And I put out some tweet initially, and then we introduced a bill. And then Massey and I have worked together for years. We have real friendships. And he called me and he said, well, why don't we try to collaborate on this instead of just doing something partisan? And I think we can reshape the coalition. In the process, I then met the survivors. And then when you meet the survivors, then it became personal. I mean, these are women who are talking about being raped at the age of 14 and being told to recruit other junior high and high school students.

7:44And I think I had the same experience that Marjorie Taylor Greene or Nancy Mace or Thomas Massey had once you meet these survivors. I mean, it's just one of the most horrific crimes in our country's history. And is part of it that the survivors have talked to you about being abused by men other than Jeffrey Epstein, and that's why you want the files to get out? Yes. I mean, the survivors have said things like, there's still buildings named after the men who abused me. And there's two things about the abuse. One is the explicit abuse and rape of girls who are 14 or 15. But then there's also sex trafficking where Epstein trafficked girls who were over the age of consent, but two, rich and powerful men who visited the island or were in his network.

8:35And as some of these survivors have said, he farmed us out. And once these files are released, people can judge for themselves the abusive conditions of those young girls. But one of the survivors, which really struck me, said, Roe, I don't remember what happened to me. And I want to see the files to understand the trauma I went through. And for these survivors, some of them voted for Trump. It's not personal. In fact, we're having a press conference. And one of the asks of the survivors will be to meet with Donald Trump to have these files released. But anyone who meets them realizes that, look, there were over a thousand victims.

9:11The idea that only two people would be doing this with a thousand victims just doesn't make sense. I mean, it's more than Epstein and Maxwell. It's a symbol for the recklessness of an elite that could do things without impunity. It's heartbreaking and it's haunting and it's infuriating, which is part of why I imagine it resonated with so many people. I also get the sense because podcasts like Theo Vaughn's and Megyn Kelly's and Ben Shapiro's, two others you were on, are also at the core of a sort of debate within the Democratic Party about how much should the Democratic Party reach out. I imagine, setting aside this particular issue, you heard some criticism or at least discomfort from your fellow Democrats saying you're going on these shows, they sometimes say bad things, you're legitimizing them, you're platforming them.

10:04Did you get any pushback to going on these podcasts? I got a tremendous amount of pushback before 2024 and probably some pushback after because I've gone on Ben Shapiro. I've gone on Tim Pool. I've gone on PBD. I've gone on Tucker's Fox News. I've gone on Laura Ingram. And so in some cases, people said, well, why are you platforming them? And I'd say they don't need me to have a platform. They already have a platform. I'm engaged in listening and exchange of ideas. The other thing that, and it's just temperamental, people would be disappointed often when they would listen to some of these podcasts because they'd expect me to go there to score a point.

10:47You know, I owned David Lenhart in this conversation. I showed him who had the better argument as opposed to just going and having a conversation and trying to listen and exchanging ideas. I wasn't there in this, quote, unquote, persuasion. This is the problem, I think, with some of the thinking on our side is, OK, let's go do the podcast three months before the election to get our message out. How about let's go do the podcast to have a conversation with people who may not have the same view as ours to learn, to listen, and to shape our thinking? And that seems to be what happened here, which is you went on these podcasts.

11:25You often were talking either about economic populism or you were talking about your desire to restrict a president's war powers. And then you heard about the Epstein issue and it helped give you a sense for how much that was resonating. It gave me a sense of how deep it went. I didn't really follow in details. Now, there was a whole island of people with a thousand plus victims abused so that the scale of it, it resonated. And it occurred to me how many people view this as the central example of the corruption of their own government. And they many of them said, look, they thought that more there were more Democrats than Republicans involved.

12:08I mean, I think that's probably because of Trump's messaging. And I don't believe that to be the case. I think it's widespread. But this was the sentiment. And so the emotional power of it is something that I grasped only because I was in these communities. I was on these podcasts and I was talking to people in the in the MAGA base. And it might be the case that there were more Democrats involved. I mean, Epstein operated mostly out of New York, and there are many more Democrats in elite New York circles than there are in many other parts of the country. It very well may be. And that's what a lot of the people believed on these podcasts and in these communities.

12:43And, you know, in some cases, they said, well, why didn't you make a bigger issue of it, right? I mean, they thought that Trump really has brought this to the forefront, that Democrats have not been willing to speak out on it because we've kind of been part of this corrupt system. And many would say things like Trump is an imperfect man, but God doesn't send perfect people into an imperfect world. And he's going to be fighting this corrupt system, even though he's not perfect. He's going to tear it down. And I would often say to people after I go into these communities, you know, when I was in Aliquippa or Johnstown, I said, if I was in one of those communities, I'd vote everyone out, too.

