Ro Khanna: Trump Is in Denial

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Hello, welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted, welcome to the show. California Congress has been representing much of Silicon Valley, service on the House Armed Services Committee, and on the oversight and accountability committee.

It's Rho Khan. Welcome to the show. Great to be back. Thank you. Good to have you.

I guess my first question for you, is there anybody else in Congress besides you and Thomas Massey? Are you the only people actually in Congress? You know, that's not fair to like colleagues, but we have been coincidentally at the center of the two most consequential issues, the Epstein Files and the Warren Iran.

“And I think what we show with our work is that the coalitions are more scrambling in American”

politics, and that it's actually possible to find issues with disaffected megabotors. I mean, I would argue that the Epstein Files is the first time since Donald Trump came down the escalator that we actually said, "Hey, Trump voters, what do you think? Can we work with you on an issue?"

And it turns out a lot of them thought that government have been corrupted, that powerful

people were using connections to evade the law. In this case, in the most horrific way, trafficking under age girls and raping under age girls. The coalition on that, similarly, a lot of them don't on as getting into war in the Middle East and don't on gas prices going up.

Don't want service members dying for another Middle East war. The boats on that one haven't quite materialized like the boats have on Epstein. But Epstein was a uphill fight as well, and I believe we can get to the same coalition on the war. Do you think the megabotors are coming?

How does your man Thomas Massey feel about his primary coming up? Obviously, Donald Trump was down there with Jake Paul and his district, making the contrary case was a sense for how things were going. It's going to be a close race. He's up to view that Epstein, of course, is district support him and they support him standing

up to the president standing up for survivors. Iran is a tougher case. He would be candid about it, and there is a rally around the flag among some Trump voters, and it hasn't fully penetrated yet the arguments that he and others in maga are making, that American service members are dying, that we don't need to be another Middle East

war.

“But the primary is still 50, 60 days away, and I think a lot depends on the events in”

the Middle East.

Let's do Epstein first and we'll get to the war in some of the other topics on a pick

your brain on. We're glazing you at the top, because I've got some bones to pick with you at the bottom. Does that sound so good? Yeah. I've been around a long enough that I know how this works.

I take it's back to the beginning of that scene effort when you and Massey are getting together on this, because a lot of times in politics like things once they've happened feel inevitable, it feels like, well, obviously, that was going to happen in retrospect. When you guys started this, there wasn't a ton of, I think, conventional wisdom that you would end up getting the Epstein files released by an almost unanimous vote, only one

Louisiana congressman down here opposing you and getting it, you know, so overwhelming the votes that Donald Trump couldn't veto it, couldn't bully anybody, even you tried to bully Warren Bobber, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and others, and wasn't effective at the beginning of that. I mean, did you have a sense that this was going to, you know, have the success that is

had just as far as these first steps towards transparency? No, I mean, look, Massey and I are known to be the mavericks that we're not supposed to be. Yeah, add flies. You mavericks is a positive word.

It's not going to give you a bad word. It's supposed to be at the center of the activity of the house.

theories?

Why are we engaging in something that is adjacent to QAnon, this isn't serious, Roe.

I had to see your person sit down when they say, Roe, you're supposed to be the future economy guy. You're supposed to talk about a substantive economic vision. You're tarnishing your entire thoughtful brand. And Massey had.

Tell us who was that. So we know not to listen to that guy. Sorry, sorry. We were the last time they talked to you. But you know, there was a sense on our side that this was too conspiratorial that Epstein

had been dead a long time ago. And on his side, of course, there was a sense that he was taking on the powers to be. And it was an effort that neither of us thought were succeed. We were committed to it. We were willing to fight it.

And this church petitions almost never succeed.

They were like five of them that have actually become law. And the idea that Donald Trump would sign the law was almost unthinkable. We had assembled 70 to 80 Republicans willing to defy the veto. To this day, I don't think Donald Trump necessarily knows he signed my bill because we kept calling it the Massey kind of bill because we wanted it to see more Republican and hide the

fact that I had introduced it. And we didn't make it about Donald Trump in the beginning. We made it about the survivors. We got Marjorie Kiligree and Nancy Bass, Lauren Bobert. Here's the point though, Tim.

What started out with just four or five Republicans now has even Comer voting to subpoena Pan-Bond. It has the oversight committee having Republicans, Tim Berkshire, and Luna voting with us. And it shows that through just perseverance and hard work, if you get the right issue, it is possible to peel off Republicans.

“Yeah, I mean, I think a good lesson here is sometimes I have listeners or colleagues”

or friends, it just miss what happens on this podcast, sometimes it's like we do fantasy politics. You know when you're asking, like, why can't people do a dischartered petition to stop X for happening? Like, why couldn't Lisa Mercowski stop cognizant with her side?

