The Bulwark Podcast - Ro Khanna: Trump Is in Denial

Episode Date: March 18, 2026

POTUS is pretending the laws of supply and demand don't apply when it comes to the price of oil. And his long list of conflicting statements on the Strait of Hormuz is not providing any clarity on whether it will reopen to Western vessels anytime soon. But while Rep. Khanna successfully helped create the Epstein coalition, he says most of his Republican colleagues on the Hill are sticking with Trump's war narrative—though with a little less chest thumping. Plus, progressive Squad candidates came up short in Illinois, Joe Kent reportedly gave his resignation letter to Vance before Trump, conflating critiques of Israel with antisemitism is likely going to backfire politically, and why are three million Epstein files still being protected?Rep. Ro Khanna joins Tim Miller.show notesOnly a few tickets left for our LIVE show in Austin on Thursday: TheBulwark.com/Events.

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Delighted welcome to the show of California Congressman representing much of Silicon Valley. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee and on the Oversight and Accountability Committee. It's Roe Con. Welcome to the show.

Great to be back. Man, 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 all my colleagues, but we have been coincidentally at the center of the, two most consequential issues, the Epstein Files and the war in Iran. And I think what we show

with our work is that the coalitions are scrambling in American politics and that it's actually possible to find issues with disaffected mega voters. 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? And can we work with you on an issue? And it turns out a lot of them thought that the government had been corrupted, that powerful people were using connections to evade the law. In this case, in the most horrific way, trafficking underage girls and raping underage girls.

And we built the coalition on that. Similarly, a lot of them don't want us getting into war in the Middle East, don't want gas prices going up, don't want service members dying for an other 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 Magavutas are coming? How does your man Thomas Massey feel about his primary coming up? Obviously, Donald Trump was down there with Jake Paul in his district, making the contrary case. What's his sense for how things are going? It's going to be a close race. He's of the view that

Epstein, of course, his district supports 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 amongst 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 in 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.

Then we'll get to the war on some of the other topics. I want to 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 work? Is that okay? I've been around long enough that I know how this stuff works. Just like take us back to the beginning of the Epstein effort, when you and Massie are getting together on this.

Because, you know, a lot of times in politics, like things, once they've happened, feel inevitable. You know, it feels like, well, obviously that was going to happen in retrospect. But when you guys started this, like there wasn't a ton of, I think, conventional wisdom that you would end up, you know, getting the Epstein files released by an almost unanimous vote. Only one Louisiana congressman down here opposing you. And just getting it, you know, so overwhelming the vote that Donald Trump. couldn't veto it, couldn't bully anybody. I mean, you tried to bully Lauren Bobert, Marjorie Taylor Green, 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 it has 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. Gadflies. Mavericks is a positive word. So I'm going to give you a gadfly. We weren't supposed to be at the center of the activity in the house.

It was dismissed initially on our side by Samasah, why are we engaging in conspiracy theories? Why are we engaging in something that is adjacent to QAnon? This isn't serious. Ro, I had a senior person sit down with me saying, Ro, 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 a person.

Tell us who it was. Who was that? So we know not to listen to that advice in the future. That would be the last time they talked to me. 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 would succeed. We were committed to it.

We were willing to fight it. but discharged petitions almost never succeed. There been 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 massy 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 Taylor Green, Nancy Bace, Lauren Bobert. Here's the point, though, Tim. What started out with just four or five Republicans now has even Comer voting to subpoena Pam Bondi. It has the oversight committee having Republicans, Tim Burchard 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 dismiss what happens on this podcast. Sometimes it's like we do fantasy politics, you know, when you're asking, like, why can't people, you know, do a discharge petition to stop X for happening? Like, why couldn't Lisa Murkowski stop caucusing with her side? Like, why couldn't a Democrat in the Senate do what Tommy Toberville did last time and block all promotions until why topic is achieved? And a lot of times that'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 is a start as a good lesson when thinking about other tactics and challenging these guys.

