This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: So, President Trump has provided over almost a monolithic Republican Party, but now there are cracks. And I think it very much started with the Epstein files, right? You have Congressmembers Nancy Mace, Marjorie Taylor Greene and others who left the Republican Party to join the Democrats — I mean, just on this vote. Now more than a tenth of the current Congress has indicated they will not return to their seats after the midterms. We’re talking about something like well over 40 senators and congressmembers, and the majority of them are Republican. The significance of this?
REP. RO KHANNA: Donald Trump is finally losing his MAGA base. This is the one issue, the Epstein files, where the MAGA base disapproves overwhelmingly of Donald Trump. And it goes to the question: Whose side are you on? Are you on the side of these rich and powerful men who abused young girls and have elite impunity, or are you going to stand with abandoned young girls and the working class? And what the Republicans are starting to see is that Trump has betrayed his own base, that he’s become part of the swamp that he railed against.
And so, you now see, after this discharge petition, there are suddenly tons of discharge petitions in the Congress on all sorts of topics. People are willing to defy Speaker Johnson. They’re willing to defy Donald Trump. Many are thinking about a post-Trump future. If they have aspirations of a political career for the next 10 years, they’re trying to position for their own careers, and less about protecting Donald Trump.
AMY GOODMAN: The significance of Elise Stefanik not only pulling out of the New York Republican — the New York governor’s race, but now ending her congressional career, at least for the moment?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, I took some satisfaction, because she was so over the top in the way she’s gone after universities in this country. And she has been pandering to the worst elements of Trump’s base. And yet, you know, now she’s seeing the writing on the wall. She was not going anywhere in the New York governor’s race, and she sees that they’re going to lose the House majority in 2026.
AMY GOODMAN: So, very quickly, going through a few other issues, and many do actually see them linked to Epstein, one after another dramatic events of the Trump administration, perhaps to pull attention away, and, of course, Venezuela, one bombing after another, that the Pentagon can’t quickly enough release video, except when it comes to the second video of the September 2nd bombing showing the two men who survived the first bombing — they will not release this at this point. And today Hegseth and President Trump are expected to hold some kind of meeting announcement at Mar-a-Lago at 4:30 in the afternoon. What about the U.S. pursuing these oil tankers near Venezuela? The one that’s Chinese-owned, Panamanian-flagged vessel named Centuries was not under U.S. sanction. Is he trying to provoke a war with Venezuela?
REP. RO KHANNA: Yes. It’s of deep concern to me. He is basically trying to have a regime change war on Maduro, trying to put pressure on Maduro to step aside. The risk of having an incident that leads to war has increased. We have more destroyers in the region, in the Caribbean. We are striking boats. We have Marines in Puerto Rico. We have Marines off the — on the coast of Florida. And I, being on the Armed Services Committee, have seen, in a classified setting, the second video. Some of us have said, “Release it. Release it for the American public.”
But I have two concerns. First, why are we going into a regime change war when the president promised no endless wars? And second, why is the American government, in my name, in your name, killing people on these boats without a clear standard of what they have done that is — that justifies the death?
AMY GOODMAN: So, how does Congress stop this?
REP. RO KHANNA: We tried to pass a war powers resolution — McGovern, me, Massie — and we lost by a single vote. And so, we need to get more Republicans and two Democrats convinced that we have to stop another regime change war. We’ve got to build that support in the Congress.
AMY GOODMAN: You’re here in New York, Zohran land. He is going to become mayor on January 1st, midnight of New Year’s Eve. On the day he met President Trump at the White House, when President Trump said he’s not a jihadist — of course, that was actually simply an attack on Elise Stefanik, who always referred to Zohran Mamdani as a jihadist. On the day they met, Congress voted, took a vote against socialism, with many Democrats joining with Republicans. Can you talk about the significance of this vote, as vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus?
REP. RO KHANNA: The problem with the vote is that there’s a group of people, like Zohran, who call themselves democratic socialists. I call myself a progressive capitalist, but democratic socialism does not mean that you’re going to seize the means of production. What they’re talking about is taxing billionaires more, which I agree with, and having things like Medicare for All, free public college. And in providing resolutions that are condemning that, what they are doing is condemning a part of a coalition that wants to tackle income inequality and hold wealth more accountable.
AMY GOODMAN: And this affordability agenda, it’s a real challenge to Republicans, to President Trump himself, but it’s also a challenge to many Democrats. For example, the leader, the Democratic leader of the Senate, Chuck Schumer, who never endorsed Zohran Mamdani. What is your message to Democrats across the country, as a former head of, what, the campaign of Bernie Sanders, who very much endorses Mamdani?
REP. RO KHANNA: Well, my message to Chuck Schumer was: “Step down as minority leader. You’re out of touch with the Democratic base.” But my broader message is, you cannot have a group of elites who are piling up wealth. In my district in Silicon Valley, $18 trillion of wealth, Amy, one-third of the entire national stock market, is in my district. We need to tax billionaires, but we need to tax that wealth. We need to have Medicare for All. We need to have $10-a-day child care. We need to stop Wall Street from buying single-family homes. We need a living wage. We need free public college and free trade schools. We need a Marshall Plan for America’s economic development.
It’s not just about mouthing the words “affordability.” It’s about changing an economic system that has accumulated wealth in the hands of a few and abandoned working- and middle-class Americans across this country. I believe that we need an FDR-like, bold, progressive economic agenda. I call it new economic patriotism. But people like Zohran, people like Bernie Sanders, others, Greg Casar, Pramila Jayapal, many of us are working towards that for a Democratic Party that is actually going to live up to those ideals.
AMY GOODMAN: And finally, President Trump renaming Trump-Kennedy Center for the Arts. The sign has already gone up. I thought it was the Congress who named the Kennedy Center.
REP. RO KHANNA: It is the Congress. I mean, he is violating the congressional law, but that hasn’t stopped him. But I think, finally, people are catching on that Donald Trump is just acting all about himself. It’s about his name on things. It’s about his family making money. It’s about his ego. And it’s not about the American people.
And my belief is, after Trump, we’re actually going to want leaders who put the people first, who maybe aren’t showmen, aren’t bombastic, aren’t all about themselves, but are listeners, more humility. One of the great presidents in my lifetime was Jimmy Carter. I got to intern for him at the Carter Center. And I think his model of being a servant leader, humility, morality, my hope is that the country will go back to those kind of leaders across the country.
AMY GOODMAN: Ro Khanna, I want to thank you for being with us, a Democratic congressmember from California, co-authored the Epstein Files Transparency Act, vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Coming up, Israel has approved 19 new settlements in the occupied West Bank. We’ll go to Ramallah. Stay with us.
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AMY GOODMAN: “The Body Electric,” performed by Alynda Segarra in our Democracy Now! studio.