Like, why couldn't a Democrat listen to do it, Tommy Tubberville did last time and block all promotions until why topic is achieved? And a lot of times it's just dismissed, you know, there's like a sense that there's this learned knowing, well, politics is the art of the possible, you know, and I do think that just remembering like how much of a long shot this looked like as a start as a good lesson

when thinking about other tactics and challenging these guys. Yeah, I think our politics sort of has Korean from a lethargic bureaucracy. People feel like government is just too slow and too unimaginative to Donald Trump, which is like, I'm just going to do whatever my gut tells me on the morning I wake up and is spout off and it's novel and it's spontaneous and it's action filled, but there's no substance

there or no checks there or no sense of expertise.

“And what we really, I think the country needs is sort of an imaginative bold action filled”

with politics, which we haven't been able to build over the last decade. And I'm not saying that the Epstein Coalition is sort of an answer to all our politics. But it does show that if you think out of the box and you think out of alliances out of the box and you're willing to fail, because Nancy and I have failed a lot, sometimes you can build things that didn't exist and I just think we need more of that in our politics

in this country. You mentioned the Bondi testimony, so that's news this week that she'll be test-fied. What types of stuff are you wanting to get from that testimony? Well, first of all, it'll finally be her answering questions, instead of just insulting every member of Congress or Senator OS, we'll be that too, I think.

Well, there will be sort of behind the closed doors in terms of a deposition. And I mean, I mean, I guess she could have insult the lawyers, but some of this is going to be staff just asking her basic things, like why were the files scrubbed in March by the FBI? And why has none of that been unredacted?

Because that's where the survivors named a lot of the rich and powerful men.

Why has there not been a single investigation about less wexner and a Leon Black and people who have credible allegations against them, if either recruiting or providing enormous financial

“benefits to Epstein or in some cases, allegations of sexual abuse?”

Like why have there been no investigations opened? Why is it that these three million files are still being protected? Why did she hide three of the witness interviews about the person who alleged that now in Trump raped her when she was 13?

covered up three of the witness interviews with her that mentioned Donald Trump.

So like that, I think there are 20 at least. How about the share file?

“That's what the initial reporting was that there's a share file that listed all of the Trump”

mentions. So like when they had the initial people going through the files, they like gathered all the times he was mentioned and put it somewhere. I'm not supposedly a little bit of reports of that exists. And again, like we don't exactly know what's in that, but why wouldn't they show us?

We've seen the PowerPoint presentation where they sort of mentioned the public figures who've been involved in the files, but yeah, we have not seen the more detailed share files of all the mentions in a summary that that would be something that is worth asking her. And you know, she may not be a attorney general that much longer.

We don't know. I mean, just a rumor mill. And so she's got to be careful answering questions under all of to the committee. I mean, even Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton were very careful and they participated for five hours answering every question.

“Do you think you've overcome the skepticism on this topic within your own caucus?”

And I asked that in a context of assuming the Democrats take control of the House in the fall next year, you know, you're going to have to prioritize what type of oversight you want to do because there's so much corruption happening this administration. And you know, to me, I think the absteen issue and the crypto corruption are the things that jump to the top that require, you know, Ben Gazi level attention, if you will.

And I'm wondering if you think that you'll have the support from leadership to do it's necessary to investigate this once you guys have the gavel. I go. I think Robert Garcia has been terrific as the ranking member of oversight. And my hope is that oversight will really focus on this.

And I'm confident that we will, partly because these survivors deserve justice. Right? I mean, there's not a day that goes by that I don't have a text or call or email from a survivor saying, this person raped me or abused me is in the files, often not someone very famous. Why are they not being investigated?

Can you pass this onto the justice department? Why are they not prosecuting them? So it just as a matter of actual justice. But also it is a broader look at what I would argue is a fundamental anger in this country

that people who are wealthy and powerful are using their connections to shield themselves

from the law, that their two tears are justice, that the system is just not working for most Americans who have to worry about their carving, wounded if they have to be parking tickets. And yet they watch these people do the most heinous thing. I mean, we all agree that raping under age girls or trafficking under age girls is about

the worst thing you can do as a human being and they watch people being affiliated with that at the best case and getting away with it. My view, our politics is sort of the working class versus the upsteeing class and Democrats should drive them. It's a good line.

“The frustrating thing for people is to co-conspirators, I think, at this point, right?”