Yeah, I think our politics sort of has careen from a lethargic bureaucracy where 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 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 a. answer to all our politics. But it does show that if you think out of the box and you think

of alliances out of the box and you're willing to fail because Massey and I have failed a lot, sometimes you can build things that didn't exist. And I just, I think we need more of that in this, in our politics in this country. You mentioned the Bondi testimony. So that's news this week that Shelby testifying. What, what type 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 a senator or asked her. Well, there'll be that too, I think. Well, there'll be sort of behind the closed doors in terms of a deposition. I mean, I guess she could 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 Les Wexner and Leon Black and people who have credible allegations against them of 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 Donald Trump raped her when she was 13? Put aside whether that's a true or not allegation, no one knows, but it is factual that they covered up three of the witness interviews with her that mentioned Donald Trump. So like that, I think there are 20 at least questions. How about the share file? That's what, that's what, in the initial reporting was that there was a share file that listed all of the Trump mentioned. 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. And that supposedly, a way of reports that 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 attorney general that much longer. We don't know. I mean, just through rumor mill. And so she's got to be careful answering questions under oath 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 ask that in the 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 in this administration. And, you know, to me, I think the Epstein issue and the crypto corruption are the things that jump to the top that require, you know, Benghazi level attention, if you will. And I'm wondering if you think that you'll have the support from leadership to do what's

necessary to investigate this once you guys have the gavel. I do. 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 abuse 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? 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 there are two tiers of justice, that the system is just not working for most Americans who have to worry about their car being booted if they have too many parking tickets, and yet they watch these people do the most heinous thing.

I mean, we all agree that raping underage girls or trafficking underage 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. In my view, our politics is sort of the working class versus the Epstein class. And Democrats should drive that. It's a good line. The frustrating thing for people is the 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 and like people that were emailing him, you know, well after we knew what type of behavior he was complicit in with 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 talk 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 accountability. I mentioned two people who should be investigated with Les Wexner and Leon Black. Like that, there are many others, some of them not famous. So if I just mentioned names, it 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 all of this correspondence. And 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. And that was the big thing. Oh, these are just

two people, one of them's dead, why are you focused on it, that the survivors were actually right and people are seeing it for the firsthand. 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 in other parts of the world. It's kind of this irony. Two American Congress people got this thing released, and yet the rest of the world is taking it far more seriously than our own government. Yeah. Bannon, I mean, there's a million examples. He's another one, right? 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 a due process doesn't mean you don't investigate. And the other process is in the word there. Like there needs to be a process. There needs to be a process. And the other thing that comes up is, well, well, haven't we set a terrible precedent in terms of releasing these files, even if someone is in charge?

First of all, you had cases here in 1996 of complaining to the FBI, nothing happened. Someone was raped in Santa Monica, went to the police. And 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. It requires a Herculean act of the United States Congress to get it done. last thing on this and I think obviously the more important thing is getting justice for the victims but there are some out there that are saying like there have been some reckless accusations I guess you mentioned they said there were six wealthy men yeah that you mentioned a couple of them it turned out like were 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 an agent of security services or he's doing

compromise on people. You know, there has been some stuff out there that hasn't really been matched with like what we actually know. Like what's your sense 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 just because someone is in the Epstein files or just because someone, may have had an embarrassing email on 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. Second, the issue you mentioned is a real one. When Massey and I went, we found a list of cocaine. conspirators who had not been identified. Part of our problem is that they've been protecting so many people. Who of the people that we mentioned turned out should have been mentioned. Les Wexner, that in part led to the subpoena of him and attention on him. And Sultan, the CEO of the Port of Dubai, it led to him resigning.

His name is, while we're doing corrections, his name is just Sultan. On a previous podcast, I called him Dust Sultan, like it was an honorific. So, you know, not that we give a fuck about what's somebody who engaged in that type of behavior, but, you know, it's important to get the facts. Anyway, continue. Now, Massey and I asked the Justice Department for clarification on who those men were. In fact, Massey said, could it have been a lineup? They didn't do that.

