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- [00:00]
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- [00:30]
Sam Stein
Hey, guys. Welcome back to the Bulwark. I am Sam Stein, the managing editor for the site. And I'm joined by Congressman Ro Khanna, past guest who we've been wanting to have back. Now he's with us. We're going to be talking a lot of stuff. Doge, George Will, how to get an A in San Francisco. Apparently it's pretty easy these days, all that. But before we do subscribe to the feed. We appreciate that, Congressman. Thanks so much for doing this. I want to start out with Doge because that's what we were talking about when we last did one of these things. And you had some interesting insights that I think now that it appears to be winding down. Although actually, I do want to get to that. Your predictions on that at the time, you were like, look, I think Elon, I think we need to work with Elon or at least try to work with Elon. I think it's important to try to go across the aisle. But you also said, I think Elon's going to get frustrated very quickly. I think four or three months counts as pretty quickly. So why did you do you feel, I don't know why I say vindicated. But what made you say that at the time? And are you surprised at all that Elon seems to be not just frustrated, but like, you know, depressed about it all?
- [01:40]
Ro Khanna
Well, we've all made calls in politics. I've made my share of erroneous predictions that turned out to be correct because I, I know, I know Elon's ambition. I've known him for 15 years and I know he was coming into it saying he's going to save $2 trillion a year because we're in a $2 trillion deficit. And I said, elon, you just aren't going to be able to do that. And we would. I said, look, let's start with defense. You know, I wish we could cut defense. I've been voting against the defense budget for the last six, seven years, saying it's going to go over a trillion dollars. You want to start cutting it? Let's start with defense. And I guar guarantee you the Republicans in Congress aren't going to go along with you. And I, I just figured he would. He didn't understand how entrenched some of those interests were in Congress and was, was, was going to und. Realize that he wasn't going to come close to achieving what he wanted to achieve. And Elon's not a type of person who doesn't like getting, getting things his way done. And so I figured he'd get frustrated pretty quickly. It's not a positive. I mean, it's positive that he got frustrated in not being able to dismantle certain federal programs, though. He's done damage, but it's not a positive thing that he wasn't able to touch the Defense industrial complex.
- [03:01]
Sam Stein
Yeah, you look at it differently than a lot of Democrats. You look at it as a missed opportunity. I think a lot of other Democrats say thank God. Right. He could have done so much worse. And in fact, a lot of them actually think he did a lot of bad. But let me push back.
- [03:13]
Ro Khanna
I don't want to. I don't want to. You know, the dismantling of usa, the dismantling of some of nih, though, that's more Bobby Kennedy, some of the privacy issues, the way he ended up going about it, I think was wrong. He could have done things to make government more competitive, more effective. That's not the route that ended up going down.
- [03:34]
Sam Stein
That's what I was going to push back a little bit because you mentioned, well, he ran into entrenched entrance in Congress. In reality, he didn't really, to me at least, it didn't seem like he actually worked all that much with Congress. It seemed like he went in with a sledgehammer, in this case a chainsaw, proverbially, and tried to slash institutions down and got stuck, struck back by the courts. Do you think the problem actually was that he didn't work more with Congress to get them on board, to get them invested in the enterprise?
- [04:04]
Ro Khanna
Yes, but I don't think he would have succeeded. I mean, I wish he had tried. I wish he had sat down and said, look, here's how we take money out of Defense, the Defense Department, and make it more effective. Which is why I got into all this trouble with my party when I said, oh, we should look at Elon's approach and see if he can disrupt the Defense Department like he did Boeing and Lockheed with SpaceX. But that would have required him sitting down with members of Congress and it would have required him pushing back against people in his forces in his own party. And he wasn't willing to do that. So what did he do? He became more a cultural warrior. He went on this cultural crusade going after usaid, which was a mistake, firing veterans, which was a mistake, not really saving actual parts of, of money which, which impact the $2 trillion bottom line. And, you know, he, he tarnished his reputation. I mean, he was someone who was universally liked by a lot of people and around this country. I mean, you know, Democrats like the guy, many Democrats used to like, the guy who put rockets up in space. And Obama helped make Elon Musk with, with Tesla and SpaceX. And then he came in and, you know, there's this unelected billionaire who's firing veterans, have been in Iraq and Afghanistan and Republicans were like, well, who is he? Why is he firing veterans?
- [05:25]
Sam Stein
As one of the few people who had openness towards working with him, I just need to know, did you ever have any meaningful interactions with Doge up until now?