That's like, okay, so there's been progress. Files have been released. There's a lot of smoke. We've learned a lot of gross stuff about some of Jeffrey Epstein's friends, some of like people that were emailing him, you know, well after we knew what type of behavior he was

complicit and what the Larry Summers of the world, there have not been much progress. It doesn't seem like in identifying the people that you're talking about, like you talked to a victim, they say, this is somebody that was that raped me or that was involved with Epstein was there when I was trafficked. That does kind of feel like a missing piece still at this point.

Yeah, there hasn't been a accountability, I mean, I mentioned two people who should be investigated by the lastwexner and Leon Black, like that, there are many others, some of them not famous of, I just mentioned names that would have very little context, but they have not been any investigations. Forget that there have not been prosecutions, there have not been investigations.

How do you not have someone show up to Bill Gates and ask him about what he saw, what he knew, did he have knowledge, right? I'm not saying that Bill Gates did anything illegal, but you have, I don't know if this correspondence, a normal investigation would do that. None of that has happened and that is just infuriated people. You know, what now is obvious is that when Massey and I were talking about wasn't some kind

of hoax, it didn't just involve Maxwell and Epstein. That was the big thing. These are just two people, one of them is dead, why are you focused on it, that the survivors

were actually writing people or seeing it for their first hand.

How many people were involved in either covering up for abuse or actually participating in it, but there have been no investigations, whereas there have been other parts of the world. It's kind of this irony, two American congresspeople got this thing released and yet the rest of the world is taking it far more seriously than our own government.

He's another one, of course, he should be investigated.

“I mean, everyone's like, well, don't you believe in due process?”

Yeah, I believe in due process, but due process doesn't mean you don't investigate. And the other process is in the word there. That can't be a process. And it needs to be a process. And the other thing that comes up is well, well, haven't we said a terrible precedent

in terms of releasing these files, even if someone isn't charged?

First of all, you had cases here in 1996, a complaining to the FBI nothing happened.

Someone was raped in Santa Monica, went to the police, they said come back, she went back after a week, didn't file charges. I mean, time and again, these women were abandoned and abused. So it required a release to understand the miscarriage of justice. But you know, if there's another miscarriage of justice and you can get the entire United

States House of Representatives Senate to pass a bill and the president to sign it, then fine, release it. But it's not like this is some kind of precedent, requires a hirculian act of the United States Congress to get it done.

“Last thing on this, and I think obviously the more important thing is keeping justice for”

the victims. But there are some out there that are saying that they've been some reckless accusations. I guess you mentioned these are the six wealthy men that you mentioned a couple of them

turned out like we're wrongly kind of named.

I guess one of them was a car mechanic in Georgia and the other one was a home improvement store owner in Queens, maybe they're in the lineup or something. I had saga on last week and you know, there are things thrown about about Epstein being a agent of security services or is doing compromise on people. You know, there has been some stuff out there that hasn't really been matched with what

we actually know. Like what's your sense of like kind of navigating that line? That's very fair. Let me make a few points and address the specifics. First it shouldn't be a witch hunt.

This is because someone is in the Epstein files or just because someone may have had an embarrassing email cheating on their spouse doesn't mean that they engaged in the kind of horrific behavior that we're after.

“So I think there has to be some kind of judgment and not just the tarring and feathering”

of anyone who happens to be in the file.

I've never said that this should be a witch hunt.

The second, the issue you mentioned is a real one. When Massey and I went, we found a list of co-conspirators who had not been identified. Part of our problem is that they've been protecting so many people. Yeah. Who of the people that we mentioned turned out should have been mentioned.

Less Wexner, that in part led to the subpoena of him and an attention on him and Sultan the CEO of the port of Dubai, led to him resigning. His name is yellow to the correction, his name is just Sultan on a previous podcast. I called him the Sultan, like it was an honorific. So you know, not that we give a fuck about what somebody who engages that type of behavior

but you know, it's important to get the facts. Anyway, I can do it. Now, Massey and I asked the Josh Disdepartment for clarification on who those men were. In fact, Massey said, could it have been a line up? They didn't do that.

I then did go read the names to of them were appropriate for of them turned out to just be part of the lineup. Now, their names actually should be released under the Epstein files. There's no protection for the lineup, but there should have been context given that the Justice Department didn't end with reductions.

And as soon as I learned, I corrected it on social media, when viral, I said, look, these people were just in a lineup. I called with a one person who I knew, I said that I will make it abundantly clear. And I think to do with it, they were just part of the lineup. But the broader problem here is the Department of Justice is unwillingness to provide any

context to the documents like they were supposed to unwillingness to meet with the Massey or me, their excessive reductions and most people see that. And those were trying to weaponize that to discredit the effort to seek justice are just not going to be credible. I think that answered your question, right?