I then did go read the names. Two of them were appropriate. Four 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 and with redactions. And as soon as I learned, I corrected it on social media. It went viral. I said, look, these people were just in a lineup. I called with the one person who I knew. I said that I will make it abundantly clear. They had

nothing to do with it. They were just part of a 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 massy or me, their excessive redactions. And most people see that. And those who are 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? Was there any other aspect to it? You know, the conspiracies, like, is he an intelligence agent? Oh, the intelligence agents? Like, you know, is there a compromise? 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 and Miami Herald, who's 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. They're just our 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 to the American public to answer any of these questions. But I have never engaged in any of that

speculation on conspiracy because I don't want this to be not factual. I guess I'm going to pull behind the curtain on the ad here. What the script says is if you're anything like me, you're desensitized to the dozens of notifications on your phone each day. But I'm even further than desensitized. I am permanent, do not disturb. You would think that would mean that I live in peace, but no, it just means I'm looking at my phone constantly at all times. But permanent, do not disturb, and I've got things coming in from everywhere, from all different types of messaging apps now.

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We should make it clear. We're going to give no funding for any Iran supplemental. I mean, 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 amount. You could have for 30, 40 days in Iran childcare for everyone in America at $10 a day. You could build a thousand new trade schools. $10 a day for child care? That's $10 a day paying child care workers at daycare. $25 an hour now. It's a Canada model.

It 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 dead. 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, very unlikely that you can create some kind of regime change.

We've got Cominay out and Comeney Jr., his son, who's 56 in. And yeah, you can kill some of the military leaders, but you still have a repressive regime. And then they're striking the Strait of Hormuz 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. It likely requires diplomacy. So this is a war that is hurting our economy, that is making it harder for us to invest here at home.

It 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've declared victory and stop the war, because I don't, 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, okay, we're degrading their capability, degrading their ballistic missiles. The JCPOA, which I supported. Obama had negotiated something where he 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 percent enrichment after Trump rips it up, a point where Iran could have actually gotten a bomb within one to two weeks, or at least enriched the uranium within one to two weeks. So this was his entire creation because he didn't do the JCPA. Then Oman tried to negotiate, and he's unwilling to negotiate. And so they still have enriched uranium. It's buried underneath.

I suppose you have degraded their ballistic missile capability. So there is the sense that it would be harder, 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 the oil prices futures and what we're actually seeing in the straight, if you listen to experts at how long it would take to fix, even if you did cut and run today. I just wonder, when you talk to the Republicans that you were communicating with the Epstein stuff, the Maga types that the unlikely allies, the Lauren Boberts, the Nancy Mesa's, this crowd.

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 MAGA influencers, MAGA leaders. But with colleagues, I think there was a false confidence after Trump, in his first term, got Soleimani, after he captured Madeira. And I still think it hasn't dawned on him that this thing just isn't going to be over and the clear victory. And a lot gets a saying it too, right?

They may still keep bombing ships in the strapped. 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, Massey and I should reintroduce the war powers resolution. We've got the votes. They're still with the president. And I don't only Massey will mind 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 with the Iranian terror state and then let 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 now. Yeah.

I mean, I guess he just doesn't understand. global supply and demand of oil. You know, you just stop the oil flowing in the strait of your musa is going to push prices up for everyone. Great for Midland. It's not like it's some theoretical claim. Just go to like the gas pump and you'll see your gas prices are up. That's because of the bombing in the Strait of Hormuz. 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 that 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

war, we had to put in ground troops. I don't know in a scenario where through just airstrikes and bombing, you're going to change a regime. So it's unclear what the goal is. The Libya model. Looking into the Libya model, a roaring success. Micro penis Mark Levine 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 an attack on the homeland. And if Massey and I had a resolution passed, 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 leading the counterterrorism, was the counterterrorism chief for Trump in 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. not to the president.

Is this role to protect? Oh, J.D. Vance really doesn't want this war or something. Yeah. It's like, do you usually resign to the vice? Is that how things work? The vice president? So, you know, is there a splinter, a splinter administration happening? That's something to monitor.

