The “Epstein class”

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0:56Astead Herndon:And it's only gotten more noticeable in recent months, as issues like the Epstein files and questions about artificial intelligence have seemed to pit the elites against the rest of us. Congressman Ro Khanna is at the center of both of these issues. He wrote the Epstein Transparency Act. He brought one of the survivors of Epstein's abuse to this week's State of the Union. And he's coined the term Epstein class, meaning the group of wealthy and connected individuals that he says deserve accountability, even if they're Democrats. Khanna is also the congressman from Silicon Valley, meaning he's worked with companies like Google and Meta and seen them transition over the years.

1:32Astead Herndon:And he's at the forefront of one of the most important political questions of our moment. Is AI about to put us all out of work? And is the government going to do anything about it? So this week, I travel to Washington, D.C. to talk to Khanna about this and a whole lot more. Let's dig in.

1:57Astead Herndon:Congressman O 'Connor, thank you for joining me. Thanks for having me. I want to talk to you for a lot of reasons, but specifically about two issues most clearly. I think that with this second Trump administration, some of the big dramas have been expected, you know, over immigration, over things like the economy. But things like the Epstein files and things like AI and the future of work have become these topics. I feel like you are really right at the center of both of those. I wanted to start with the Epstein files. This has become such a large part of the work you're doing in Congress. I just wanted to know where that started for you.

2:26Astead Herndon:How did you become the voice for this issue or one of them?

2:31Rep. Ro Khanna:I have traveled to a lot of rural towns, factory towns. I've done a lot of podcasts of Trump voters. And I knew that this was something that Trump campaigned on, that he was going to hold the least accountable, that rich and powerful people were getting away with breaking the law and that that was wrong. And that's really what started my interest. Can you give us a status update?

2:51Astead Herndon:Obviously, there's been a massive document dump, but it can be hard to keep track of. How much have we gotten?

2:57Rep. Ro Khanna:How much is still out there? At least 50 % still has been hidden, covered up. But what has been released is shocking. Messi and I didn't think we'd get this far. I mean, they've released a fair amount. It's still that they're keeping the worst stuff. But what they've released is not a good look at our elite class. It's not a good look at the Epstein class. I mean, these are powerful people in business in Silicon Valley, in Hollywood, who are visiting Epstein's Island, knowing young girls are being abused, knowing young girls are being raped. And every day a shoe drops. Now, other countries are prosecuting.

3:31Rep. Ro Khanna:They are prosecuting Lord Mendelsohn. They're prosecuting former Prince Andrew, former prime minister of Norway, leaders in France. We are seeing resignations of powerful law firm people and powerful banks, but we have not yet seen investigations and prosecutions.

3:46Astead Herndon:Yeah, we haven't seen that level of accountability, particularly legal accountability here. But I know that you've been focused on a couple of documents most specifically, the 302 victim interview statements, the prosecutor memo from 2007. I wanted to know for the documents you've both been focused on, have we gotten those?

4:03Rep. Ro Khanna:No, but the issue is broader than that. It's not just the 302 statements of the survivors about the president. It's the survivor statements about the many men who may have abused or raped them. A lot of those 302 files have been redacted, and we need to get that information. That's where the survivors tell us who were the men who abused them. And the prosecution memo tells us why these charges were not brought. Why did Epstein get a sweetheart? We haven't got that either. We have not gotten that.

4:31Astead Herndon:What's the recourse? I mean, obviously, pressure, political pressure, public pressure. Is there like some magic solution that can get you at least the documents you're most looking for?

4:42Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, first of all, the public pressure has worked, right? It worked from Donald Trump saying, absolutely not, not going to sign this bill, to signing a Democrat's bill. I mean, who would have thought that the most significant piece of Democratic legislation that Donald Trump would sign would be the Epstein Transparency Act? And it's worked in terms of first they dumped documents that were total junk in December, and now they've had a real release. It's not a full release, but it's a real release. So we need to continue the public pressure to get them to drip by drip give us more of these documents.

5:09Astead Herndon:You mentioned your work with Congressman Thomas Massie. Obviously, that relationship has been critical for the success of you all's advocacy here. How did that develop?

5:17Rep. Ro Khanna:It was because of our work against these overseas wars. In fact, we're partnering. It hasn't gotten as much attention. But next week, we're going to force a vote to stop the war in Iran. We do not like America getting into wars overseas. We think that's a waste of our money. It's a waste of the lives of our soldiers and that certainly Congress should be saying whether we should go to war or not. So that's really where our friendship came in. Now, of course, I've gotten to know him personally. I know his wife. I have gotten to see him when he lost his wife grieve. I mean, you get to know someone on a personal level when you work with them.