Did it? Was there any other aspect to it? You know, the conspiracies, like is he an intelligence agent as he tells us, like, you know, is there a compromise? Was it was he, you know, on behalf of countries, blackmailing people?

Well, I've been very careful on that. Right. There's reporting by Julia Brown at Miami, Harold was the best, and I've been covering this for years. There are legitimate questions about whether or not he had ties to any intelligence agency.

There's no evidence that I have seen corroborating that, there just are questions. There's nothing that we will get in the Epstein files that would answer that question because that information is likely classified, and the law does not require the release of unclassified information. But what I've said is a President should appoint a commission on this matter to do a report

But I have never engaged in any of that speculation on conspiracy because I don't want

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They push forward without congressional approval. What is the right thing for you guys to be doing now to try to combat what the administration is doing with prosecuting this war? We sure did make it clear.

“We're going to give no funding for any Iran supplemental.”

I mean, to think about this, we've been there about 20 days, $2 billion each day. You could have free public college for everyone in America for that about. You could have for 30 that 40 days in Iran, childcare for everyone in America, $10 a day. You could build a thousand new trade school.

$10 a day for childcare. $10 a day paying childcare workers a day care $25 an hour. Yeah. All right, so Canada model costs about $80 billion. But my free college costs about $40 billion.

So the amount of cost to the American people is extraordinary. And then you look at the loss of life. I mean, over 13 American service members did.

The reality is that we're putting more people at risk.

And unless you're going to put in ground troops, which I'm totally opposed to, it very unlikely that you can create some kind of regime change. We've got common aid out and common aid junior, his son was 56 in. And yeah, you can kill some of the military leaders. But you still have a repressive regime.

And then they're striking this rate of hormones. And I mean, gas prices go up. And by the way, the enriched uranium, the 60% enriched uranium, the 400 kilograms is under the ground. And there's no evidence that we've actually even been able to destroy that.

We didn't destroy it. Jude is likely requires diplomacy. So this is a war that is hurting our economy, that is making it harder for us to invest up here at home and is putting our troops at risk.

It's not making us more secure. And Democrats should just make that argument. What's your understanding for why we're doing this? To degrade Iran's capability.

“I mean, that's what I've said at some point.”

Like, just say, President Trump, you declare victory and stop the war. Because I don't want the war to continue. I don't want this to be a political issue. Like, I just think this is hurting America. And you could say, OK, we're degrading their capability,

they're grading their ballistic missiles. The JCPOA, which I support it. Obama had negotiated something where you had 3.67% enrichment of uranium. Before the JCPOA was 20% enrichment.

At 3.67% enrichment, which would have been 15 years, they would have not been able to enrich enough uranium to do a nuclear bomb. It would have taken at least a year to be able to do that. And then another year to get it on to a ballistic missile.

And he had an entire deal. Then Trump comes out, he rips it up. And the enrichment goes to 60% enrichment after Trump rips it up. A point where Iran could have actually gotten a bomb within one to two weeks. Or at least enrich the uranium within one to two weeks.

So this was his entire creation because he didn't do the JCPOA. Then Obama tried to negotiate and he's unwilling to negotiate. And so they still have enriched uranium. They're not, it's buried underneath. I suppose you have degraded their ballistic missile capability.

even if they had enriched uranium to put it on a missile.

But it's an awful cost and an awful loss of life, simply to degrade a country's military capability. I mean, the consequences here are worse than people realize right now. I just think that if you look at kind of oil prices, futures, and what we're actually seeing in the straight, if you listen to experts,

and how long it would take to fix, even if you did cotton run today. I just wonder when you talked to the Republicans that I, you were communicating with on that scene stuff. That the mega types that they're unlikely allies. The Lorne Boberts, the Nancy Maces, but it's crowd.

“Like privately, is there any sense that they recognize just how big of a catastrophe this is for them?”

Like do you see any sense of the ice cracking among some of your colleagues? Harder with colleagues. It's been more with mega influencers, mega leaders. But with colleagues, I think there was a false confidence after Trump,

in his first term got Soleimani after he captured Madero, and I still think it hasn't

dawned on them that this thing just isn't going to be over in the clear victory. I don't think it's a saying it too, right? They may still keep bombing ships in the straight of Hormuz. So we've got to get them to stop. There's a little bit less chest thumping, but it's not at a point where I would say, okay, Nancy, and I should reintroduce the war powers resolution. We've got the boats.