13:28Why wouldn't you? Those towns have been abandoned for 40 years. And it's not just the working class. And I think this is one of the places the Democrats make a mistake. It's not just the person who's making$13 an hour who should be making$15 or$17 or$20 an hour. It's people who are doctors or who are lawyers or who are small business owners who think their entire communities have been hollowed out. The pride is gone. Their jobs were shipped overseas. They see districts like mine that are succeeding. They think they built America and a governing class has abandoned them. And Trump evoked that sentiment and he said, I'm going to tear down this corrupt system.

14:03I would often say, well, we need to build things up. But they said, well, your party is not even understanding what needs to be torn down. And the Epstein class often became exhibit one in what they thought that the status quo had protected, didn't care enough about. And so I think it's deeper than just the economics. It was this sense that we were – these people felt they were losing their country. It's really striking how loyal and united the Republican Party has been with President Trump. He has adopted all kinds of policies that the Republican Party not so long ago would have rejected, like tariffs.

14:37and the Republican Party has lined up behind him. This is an issue in which there was initially a small but very vocal betrayal of him in his eyes. And then it looked like if he hadn't flipped this week, he would have had dozens of House Republicans crossing him. When you started to push this issue, did you think that it was a wedge that could split MAGA? No, not initially. Initially, I thought that maybe Trump would quickly come around to supporting Massey and my bill. And then I thought they'd find some way to make sure that our bill didn't get the 218 signatures because we were up against the speaker.

15:29We were up against the president. And I did not know, you know, in honesty, where the MAGA base would go. Because one of the things, having just been to so many small towns, rural communities, factory towns for the past nine years, that I think we don't understand is the emotional connection that Trump built with these communities. Because he was one of the first people to say, you got shafted, you got screwed, and I'm going to bring back your pride. And so they give him a lot of latitude. because they think he was the first to emotionally speak to their ambition and their pain and their hopes.

16:07But what started to happen is as we built momentum for this, I started to see commentators first in the MAGA base say, you know what? This is really important. This is core to what Trump ran on. People like Robert Barnes and People's Pundit and Rasmussen. And some of your New York Times readers may not know who these folks are, but trust me, they have a big following in the MAGA world. They have platforms. They have platforms. And that's what I started to say to Massey and Marjorie Taylor Greene that, you know, there's something deeper here. This goes to Trump's core promise that he's going to take on a governing elite.

16:45And the Epstein issue really spoke to his core promise and is betraying that. Let me push you a little bit on a couple of the specific aspects of releasing these files. It is not a normal order of business for the Justice Department and the FBI to release the internal files of an investigation. And it seems to me that there are some good reasons for that. We know from history that FBI files, they have lots of facts in them. They also have lots of speculation and they have some untruths in them. That's what investigations have. You just think about the things in the FBI files about Martin Luther King.

17:23You think about the fact that there were questions about whether Frank Sinatra was part of a communist conspiracy and in doing something crazy with his dentist. And a lot of this stuff just isn't true. And so the idea of in this particular case, which is obviously horrific, but the idea in this particular case that we're going to release investigative files as opposed to prosecute more people. What's the argument for that? Well, you've given the best argument for why the files should not be released that Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and Kash Patel have never made. I mean, they often say, oh, we're protecting victims.

18:02But the real substantive argument is the Justice Department's policies. You don't publicize things unless you charge someone. And you certainly don't want a Justice Department with the view that we're going to release evidence on anyone during an investigation as a general principle. especially if the Justice Department is being politicized. I mean, it can destroy people's reputations. What I would say here, though, is that these survivors have been denied justice for decades, that this was one of the greatest corruption scandals in American history, that you had very powerful people with extreme wealth and connections to politicians and bankers have a whole system of abusing young girls and that the Justice Department failed them, justice fail them.

18:48And in this case, there needs to be an exception to expose all of these rich and powerful men who were either covering up the abuse or participating in it in some way. So do I think that the files should be released? Absolutely. And the files that are protecting victims' identities. And the next president, if those files aren't released, should release them. But do I think that this should be the norm of Justice Department policy going forward? I don't. And so the way you think about it is these files probably do include some information that's not true, including about the victims. And you're saying the victims' names will be shielded.

19:30And if they include untrue information about the people who are accused or unfair accusations, your view is that is unfortunate and they will be able to fight back in the court of public opinion. But given the horror of these crimes, you'd rather have more information out there, even if some of it is not reliable. Given the horror of these crimes and given that I know from talking to the victims and victims lawyers that there are many powerful men who have done bad things and have not faced any consequence. Given that unique scenario, yes, on balance, it's important to get this all out there. I don't think, when this is all out there, that it necessarily will be enough for criminal convictions, just given the passage of time and how hard those criminal cases are.

20:23But if people are not going to have their buildings named after them or scholarships named after them or be sitting on boards or sitting on prestigious institutions or submitting op-eds to The New York Times, you know, I don't think that's the worst consequence. And people will have the right to defend themselves, obviously, in public opinion. I think the American people will be fair. But you're right that there is a big risk. There is a risk in these things of information getting out that's not all true. Let me ask you one more concern about releasing the files. It's going to be this Justice Department that releases them.