5:51Astead Herndon:I think one of the reasons people have really like, you know, have been focused on this relationship is because it seems more and more rare to see Democrats and Republicans kind of pushing for similar issue, even if they have other disagreements. You know, I do want to ask about the War Powers Resolution that you all are introducing. Obviously, Donald Trump has made very clear that he is considering strikes on Iran. Would that War Powers Resolution, I mean, what is the likelihood that it could, what is the likelihood that it could pass and could force Donald Trump to listen to Congress ahead of something like an Iran strike?

6:25Rep. Ro Khanna:It will be a close vote. We will keep most of the Democratic coalition, I think probably 95 to 97 percent. And then we may pick up a few Republicans, but it's going to be very close. But is this issue different than like Venezuela or other times it's come up? It's a more of a commitment for the United States. I mean, I didn't agree with what we did in Venezuela, but you could say that's in our hemisphere and it wasn't a long drawn out war. This is a country in the Middle East that is 90 million people that if we want to topple the regime would take many, many troops. This is not an easy effort.

6:59Rep. Ro Khanna:Even the Joint Chiefs has said that, Keynes, that this is not like Venezuela. So you have many, this is exactly what Donald Trump ran against. He said no more endless wars. I mean, your work, as you're kind

7:12Astead Herndon:of mentioning here, has included a focus on reaching across the aisle, has basically feels like you'll bring your message to anybody. But on the other hand, I have also heard from Democrats who can sometimes feel that, you know, that legitimizes people they don't want to legitimize, That like, you know, you're at an Epstein press conference next to Marjorie Taylor Greene. Right. Is, you know, that's someone who has pushed some conspiracy theories, has, you know, has – I wonder how you think about that. Like in your advocacy, do you ever worry about legitimizing actors that aren't partners in democracy?

7:43Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, look, I don't compromise my values of where I stand on immigrant rights, on human rights, on LGBT rights, on trans rights, on women's rights. But I work with whoever comes to Congress where I can on issues where there are common ground because that's the only way that we can move forward and make progress. And that's the only way we're going to start to bind the divides in this country. Now, Thomas Massey sends a Christmas card every year where he's got his entire family with machine guns in front of his Christmas tree. Do I agree with him on gun policy? No. I've voted for an assault weapons ban.

8:21Rep. Ro Khanna:I voted for universal background checks. I voted to limit magazine capacity. But if I said, OK, I'm not going to work with Thomas, we would never get the Epstein files released. Marjorie Taylor Greene, she had not shown the courage she did. She gave up her seat in Congress over this. We would not have gotten the files released. So I believe that the key is to be true to your values. Don't throw trans kids under the bus just because we lost an election. Don't go vote for the Lake and Raleigh Act that basically gave ICE the ability to do these raids just because you want to be tough on the border.

8:56Rep. Ro Khanna:But while being true to your values, listen and have dialogue with others where there can be common ground on a principled basis.

9:04Astead Herndon:I wonder if that instinct ever puts you in a difficult position. I know you were someone who were calling for Democrats to work with Doge, for example. That didn't necessarily seem like an earnest effort from this White House to do the things I feel like you wanted it to do. Was that a mistake?

9:18Rep. Ro Khanna:Well, I think when I said that we should work with Doge in the beginning, and I wrote an MSNBC op-ed on it, I said that the place to look is the Department of Defense. I voted against the Department of Defense every single time. It's almost a trillion-dollar budget. And yet when Elon got there, and he had done SpaceX, which disrupted Boeing and Lockheed. And I said to Elon, look, go after defense. That's where it is. He defied that. He started going after USAID in an unconstitutional way. It was less than 1 % of the budget. It's cost hundreds of thousands of lives in Africa. So do I think that it was a mistake in terms of what he ended up doing?

10:05Rep. Ro Khanna:Yeah, but they didn't approach this in terms of any good faith. And once he started doing things that violated basic constitutional rights, I was one of the first people to call him out on it.

10:18Astead Herndon:I'm going to get back to Epstein. You said earlier this month you stood on the House floor and read aloud the names of six men whose identities have been redacted from the files. You said, quote, if we found six men that they were hiding in two hours, imagine how many men they are covering up for in those three million files. What made you decide to go to the floor and read those names out loud?