They're still, they're still with the president, and I don't only mess you up on my sharing, that this is still an issue where a lot of the Republican base voters are giving the president the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. Here's the president this morning. I wonder what would happen

if we finished off what's left of the Iranian terrorist state and then what the countries that use it,

we don't be responsible for the so-called straight. That would get some of our non-responsive allies in gear and fast. So now the current plan, I guess, is to just, I brutalize the regime, whatever, we broke it, you deal with it, and maybe the straight gets open, maybe it doesn't. That's the plan, no. Yeah. I mean, I guess you just doesn't understand, Gova's applying demand. Oh, you know, you just stop the oil flow. You get the straight on your mucet,

versus get a bit push prices up for everyone. Great for Midland. It's not like it's some theoretical claim. Just go to the gas pump and you'll see your gas prices are up. That's because of the bombing in the straight-up almost. So, you know, the president is just in denial. I mean, there's no coherence

“to the policy and the idea that we're going to just terrorize the regime. What are we going to do?”

I mean, even he at times has said, well, I don't want the protesters to just get slaughtered. Like, I don't understand what the plan is. Even in Iraq where we had a failed regime change work, we had to put in ground troops. I don't know an a scenario with, through just air strikes and bombing, you're going to change a regime. So, it's unclear what the goal is. The Libya model. Yeah. Looking into the Libya model, the roaring success.

Micropenus Marklevins says you're awful for not supporting our troops against the terrorists. What do you think about that? Well, look, I support our troops not getting killed. I support our troops making sure that we only use them and ask them to serve if there's a attack on the homeland. And if Basie and I had our resolution past 13 American service members may be alive, and I don't want more members dying. What do you think about how to process what we saw yesterday

from Joe Kent? Joe Kent was Lee in the counterterrorism, was the counterterrorism chief for Trump, the administration. He wrote a letter resigning. I guess he presented that letter to the vice president. Which is kind of an interesting political subplot on Monday. I'm not to the president. Is it an illustration? Oh, J.D. Vance really doesn't want this war, except they get out. Yeah. Yeah. Do you usually resign to the vice?

“Is that how things work? The vice president. Is there a splinter administration happening?”

That's something to monitor. In the resignation letter, he said a lot of things similar to what you just said. He also specifically laid out that he's a veteran himself. He doesn't want people all dying in a war that there's no rationale for. A war that Israel has pushed us into. Also in the letter, he kind of had some tropes about Israel also being responsible for past actions in Iraq and Syria that are a little less based in fact. And he is a history of

dabbling. He's been on podcasts with some of the Nazi youth kids and all that. How do you think about that? You know, he's going to be in Tucker Carlson's podcast, I think today. Somebody from

had some anti-Semitic relationships in the past, like resigning over this war. Is that somebody like Thomas Massey that's worth working with or how do you think about that? Well, certainly, it's worth listening to him on the fact that there was no women in threat. He was the senior person

of counterintelligence and he's basically a whistleblower saying that there was no reason as he saw it

of American national interests to go into Iran. And that Trump is betraying the very promises he made voters to keep us out of these Middle East wars. It was the most dishonest campaign. They said, "Come on, Harris was going to do this." I mean, literally campaign, say, "Come on, Harris was going to start World War III in war in Iran." And J.D. Vance was out there saying absolutely not. It was not in America's interest. And Kent is just calling them out. Now, obviously, he's had

problematic statements and he's engaged in certain conspiratorial theories. And we have to

“be careful not to just embrace his entire narrative. But I believe in a coalition politics.”

So I've gotten criticized recently that I went on Hassan Piker's as a trade. But I've gone on

Sean Ryan. And I've gone, you know, when you go on some of these podcasts, they're not all going to have every statement that you agree with. But, you know, FDR worked with Representative Rank in a rank racist and rank anti-semite to do the Tennessee Valley authority. I mean, the politics is about building coal issues while keeping true to your principles. And I guess I would say in this case, the principle is we shouldn't be there in Iran. We don't have to agree with all his

other conspiratorial comments. I'm with you on that. I'm also with you on going on the podcast, going on the shows. I mean, we saw how it worked out in the Democrats for like we shouldn't go on

in Joe Rogan. You know, he has some problematic views. Like that strategy didn't work, obviously.

“So I think going on shows, speaking to people, even if they, you know, have certain opinions”

that you don't agree with or even find gross. I think it's part of living in a democracy, in a free society, and it's both smart and what we should do, and a pluralistic country. And you don't think what you do it, you're going to make a mistake, or someone's going to say something terrible that you don't refute right away, or you let me speak. And so like it's easy to say, let's just go. And then the point is you're going to go and you're going to get

criticized and you're going to say things you may not like. And so I think there has to be a greater tolerance for risk in our party. I agree with that. Though I could also say, some of these guys are pretty dumb. You know, I don't know. I don't know. I think anybody is like, we shouldn't go on Theo Vans podcast because he said some offensive things should watch some of Theo Vans interviews. You know, Mark Cuban went on their hand and himself just fine. It's not exactly like doing Tim