You know, look, in the resignation letter, he said a lot of things similar to what you just said. He also specifically laid out that, you know, he doesn't, he's a veteran himself. so 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 has 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? Like, he's going to be on Tucker Carlson's podcast, I think, today. somebody from within the administration from the American First Wing who is conspiratorial, who has 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 imminent 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 interest 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 Kamala Harris was going to do this. I mean, they literally campaigned say Kamala Harris was going to start World War III 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 series, and we have to be careful not to just embrace his entire narrative, but I believe in a

coalition politics. I mean, I've gotten criticized recently that I went on Hassan Piker's stream. 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 and a rank racist and rank anti-Semite to do that the, Tennessee Valley Authority. I mean, the politics is about building coalitions 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 when the Democrats were like, we shouldn't go on Joe Roakin. 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 is part of living in a democracy and a free society and it's both smart and what we should do in a pluralistic country. And when 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 my view, 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 think anybody who's like, we shouldn't go on Theo Vaughn's podcast because he said some offensive things, should watch some of Theo Vaughn's interviews. You know, Mark Cuban went on there and handled himself just fine. It's not exactly like doing Tim Russert. here's maybe the area

that I'm a little bit more conflicted about which is there's a post I guess going around social media which is I would love to see more Dems 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 Platinor Zoran

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 It's another thing 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 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 brought to stand with Platner and Mamdani. and I would join Hassat. So there are things that I disagree with with Hassan Piker. I mean, when I've gone on this stream, I disagree with them. And certainly I would and have called out anti-semitism.

I've called out, you know, ugly chants in San Francisco where taxed, 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 call that an act of anti-Semitism. I've done town halls in my district on anti-Semitism. I had a father tell me about his daughter, who is 13, who's afraid of having a manure in her house.

I mean, there's no doubt that anti-Semitism has increased. I have nieces who are Jewish because my brother is Hindu and married some of Jewish, so we have a Hindu Jewish family 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 earn people's respect if we're shaming them and always putting them on the defensive.

Yeah, 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, that's happening now. And that's kind of a shorthand for what he said. But that was like basically what it was. I mean. Well, I don't understand why 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 and Dick Cheney adopted. Don Rumsfeld, I'm pretty sure, was a Gentile.

I actually was confused why that term had anything to do with someone being Jewish or, or, 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. And America should use its military power to do that. And my view is that a restraint is better. So I was puzzled by Greenbl, I've known Greenblad. He's been in my office. And, you know, the one thing is, and my team's like, just ignore it. Just ignore it. And, you know, I hit back saying like the guy has a cup of mouthpiece for Trump and is politicized the ADL. But I don't want to be doing that. But what has changed is there's not, not 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 in 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 a strategy that's going to backfire for a green blood and the ADL. And I don't think that 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 on social media. I get into sometimes too many meatless fights on X and, you know, They're like, well, I can't you just focus on, you know, your economic mission and AI, which I do. But, you know, people, people want to see the real you. They want to see you mix it up. And anyway, 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 has to weigh in 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. It's like, we got to focus on kitchen table issues. And it's like,

you don't think that the war in Iran and why we're there is a kitchen table issue. Like, you don't think Epstein is 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 you want to have a conversation like you would have at a living of our kitchen table, which is not like, well, we need to talk about affordability and the price of eggs or something. I mean, like, who talks like that? People are like, wow, did you see what happened at the Epstein fell? I was kind of crazy. Did you see like, Savannah got three's mom was kidnapped? Like, why was she kidnapped? They'd have something to FC? No, it didn't have something to do FCC. Like, it's ordinary Americans have tons of opinions on everything. And a lot of them are not shy 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 I like being engaged. And to me, I just think we need more of that spontaneity, that a bit willingness to 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. Let's mix it up then. I'd like to mix it up. You're 0 for four in your endorsements last night in Illinois. Bernie was also 0 for three, Justice Democrats, which is more of the whatever the kind of

super PAC that's aligned with the squad type candidates lost their races. You know, 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 populace left. And we're not seeing a ton of evidence of that in elections. on the ground. I mean, obviously, Zoran won in New York City, but, you know, whether it'd be the New Jersey or 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 Spanberger, for Mikey Sherrill, for Zoran. All the wings of the party should be together for 20 26. I do think we've had a lot of progressive victories with Zoran, with Annalia in New Jersey. I mean, let's see how. Thanks to APEC for that one. Nice assist from APEC in New Jersey going after Tom Mellenowski and accidentally electing the squad candidate with their advertising. But okay, yeah, sure. Yeah, but I mean, she did well. She would have been a close second. I would look at Kat did very well. She came with like three points. And at 26, she did much better than I did when I first

ran for Congress of 27, it 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've endorsed people based on my values. We've had a track record, I think of a number of them surprising, like Annalia and winning, people like Graham Platner, who I think will win the primary and the general, Zoran,

who obviously surprised. And then when you do endorsements, you have your share of law. 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, or new economic patriotism. How are we going to in a future economy with AI and technology makes for every family, every community has economic independence? We've got to be a 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 it 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, yeah, no. But I just mean, like his 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 are like, hey, we've got to do something different. Like, we've got to change.

