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AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
The federal government shutdown has entered its 43rd day, the longest in U.S. history. The House of Representatives returning to session today after a 54-day recess to vote on a short-term funding bill to end the shutdown. The Senate approved the funding measure Monday after seven Democrats and an Independent senator backed the Republican bill, even though the bill did not include an extension of the Affordable Care Act subsidies, which had been a key demand for Democratic lawmakers.
Some Democrats in the House, including our next guest, Congressmember Ro Khanna of California, are now calling for Senator Chuck Schumer to resign his position as Minority Leader. Ahead of today’s funding bill vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson scheduled to finally swear in Democratic Representative-Elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election, but Johnson refused to swear her in for seven weeks. Grijalva has said she intends to be the final signature needed on a discharge petition to force a vote on the full release of the Epstein files by the Department of Justice.
Democratic Congressmember Ro Khanna of California joins us now from Capitol Hill. Let’s start with the shutdown ending and your call for Senator Schumer to step down as Senate Minority Leader. Can you explain what exactly happened and what you want to see happen today, Congressmember Khanna?
CONGRESSMEMBER RO KHANNA: Well, he failed to meet the moral test of this moment. There are 20 million people in this country who are about to see huge premium hikes in their healthcare, premium hikes going from $44 a month to $2,600 a month. And we got no concession, no extension of the healthcare tax credit. That’s what we fought on. We should have continued to fight for healthcare.
What this does show is the entire healthcare system is broken. We need Medicare for All, we need to actually get national health insurance in America. But at the very least, we need to protect the Affordable Care Act subsidies so people aren’t losing their health insurance.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer speaking on the Senate floor Sunday.
SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER: We ask President Trump to step in and meet with us to deliver lower healthcare for Americans, and instead, Donald Trump has taken the American people hostage. From cutting off food, aid to hungry families, and vets, and seniors and kids, to manufacturing flight cancellations to cutting off home-heating aid while he builds a billion-dollar ballroom with gold-plated toilets. Therefore, therefore, I must vote no. This healthcare crisis is so severe, so urgent, so devastating for families back home that I cannot, in good faith, support this CR that fails to address the healthcare crisis.
AMY GOODMAN: But the key here is, Congressmember Ro Khanna, although he voted against, he’s also the leader of the Democrats. And we now know that since the beginning of the shutdown, they have been meeting, led by New Hampshire Senator Jeanne Shaheen, with the Republicans to work out this deal. The question is, what did Schumer do? While he may not have voted with the defecting group, did he tell them they can’t?
CONGRESSMEMBER RO KHANNA: Well, that’s the exact problem. He was consulted every day those eight senators were negotiating. That’s not from me, that’s from the senators themselves. His number-two, Dick Durbin, voted for the deal. Coincidentally, all the eight senators are not up for reelection in 2026. So, he clearly did not stop them from making this deal, and he very well could have. And, look, there are people who were being hurt. He’s absolutely right that this president was showing enormous cruelty taking away SNAP benefits.
But the answer to that is not to capitulate because then he will continue to use that kind of cruelty. The answer to that would have been moral clarity, that we continue to fight in the courts and everywhere for the SNAP benefits, and we continue to make the case that we need healthcare for the American people. The president was panicking. He realized that he had lost the election over this, he was talking about ending the filibuster. We caved too soon.
AMY GOODMAN: So, John Thune, the Senate Majority Leader, has agreed that there will be a separate vote on extending the ACA subsidies. Of course, the Senate could vote that down. The House Speaker has not even agreed to that. So, what do you know about what Johnson is going to do? We’re talking about in just a few weeks, subsidies for millions of people will end, and people will be paying, what, two, three, perhaps four times what they paid in the past and ultimately might not be able to have health insurance.
CONGRESSMEMBER RO KHANNA: Amy, you’re right. And Mike Johnson’s not going to bring any extension of the Affordable Care Act tax break. Anyone following Congress knows that. The senators know that. But just to put a human face on this, someone came to me at the airport. He said his father has cancer in Arizona. His father’s premium is going up from $44 a month to $2,600 a month. The deductibles are going up from $800 to $6,000.
This is going to be unfortunately a death sentence for many Americans. It’s going to rip away healthcare from millions of Americans. It’s going to expose how bankrupt and morally hollow our private health insurance system is. We need to, of course, get the relief to people like the taxi driver in Arizona by extending the Affordable Care Act tax rates, but this needs to start a conversation in this country for national health insurance. Bernie Sanders was right. This party needs to fight again for Medicare for All. That has to be the solution in this mess.