Russert. Which is there's a post. I guess going around social media, which is I would love to see more dims calling out anti-Semitism on their own side with the same fervor. And you posted about that and said, I'm proud to stand with grand planers Iran, Hassan, promise with neocons in our party, who blundered us into Iraq, etc, etc. It's one thing to say, okay, I'm going to go on these platforms,

even if they have some problematic views. So that was something to be like, well, we shouldn't call out folks that are espousing anti-Semitic or bigoted views of any kind. So how do you kind of think about appearing on the shows versus like having an obligation to, you know, call out hate and

“and bigotry where you see it? I think we absolutely have to call out hate and bigotry. I think the”

tweet I had though, I don't want to parse it, but I said, I was proud to stand with Platner and Mamnani and I would join Hassan. That's right. So there are things that I disagree with with Hassan Biker. I mean, I, and when I go on on this stream, I disagree with them. And certainly I would and have called out anti-Semitism. I've called out, you know, ugly chance in San Francisco where tax the rich became taxed the Jews. I called out recently very ugly beating of IDF soldiers who

were speaking Hebrew. People said, well, they're IDF soldiers. I said, so what? I mean, you can't just go beat up people, even if they served in the IDF for speaking Hebrew. And I called that an act of anti-Semitism. I've done town halls and I district on anti-Semitism. I had a father tell me about his daughter who is 13 who's afraid of having a manura in her house. I mean, there's no doubt that anti-Semitism has increased. I'm nieces were Jewish because we have a,

in ours. So I'm very sensitive to that. But what I think is unfortunate is when legitimate criticism of the government of Israel is conflated with anti-Semitism. Or if there are kind of these purity tests that let's not go talk to anyone who we may think has said something

“that is racist, sexist, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, I just don't think that's how we're going”

to build a multiracial democracy and and earn people's respect if we're shaming them and

always putting them on the defensive. One of those examples, like the ADL, Jonathan Greenblatt

called out you and Chris Van Hollen for perpetuating anti-Semitism by blaming Israel and neocons for the war, the Iran war, the tapping now and that's kind of a shorthand for what he said. But I was like basically what it was. I mean, I don't even say what Neocons has anything to do with being Jewish. Neocons, as I understand the term, is people who believe that we can spread democracy through military interventionism. It was kind of a doctrine that George W. Bush didn't

change any adopted. Don Ramselle, I'm pretty sure, was a Gentile. I actually was confused why that term had anything to do with someone being Jewish or Israel. It was a worldview. By the way,

a worldview that had some reasoning to it. That said, democracy is better than not democracy

in America. I should use its military power to do that. And my view is that a restraint is better. So, I was puzzled by Greenblatt, he's been in my office and you know, the one thing is that my team is like just ignore it, just ignore it. And you know, I hate to act saying like the guys, we have a mouthpiece for Trump and he's politicized the ADL. But I don't want to be doing that. But what is changed is there is not no longer going to be people just lying down

and taking that kind of a smear. We're going to push back. But I'd love to get to a place where we can all say, yes, anti-Semitism is a real problem. Yes, there's more fear and anti-Semitism in this country. We need to address it. But we also need to understand that there are very, very legitimate criticisms of the government of Israel and what happened in Gaza. When the government of Israel is involved in what we're doing now, like the idea that critiquing

“that is the same as anti-Semitism, I think is the strategy it's going to backfire for Greenblatt”

and the ADL. And I don't think that's something that should be looking into. I find it interesting that your staff is trying to keep the dog on the chain here. I mean, it's been a while now. They don't, they're not just letting Roe be row. I mean, I think I get into sometimes too many people with spikes on X and either like, well, I can't you just focus on, you know, your economic ratio today, which I do. But people want to see the real you. They want to see you mix it up and

anyway, that's that's who I am. Yeah. What are my colleagues asked me about that as well? They're like, why don't you ask him like, why he's why he has to weigh on everything, why he's so out there and everything? I'm on your side of that. What do you mean? You know, I feel like sometimes people take the wrong lessons from Trump and not the right lessons they take whatever lessons they want. But it's just like voters want to know what folks think about things. Like one of my frustrations is

there's this thing that you hear from Democratic strategists is like, we got to focus on kitchen table issues. And it's like, you don't think that the war and Iran and why were there is a kitchen

“table issue. Like, you don't think I've seen as a kitchen table issue. That's what they're”

fucking talking about at their kitchen table. Like they are also talking about gas prices. Like, you don't think they're talking about that, too. Like ignoring that is crazy. Well, yeah, and anyone have a conversation like you would have at a living room or kitchen table, which is not like, well, we need to talk about affordability in the price of eggs or something. I got it. I'm like, who talks like that? People are like, wow, did you see what happened

to the FST folks? I was kind of crazy. Did you see, like, so when I got through his mom was kidnapped, like, why was your kidnapped? Did they have something new FST? No, it didn't have something new FST. Like, it's ordinary Americans have tons of opinions on everything. And a lot of them are not

trying to express it. And so I have this incredible opportunity to be in the United States Congress.