but then their answer to that is the thing we've got to change is we can't do this corporatist center left. We need something more Bernie. We need more Bernie populist. But there isn't a ton of examples of progressive populists winning in swing states. And you have somebody like Josh Shapiro who is so popular in Pennsylvania that he's up a reelection in the swing state as a Democrat. And it's like he doesn't even really have a challenger. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. How do you kind of process that?

If somebody thinks 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 message. Martin O'Malley might have won two, though. We'll never really know. We'll never know. Oh, Bertie won 23 states, though. I mean, Bernie won Michigan in the primary in 2016. Hillary lost a bunch of states. She won the primary in two, though.

That doesn't necessarily mean anything. 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 a state like Pennsylvania. I mean, Federman when he ran, ran is a fairly economic populist.

Justice for Conner Lamb, we talk 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 California governor's race? Where are you running? California governor's race. No, no. in your state. There's a very wild primary happening. It's the strange, strange race, the California governor's race. Does there anybody you like that primary? Well, I've endorsed.

Probably a bad day to announce that. I already endorsed Tom Steyer. I think, you know, I think the race is coming down to Steyer and Swalwell. I like Swalwell. He's a colleague of mine. He's a neighbor. But Steyer, you know, shares my view on single pair of health care 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, 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 it shares my values.

And I think our track record is about 40 or 50% for the cycle. I'm just picking on you. I like the San Jose mayor. the California governor's race. He's got no chance, but, you know, whatever. He's been a very good mayor. He's in my district. I like him. I just think he got in a lot late. I mean, you know, it's a big state. It's uphill. It seems like, I mean, that's just based on the polling. We're running out of time, but I do just want to pick your brain really quick on two 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-corporate, anti-oligarch message, which I think is important, and also recognizing that, like, we can't just unplug the server of AI. Like, 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 as somebody who's kind of representing that part of the country? Well, I say I'm not an AI accelerationist. I'm not an AI Dumer. 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 software, in customer support, kids of people who had college degrees.

When William Julius Wilson wrote about de-industrialization of black inner cities, the country just ignored them. Then we started to have like blue-collar jobs being lost in places. that were white working class and Deaton and Case and others were out about it and we started to pay some attention, but still not if enough action. Now you got like Princeton graduates' kids who are having a hard time getting jobs.

Now the country is like suddenly like, oh no, like our donors are telling us this, or suburban voters are telling us this. So we have an opportunity to have the most affirmative generational jobs agenda in this country that will put people to work. I am working on this idea of a Work for America program where we will 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 moonshot projects and renewable energy or making government more effective. And let's put people to work and give us a new national purpose, right? That would be one way to deal with some of the AI dislocation. The second thing is we need to change the tax code, incentivize hiring people instead of hiring agentic AI. Like, why do we have the incentives backwards? Third is have worker ownership. We have capital bias, right? In AI, it rewards a capital class. And so think of how transformative it would be if like a 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. Democrats 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 for how we make this AI revolution work for everyone. And I guess ultimately, to your 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 of, like, well, let's just see how do we have a swing state governor?

Jackson, Governor doesn't make me yawn, so I don't mean this about hitting. He's a great guy. It's like so boring or 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 we understand is the future or who's going to actually solve our problems. Our kids are not having the American dream? Like, how are you going to capture the imagination?

And that 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 had like three other things I wanted to pick your brain about, but I think you've been cloned because you're everywhere. 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 months, talk about the rest of my list. How does that sound? Sounds great. Always enjoy being on. All right. I appreciate it. That's Rokon.

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. You can't keep running away. The Borg 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 and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.