20:58And Donald Trump has weaponized this Justice Department. And so do you worry that the real-world outcome of this will be Donald Trump's Justice Department releases the information in these files that makes Democrats and other people they don't like look bad and buries the information about Republicans and people they do like in the file? That it basically becomes a new version of elite cover-up? It's a concern that we have to take seriously, but there are several ways to address it. One, I, along with Jim Comer, subpoenaed the Epstein estate. Why is this relevant? There's independent source that's also having the documents, and it would be dangerous for Trump to tamper with the documents.

21:48Second, the survivor's lawyers have seen a lot of the files. So there are other people who know what's in there. Third, there are people in the Justice Department, including in the Biden administration, who've seen the files. So, again, another check on just selective leaks. But my final point is, while I want the investigation, obviously, to be objective and not political in the documents, to be honest, if they take out Democrats or Democratic donors, so be it. I do not have any sympathy for people who participated in it. But we do need to make sure that it's not politicized because that's ultimately not going to be good for the survivors.

22:25I guess the one point on this issue that I hope readers come away with is that the group that has been most shafted over decades are the survivors. And they should be front and center with how these investigations are happening, what's happening to the falls, and what's being released. So after the House presumably passes this bill by a very wide margin on Tuesday, it'll head to the Senate. Do you think it'll pass the Senate? It will pass the Senate if it's taken up by the Senate. One of the reasons we're having this press conference is to put pressure on to make sure that Trump supporting the House bill doesn't kill it of momentum.

23:01The Senate needs to take it up. The Senate needs to then pass it, and the president would then sign it into law. And does the Senate have mechanisms like the discharge petition in the House in which the Senate can force that it be taken up even if John Thune, the Republican Senate leader, doesn't want to take it up? Senators have more power than House members, so they can, people like someone like Rand Paul or others can say, look, if you're not taking this up, we'll slow down the business of the Senate. And I do think that for the Senate, there's a bigger mechanisms to get it to be taken up. You don't need a discharge petition.

23:35Let's end by broadening this out a little bit and also focusing on Trump and the MAGA movement. You, I know, think that Donald Trump won in part because he spoke to a legitimate anger, but that he is not actually doing much, if anything, to solve the problems of Americans who are legitimately angry. And my guess is you will feel similarly about the Republicans who run for Congress in 2026 and whoever is the Republican nominee in 2028, whether it's J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio or you name it. Or Marjorie Telegre. Or Marjorie Telegre. Maybe I won't feel, you know, let's see. And so I guess I'm curious, you've just had success splitting MAGA in ways that relatively few Democrats have done over the 10 years that Donald Trump has been dominating American politics.

24:26Are there any broader lessons here or is this issue sui generis? Are there ways in which this might apply to economic policy, to foreign policy, to social issues, to the cost of living? Yes, I believe so. Let me be a little bit provocative. The Democrats need to spend more time attacking a system that has betrayed forgotten Americans than simply attacking Donald Trump. Now, that doesn't mean that we shouldn't resist his lawlessness and stand up against his assault on the Constitution. But since the day Donald Trump won, what voters have heard from us is all the ways that he's terrible and that we're going to stop him.

25:19And what they haven't heard from us is, well, why did you vote for him? What didn't you like about the system? What is it that we've been doing wrong as a country? And by asking people who voted for Donald Trump what they want to see changed and earning their trust that we are going to represent that change, by doing that, we have a much better chance of defeating Trumpism than just a frontal assault on calling Trump every name in the book. We can do that. We can build that kind of a coalition, a majority coalition, by seeing their views on corruption. They believe that we become a nation of war.

26:04They're anti-war. And they want us to be focused on hollowed-out communities, hollowed-out towns in rebuilding the economy and believing that place matters, that it should matter that people want to live in a community where they've had generations. And you can't just have this rootless global elite that says, let capital go wherever it goes. Let AI develop as fast as it's going to develop, and everything else is going to magically work out. That we need to have an actual vision of speaking to place and to – I call it economic patriotism to offering an economic vision. That's really interesting because I do see a through line from the Epstein case to some of these other issues, corruption, tax cuts for rich people, Trump's sort of new warmongering, which is a hypocrisy, right?

26:55Trump and much of MAGA has shown a hypocrisy. And so what I was tempted to say is, well, you could take the hypocrisy charges with Epstein and then apply it to these other areas. It's interesting to me you're making a subtly different case, which is Democrats need to spend less time just criticizing Trump, just talking about how he is hypocritical, which he is, and offering a positive vision in much the way in this narrow case your positive vision was release the files. Yes, and often I would say it's not just about Donald Trump, right? If I had made this day one, this is the way to get Donald Trump.