And I have a review on issues. And I'm going to be out there. I like debating it out and mixing it up. And I like being engaged. And to me, I just think we need more of that spontaneity, that a bit willingness to engage with folks, not just politically. But that's the only hope we have of kind of finding some common ground and getting a new national purpose.

Go through Casembaugh, upload his life in Union for it.

We'll do it for her. Let's make it up then. I check to mix it up. You're over four in your endorsements last night in Illinois. Bernie was also over three justice Democrats, just one of the, whatever the, kind of super packed as aligned with the squad, kept candidates lost their races.

“I think that there is like a imaginary consensus on the internet that, you know, the entire”

Democratic coalition has decided they want to go, you know, fully in with the DSA left or the populist left. And we're not seeing a ton of evidence of that in elections on the ground. But, obviously, they're on one in New York City. But, you know, there'd be the New Jersey of Virginia Governor's race last night in Illinois, you know, a lot of more mainstream Democrats are winning and I'm wondering how you think, whether that's the actual results of the elections

are impacting the way you're thinking about the coalition right now. Well, I think the coalition is broad and mixed. I mean, I had campaigned for Abigail Swenberger for Mikey Cheryl for Zoron. All the wings of the party should be together for 2026. I do think we've had a lot of progressive victories with Zoron with Analylia in New Jersey. I mean, let's see how it's going back for that one. So nice assist from APEC and New

Jersey going after Tom Melanowski and accidentally electing the Swad Canada with their advertising,

but okay, yes sure. Yeah, but she did well. She would have been a close second. I would

let her tattooed very well. She came with the light three points. And at 26, you did much better

“than I did when I first ran for Congress of the ladies, so I went and got killed. Right? So I think”

there's a progressive energy. We could debate about, you know, what part of the party it is, but to me, I don't endorse candidates being like, oh, are they going to win or not? I endorse people based on my values. We've had a crack record. I think of a number of from surprising, like Analylia and winning people like Graham Platner who I think will win the primary. Yeah. And the general Zoron, obviously surprised. And then when you do endorsements, you have

your share of losses. But to me, the party needs to be tackling wealth inequality, tackling the fundamental economic divides, offering a vision, what I call a 21st century Marshall Plan for America, new economic patriotism. How are we going through the future economy with AI and technology makes for every family, every community, has economic independence. We've got to be the party that says no to these wars. We've got to have moral clarity in my view on Gaza and what

happened. And then we need to be a party that is for elite accountability. And those elements, you can debate with this more progressive as I am or is a more center left. But those elements

“I think can be fairly unifying for the party heading into 2026. How do you process Josh”

Shapiro, though, in this frame, just for one example? I mean, he's running as pretty straight central left. Yeah. But I think that kids political success, right? I think that there's a lot on the progressive left that say rightly, they look at the Hillary and Harris campaigns, and like, hey, we've got to do something different. Like, we got to change, but then they're answering that thing. We got to change as we can't do this corporateist center left. We

need something more Bernie. We need more Bernie populist. But there isn't a ton of examples of progressive populist winning in swing states. And you have something like Josh Shapiro who has is so popular in Pennsylvania that he's up a reelection in this swing state as a Democrat. And that's like he doesn't even have a challenge. Yeah. I go up in Blacks County, Pennsylvania, my parents. How do you kind of process that? So many things the party should do more

progressive populism not a ton of success in swing states for that model, the Josh Shapiro models being overwhelmingly successful so far. What do you think about that? I think Bernie would have won a lot of those swing states in Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin. I think

you have a economically populist man. No, not only might of one too though. We'll never, really,

no, never, never. 23 states though. I mean, Bernie won Michigan in the primary in 2016. I mean, Hillary lost a bunch of states. She won the primary in two about, you know, that's, that's the necessarily. But my view is that someone who has a strong economic message in dealing with the economic divides and offering a bold vision going forward is going to be able to unify the party and win. And then maybe someone like Josh Shapiro and maybe someone who's progressive. I think

the Democrats are going to win in 26 and 28 and there'll be a fight in the party for which direction. But I certainly reject the idea that someone running on Medicare for all or taxing billionaires or raising the living wage can't win in a state like Pennsylvania. I mean, federal money, ran ran as a fairly economic populist. Just as for kind of lamb, we talked about that a lot around here. Do you want to put your endorsement kiss of death? I'm just teasing you on anybody in the

I don't. In your state, there's a very wild primary happening. It's the strange, strange race,

the California governor's race. Is there anybody you like? Hi, Mary.