AMY GOODMAN: Have Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer lost the confidence of the Democratic caucus?
CONGRESSMEMBER RO KHANNA: Well, Chuck Schumer certainly has. Hakeem Jeffries is unifying us in saying, “We are going to fight for the Affordable Care Act tax credits. We are not going to compromise.” So, he wants to take the fight to Trump and to Johnson.
AMY GOODMAN: Will Republicans be joining you today, people like Marjorie Taylor Greene, who talked about her son losing or having his benefits increased to a level that is unacceptable?
CONGRESSMEMBER RO KHANNA: I am in conversation with her and others. Obviously, I’ve been working closely with her on the full release of the Epstein files. But my hope is that there will be Republicans who see how broken this private health insurance system is and how, on a human level, devastating it’s going to be if they don’t extend the tax credits. Are they right that we’re subsidizing private insurance companies, who are making record profits? Yes.
But what is the alternative right now? The alternative is for 20 million Americans to lose their healthcare. So, what we need to do is provide these tax credits, but then reform the system. We need to make sure we have national health insurance, like every other Western industrial country in the world. And Democrats need to be screaming that from the rooftops right now while people see how utterly morally bankrupt this system is.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to that issue of the Epstein files. Ahead of today’s funding bill vote, House Speaker Mike Johnson is scheduled to finally swear in Democratic Representative-Elect Adelita Grijalva, who won a special election. But Johnson refused to swear her in for almost two months. Grijalva has said she intends to be the final signature needed on a discharge petition to force a vote on the full release by the DOJ of the Jeffrey Epstein files.
Congressmember Khanna, you and Republican Thomas Massie of Kentucky have led the bipartisan effort in the House to force the release of these files. Can you talk about what the swearing in of Adelita Grijalva means, and do you think that Johnson shut down the House over the Epstein files so that he didn’t have to seat Adelita Grijalva?
CONGRESSMEMBER RO KHANNA: I do. Otherwise, why else would he be delaying the Adelita Grijalva swearing in? If the shutdown wasn’t about the Epstein files, he should have sworn in Adelita Grijalva. So, it’s obvious that it had something to do with it. But, look, this has been the last five months of Thomas Massie and my life. We have been fighting for justice for these survivors, we’ve been fighting for a politics that is about forgotten Americans as opposed to this corrupt Epstein class. And we’re a few hours away from Adelita Grijalva being sworn in.
Now, I’m on pins and needles because the White House is putting tremendous pressure on those four Republicans who have signed the petition, trying to get them off. But as soon as Adelita Grijalva gets sworn in today, she will be the 218th signatory. One she signs, it’s locked. Then, you cannot remove your name. And at that point, we will get a vote by early December on the full release of the Epstein files.
That will be a historic vote, and I’m hopeful that we may get 40, 50 Republicans voting with the Democrats, the first time something like that has happened since Donald Trump walked down the escalator. Some people say this could be the first day of him being a lame duck, the day that bill passes.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go to this question of the whistleblower telling the House Judiciary Committee ranking member Jamie Raskin that Maxwell is getting concierge-style treatment at the minimum-security prison camp she was transferred to after speaking with Trump’s former personal lawyer, Todd Blanche, and that she has appealed for a commutation. The whistleblower saying inside the prison camp, they’re saying she won’t be there for long, this possibility of commutation or pardoning, and how she’s being dealt with, even at this minimum-security prison, differently from the others who were there.
CONGRESSMEMBER RO KHANNA: First of all, we need a constitutional amendment in this country to abolish the pardon power. It has been abused dramatically by Donald Trump, by pardoning a foreign crypto billionaire, by pardoning January 6th rioters, and now considering a commutation or a pardon of Maxwell. And it was abused by President Biden in what he did with his family and a judge who took kickbacks while incarcerating kids. So, this needs to be a consensus.
But it is offensive what Trump is considering doing with Maxwell. The survivors who I’ve talked to go in detail about how Maxwell was part of the abuse and rape of underage girls. They are so horrified that someone who did this to them may be pardoned or commuted.
AMY GOODMAN: Congressmember Ro Khanna, we want to thank you for being with us from Capitol Hill, Democratic Congressmember from California. Coming up, we speak to the Public Health and Nutrition Expert, author of The Painful Truth of Hunger in America. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “Freedom is Free” by Chicano Batman, performing in our Democracy Now! Studio.
