Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to the Bulldog Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. Delighted to welcome to the show a California congressman representing much of Silicon Valley. He serves on the House Armed Services Committee and on the Oversight and Accountability Committee. It's Ro Khanna. 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... 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 MAGA 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 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 another Middle East war. The boats on that one haven't quite materialized like the boats have on Epstein. But Epstein was an uphill fight as well. And I believe we can get to the same coalition on the war. Do you think the MAGA voters 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 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 in another Middle East war. But the primary is still 50, 60 days away.
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Chapter 2: How does Ro Khanna view the coalition building around the Epstein files?
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 and 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? I've been around long enough that I know how this stuff works. Just
Take us back to the beginning of the Epstein effort when you and Massey are getting together on this. Because a lot of times in politics, things, once they've happened, feel inevitable. It feels like, well, obviously that was going to happen in retrospect. But 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 so overwhelming. The vote that Donald Trump couldn't couldn't veto it, couldn't bully anybody.
I mean, he tried to bully Lauren Boebert, 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 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. We're not supposed to be. Gadflies.
Mavericks is a positive word, so I'm going to give you gadfly. We weren't supposed to be at the center of the activity of the house. It was dismissed initially. On our side, by some, is why are we engaging in conspiracy theories? Why are we engaging in something that is adjacent to QAnon? This isn't serious, Roe.
I had a senior person sit down with me saying, 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 a- Tell us who it was. Who was that? So we know not to listen to their advice in the future. That'll be the last time they talk to me here. Okay.
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 discharge petitions almost never succeed.
There have 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 Masikana bill.
because we wanted it to seem 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 Greene, Nancy Bass, Lauren Boebert. Here's the point, though, Tim. What started out with just four or five Republicans now has even Comer voting to subpoena Pam Bondi. Right.
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Chapter 3: What insights does Ro Khanna share about MAGA voters and their concerns?
Yeah, I think our politics sort of has changed. Kareem, 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 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 an 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 testified.
What what type of stuff are you wanting to get from that testimony? Yeah. Well, first of all, it'll finally be her answering questions instead of just insulting every member of Congress or senator. Well, there'll be that, too, I think. But it'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. How about the share file?
The initial reporting was that there was 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 believe reports that that exists. And again, like we don't exactly know what's in that, but why wouldn't they show us?
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Chapter 4: How does Ro Khanna address the political implications of the Iran war?
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 person. 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'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 to me, I think the Epstein issue and the crypto corruption are the things that jump to the top that require 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.
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 on to the Justice Department? Why are they not prosecuting them? So 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 they're 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. 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. It'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 people that were emailing him 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, you know, 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.
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Chapter 5: What challenges does Ro Khanna identify in the current political landscape?
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. A normal investigation would do that. None of that has happened. And that that is just infuriated people.
You know, what now is obvious is that what 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. 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 their.
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 congresspeople 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, but 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 due process doesn't mean you don't investigate. Process is in the word there. There needs to be a process. There needs to be a precedent.
And the other thing that comes up is, 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 involved. Yeah, that you mentioned a couple of them.
It 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 Sager 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 what we actually know? What's your sense 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.
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Chapter 6: What is Ro Khanna's perspective on the future of the Democratic Party?
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.
Chapter 7: How does Ro Khanna propose to navigate the impact of AI on jobs?
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Chapter 8: What strategies does Ro Khanna suggest for addressing economic inequality?
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try to combat what the administration is doing with prosecuting this war. 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 to 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 childcare? $10 a day paying childcare workers. Daycare. $25 an hour. 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 am totally opposed to, it's very unlikely that you can create some kind of regime change. We've got Kamenei out and Kamenei 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 having gas prices go up. And by the way, the enriched uranium, the 60 percent 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 in June.
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 declare victory and stop the war. 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, degrading their ballistic missiles. The JCPOA, which I support it. Obama had negotiated something where he had 3.67% enrichment of uranium.
Before the JCPOA, it 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 onto a ballistic missile. And he had an entire deal.
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