- [05:34]
Ro Khanna
Well, initially, I was going to set up a meeting with him and Vivek Ramaswamy, and I was going to get Bernie and Warren and try to get 25 people there. This was right in the beginning. And I penned an op ed about places where I thought the Defense Department could be cut. I tweeted out and exchanged texts with Elon and Vivek saying, look, why don't we look at the Defense Department. Why don't. We were going to do a meeting where Democrats were going to have our ideas on fossil fuel subsidies or other places that we thought there, there was waste that never happened. And soon it was clear that Elon wasn't going to work with Congress. And soon it was clear that he was very upset at me. I mean, he unfollowed and followed me multiple times, how many times I lost count on Twitter, you know, and then he, then, you know, then he'd appreciate it. When I was like, well, we shouldn't be blown blowing up Teslas, I was like, you know, I mean, you know, I'm not for, I'm not for cheering for Tesla stock to go down, but I think you should work with the Constitution and come to Congress.
- [06:39]
Sam Stein
What do you think? I mean, put it this way, what did you feel like you learned about the guy that you didn't know prior to his coming to Washington D.C. how.
- [06:51]
Ro Khanna
Ill suited he is for politics? I mean, I, you know, and I.
- [06:56]
Sam Stein
Don'T sit right around Donald Trump.
- [06:58]
Ro Khanna
Like, you know, I, I disagree with a lot of things about Donald Trump, but he's a very effective politician. I mean, I, I mean, I don't agree with his leadership. But, you know, if you heard a Trump rally, you see the, the, the effect he has on people. You'd be fooled to underestimate his, him as a politician. Elon, I think, never realized that it's a messy democracy. And in a democracy, you know, we love it that LeBron James is great at basketball. We love it that Taylor Swift is, is a great rock, rock star. We love it that Elon is sending up rockets to space. But you know what? You don't get to call the shots or rule in America. The citizens rule. And I think he made the mistake of conflating sort of a celebrity and a respect that he had in a different sphere and say, well, maybe I can translate this to politics. You know, Donald Trump had to over, you know, I disagree with it. But he, he campaigned for four years for the presidency. He survive two assassination attempts like in the American people want you to roll up your sleeves, get your hands dirty and earn their votes. And I, I think Elon just didn't get that.
- [08:01]
Sam Stein
Last question on Elon, do you think, I mean, he says he's, you know, rolling back from politics, not going to spend as much money anymore, says that Doge is kind of winding down. Do you actually believe that?
- [08:11]
Ro Khanna
Well, he's unpredictable. I mean, I think that's the, you know, and who knows? But I, I, I think there's the one thing and I, you know, I texted him, we'll see if he replies with my tweet. I said, you know, you're opposed to blanket tariffs. You've already said you're opposed to this budget that explodes the deficits. It's now deficits are going to be 8% of GDP as opposed to the Besant target of 3%. So he's grown, the Republicans are growing the budget deficit from 7% under Biden to 8%. I'm sure you're opposed to the ban on international students.
- [08:44]
Sam Stein
He was one, you know, so can.
- [08:47]
Ro Khanna
You start to speak out? And I, I guess my view of politics, and maybe this is where I'm different than some of my Democrats is I, I view politics as addition, I.
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Sam Stein
View it as you want to bring, you want to bring Elon back into the fold.
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Ro Khanna
I want to bring anyone who's going to get to our, to our side. And I don't, I don't think people should just be, anyone should just be written written off completely. I think let's have as many people advocating for our policies. If Elon's going to start to say, you know, I Don't like the fact that we're banning international students or having blanket tariffs or having deficit spending of the kind we are. That would be helpful in my view.
- [09:23]
Sam Stein
Yeah. Well, we'll see. Let us know if he responds to your text. George Will has penned an op ed in which your name is brought up as. I don't know. How do I. It's kind of tongue in cheek, but he's talking about how conservatives have really become liberals. And what he means by that is they're statists. Right? Like, he's like, you know, they're using the state to engineer all these outcomes that they want in education, education and the economy and so on and so forth. And he basically brings you up as a young. He says, young, you're 52. I, I don't know if I qualify.
- [09:57]
Ro Khanna
It's only in Washington where, like, they, they calculate like the next election cycle and that becomes your age.
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Sam Stein
Sorry, I didn't mean to add years to your age. What did you make of the op ed? I thought it was clever. But you took it, you took a very, like, you complimentary.
- [10:13]
Ro Khanna
It's basically like, you know, I disagree with everything kind of stands for, but he's polite and he loves the country, loves the Constitution. That's, that's all we need these days. You know, I was almost sad. I was like, George Will is basically, has been so disgusted by the Republican Party that he's basically saying, I'll settle. I'll settle for a progressive, as long as he doesn't want to, you know, ban. Ban universities.