“Well, I've endorsed, probably a bad day to it. That's an already endorsed Tom Stier. I think,”

you know, I think the race is going down to Stier and and so I'll well, like so I'll well, he's a colleague of mine, he's a neighbor. But Stier, you know, shares my view on single pair healthcare and fighting for that. He shares my view on taxing billionaires. More, he shares my view on the importance of PG&E becoming a customer owned or citizen owned utility. You know, I some people view maybe I should do it more. Some people do these endorsements based on a calculation

of who's going to win. I've done them based on who I like, who I know and shares my values.

And I think our track record is about 40 or 50 percent for the cycle. I'm just picking on you.

I like to say that it was a mayor in the California governor's race. He's got no chance, but I can't but, you know, whatever. He's been a very good mayor. He's been a man. He's in my district. I like him. I just think he got in the way to a big state. It seems like, I mean, that just based on the polling. We're running out of time, but I just want to pick your brain really quick into other things.

One is just how Democrats should think about and talk about AI and these big tech oligarchs, right? Because I do think you have this kind of tension between a populist anti-corporantial

“oligarch message, which I think is important, and also recognizing that, like, we can't just unplug”

the server of AI. I wish we could, but it's real. We've got to be competitive. You know, you want to be a party that thinks about growth and making lives better for people, which AI can maybe do in some ways. It's going to make lives worse in other ways. So how do you navigate that? That's somebody who's kind of representing that part of the country? I say, I'm not a AI accelerationist. I'm not an AI doomer, I'm an AI democratist. We need the

AI revolution working, not just for tech billionaires, but for ordinary Americans. Let me give you three things that we can do. One is now AI is coming after young people's jobs in a software, in customer support. It's kids of people who had college degrees. But when William Julius Wilson wrote about the industrialization of black inner cities, the country just ignored them. Then we started to have blue-collar jobs being lost in places

that were white-working class, and deepening in case and others were out about it. And we started to pay some attention, but still not enough enough action. Now you've got, like, Princeton graduates' kids who are getting our time getting jobs. Now the country is like, suddenly, like, oh, no, like our donors are telling us they're suburban voters are telling us this. So we have an opportunity to have the most affirmative,

generational jobs at gender in this country that will put people to work. I'm working on this idea of a work for America program where we'll hire young people, hire folks out of high school, trade schools, college to rebuild their communities, to teach, to be counselors, to do infrastructure projects, or to come to government, and do moon-shod projects on renewable energy, or making government more effective. And let's put people to work and give us a new

national purpose. That would be one way to deal with some of the AI dislocation. The second thing is we need to change the tax code and incentivize hiring people instead of hiring a Gentic AI. Like, why do we have the incentives backwards? Third is have work or ownership. We have capital bias, right, in AI. It rewards the capital class. And so think of how transformative it would be.

If like the million people working at Walmart had some percentage of profit or stock that they had

Peter Stavros at KKR has led on this as an ownership society. Democrat should put forward a vision of ownership for workers where they're benefiting from some of the gains of technology's productivity.

“So, you know, I have a lot of ideas on where I think that a fresh new economic vision”

of how we make this AI revolution work for everyone. And I guess ultimately to the question on these swing states or things. I mean, I just think the conventional way of looking at politics, I think, is out the window. Like, well, let's just see how do we have a swing state governor Jackford doesn't make me yon. So, I don't mean this about hit me is a great guy. Like, you know, it's like so boring. There's something like let's have central casting swing

state governor. And the American people like what they want is being inspired. What they want is like, how to understand the future? Who's going to actually solve our problems? Are kids just

I think is where the Democratic Party should focus instead of, you know, trying to

“cherry pick what people may want. I could not be more aligned with you on that way too much”

conventional thinking, particularly looking ahead to 2028. So, you know, we're just going to leave

it there. I've got, I had like three other things going to pick your brain about, but you're,

you, I think you've been cloned because you're everywhere, you know, you know, you now have an AI

plan. We didn't get into the immigration plan. And so we can just have you back in a couple of months

“talking about the rest of my list. That's how it's great. Always enjoying being on. All right,”

I appreciate it. That's Rokan. Everybody else, I'll be back tomorrow. You'll get our live show in Dallas on tomorrow's episode. And then we'll have a regular show on Friday. We'll see you all then, peace.

“The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper,”

Associate Producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz, an audio engineering in editing by Jason Brown.