10:36Rep. Ro Khanna:Because there was no accountability, because they've been covering up so many. It's because Massey and I did that and I went to the floor that two of the people finally had accountability. The Sultan, who was the CEO of Dubai, who resigned, and Les Wexner. And that, yes, he was in other parts of the file, but this was the part which said he was a co-conspirator. And finally they were acknowledging that. Now, it turns out that they did not tell us that six of the men whose pictures were there. were pictured with Ghislaine Maxwell and Jeffrey Epstein because they were part of a lineup. And even when Massey and I asked them for clarification, they just unredacted it without context.

11:19Rep. Ro Khanna:And that was, in my view, a total breach by the Department of Justice. I've since talked to at least one of the men and invited him to come to the Capitol and said that I'm happy to make it very, very clear that they had nothing to do with Epstein. But the problem here is the way the Justice Department has redacted these files.

11:42Astead Herndon:I was going to ask you about that because obviously the DOJ later pushed back and said that several of those men were completely random, had no connection to him. Les Wexner has said the same thing. Do you have any concern about getting ahead of where the legal proceedings were?

11:55Rep. Ro Khanna:No. My concern is that the DOJ is covering up. My concern is that the DOJ is still covering up for predators. My concern is that the DOJ did not provide the context for lineup when they could have. And when Massey and I asked them for that, my concern is that there are so many people in these files that they still are protecting. And the question is, why are they protecting these rich and powerful people? And there's still so many of these survivors whose names they're exposing. So they have zero credibility around this issue. And that's why it took the dramatic step of having to go to the House floor to put the pressure on getting some kind of accountability.

12:37Astead Herndon:I totally hear you, and I don't want to downplay the reality of the information that we have seen from this stuff, and I think the kind of grassroots desire for accountability. But I've also heard over the last couple weeks increasing concerns about whether, you know, this is putting people in uncomfortable positions who weren't supposed to be there, or whether this has amounted to something of a witch hunt, or what's the kind of limit here. Do you have any concern that the kind of internet sleuthing of it all is painting a group of people that you call the Epstein class maybe with too broad of a brush?

13:09Rep. Ro Khanna:I'm more concerned about the predators who weren't being prosecuted, right? If there was a balance, there are more people who have gotten away with things who are part of this Epstein class than who are being branded in a witch hunt. I mean, I don't subscribe or want a witch hunt in any way, but the real issue here is the people who are being protected. The real issue is two tiers of justice in America. The real issue is people with power and wealth using it to be above the law and escape even investigation or prosecution. And the names who have been exposed are people who have sent emails like Bill Gates.

13:44Rep. Ro Khanna:I'm not saying he did anything criminal, but just the fact that he is corresponding and not been asked, what did you see? What did you know? I mean, it is shocking to the conscience. Now, do I think that if someone sent an email to Epstein before Epstein was convicted or if someone showed up before Epstein was convicted to an event that they should be shamed? No, there always has to be context. But right now what I've seen is far more on the end of no accountability than on the side of some kind of witch hunt.

14:27Astead Herndon:Support for the show comes from 1Password. A password manager should be the first security purchase you make for your team. Why? Because compromised passwords are the number one way bad actors attack companies, and small businesses are their favorite targets. But unlike a lot of security challenges, passwords actually have a pretty simple solution. 1Password lets you manage all your business credentials so you can feel confident that your data stays secure as your company grows. Find out more at 1password.com slash podcast offer and start securing every login.

15:06Astead Herndon:How would you define the Epstein class?

15:09Rep. Ro Khanna:Rich and powerful people who feel entitled that they can use that wealth to be above the law.

15:16Astead Herndon:I mean, that certainly rings true to the behavior we have seen from these files and what we know to be the facts of, you know, Epstein, Maxwell and the people they surrounded themselves with. The question is whether that, you know, how is that different than billionaires or elites or whatever?

15:34Rep. Ro Khanna:There are billionaires like Jensen Wang who are public-spirited, wanting to think of what Bill – well, thanks. I don't agree with him on everything. Very committed to the community. A great immigrant story. I would never describe someone like Jensen Wang as part of the Epstein class. So it's not just the billionaires. It's a specific – No, they're billionaires who do extraordinary things for the world. Warren Buffett has, by and large, done incredible things. I don't believe that just because someone is a millionaire or just because they're a billionaire, that that makes them suspect. It is the use of your money and privilege to defy the law, to abuse the law, to think you're above the law.

16:15Rep. Ro Khanna:That is what enrages Americans. Most Americans like people to build wealth and admire economic success. It's the corrupting influence is where we draw the line.

16:28Astead Herndon:That makes sense. But a question I wanted to ask you is something we actually explored last week, which is why didn't Democrats push to have these files released while Biden was president?