- [10:36]
Sam Stein
Well, yeah, I think his point, his point is that you're less progressive than the Trump administration because you're not taking the power of the state to basically decide what the curriculum should be in.
- [10:51]
Ro Khanna
The point to his piece, though, is correct. The whole conservative view is that you have limited federal government, limited role in government, and that it's constrained by the Constitution and states and civil society. And you have Donald Trump basically saying, I'm not going to be constrained by the courts. I'm going to threaten states like California based on, like, who's participating in an athletic contest. I'm going to take away their funds. I'm going to start threatening universities. I'm going to threaten the, the, the arts and, and the Kennedy Center. I mean, it's the most expansive use of the state. And in that way, yes, I would be for much more limited role for an American president to be bound by the Constitution and recognize the role of states and localities and universities and, and in civic society.
- [11:39]
Sam Stein
We were Talking internally in our slacks today about this because, and we're playing off of Adam Sphere piece in the Atlantic that this is kind of a war on knowledge in a way. And you look across the spectrum, it's science, academia, the arts. I forget who it was today.
- [11:53]
Ro Khanna
Decided they want to join in too.
- [11:55]
Sam Stein
Yeah, well that segues into the next one. Let's talk about San Francisco because this popped up in the feed where it looks like they're, they're putting together some guidance, guidance around schooling there that essentially like, basically makes it so that everyone starts out with a B and probably will get an A. I, I want to say it's grading for equity and you had some strong thoughts about it that I do agree with. But some of the standards that they're going to be putting place seem totally absurd because essentially there's no differentiation. Every kid ends up in some sort of place where they get like a fairly good grade or they pass and they're not really challenged.
- [12:35]
Ro Khanna
What I don't understand is the anti intellectualism going around in this country. I mean San Francisco is basically like, well if, if you get a 40% on your exams, you'll get a C, not an F. If you have an 80% instead of getting a B, you'll get an A. If you don't do your homework, no big deal. I mean it's crazy. And, and then, you know, Donald Trump is out there basically taking a sledgehammer to Harvard as if the only people who go to Harvard are people who are rich and the kids of senators or donors. How about just the kids who studied hard and who want to pursue knowledge? And why, why is it, you know, I believe we owe a lot more to people who don't want to go to college on the skilled trades. But do we have to bash the people who want to help move the world forward in philosophy and literature and art and science? No, no.
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Sam Stein
But, but you were pushed. You were pushed on this. I think this gets into which is like the woken weak frame of the Democratic Party and this has now become a thing where Democrats and these focus groups look woke and weak and you challenge Rahm Emanuel about it. But isn't this sort of why people think that when you have liberal cities whose school boards are saying, you know what, let's make sure that little Johnny doesn't feel offended if he gets a D and let's put it up to a B plus there is certain to that that suggests or connotes like no, we're not comfortable like hurting the feelings of the little kids and that feels a little weak.
- [13:57]
Ro Khanna
Well, that's not the Democratic Party. You have Democrats like me. Sure. Crazy.
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Sam Stein
Well, it's a city that's kind of liberal. Let's be honest about it.
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Ro Khanna
Well, you know, the. The city has done a lot of great things. It's creating AI, creating technology.
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Sam Stein
No one's taking that away. But we're talking about the governance of the city itself, which is associated with liberalism.
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Ro Khanna
If you're going to say that there are excesses of local governance in the Democrats need to grapple with, I would say absolutely. I mean, we need to focus more on public safety. We need to focus more on actual solutions to homelessness like Matt Mahan and the new mayor of San Jose and Dan Lurie are doing in San Francisco. We need to be for excellence and hard work. But, you know, you can't say that that's become the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party at its core, in my view, is a party that believes in working folks having a. A shot and in making sure everyone has health care, education to achieve the American dream. And that's the essence of our philosophy.
- [14:58]
Sam Stein
Well, one way to give working folks a shot is to make sure that when they're four or five, they all get A's. You got to start the ladder somewhere. All right. Congressman Rona, who always got his A's legitimately without great inflation, my fear of.
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Ro Khanna
Non A's, I had more A's than not, but, you know, it's all what I do.
- [15:16]
Sam Stein
All right. Well, thank you for joining us.
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Ro Khanna
I'm sure. I'm sure you were good. Most of people, you know, most journalists are better students than politicians. And, you know, it's gonna.
- [15:23]
Sam Stein
I don't know about that. I don't know about that. We'll see. Maybe we'll do some quiz show or something. Ro, thank you so much, man. Really appreciate it. If you get that text from Elon, let us know. Appreciate that. Thank you guys for watching on the YouTubes. Appreciate that, too. Subscribe to the feed and we'll talk to you later.