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00:00Our next guest is the ranking member of the House Select Committee on the strategic competition between the U.S.
00:04and Chinese Communist Party.
00:06Congressman Ro Khanna joins us this morning from Maplewood, Ohio, where he's leading a three-day Heartland tour, visiting farms
00:13and factories.
00:14We want to get to that trip. We also want to get to the president's trip to China.
00:18But first, thank you for joining us. And I do want to ask you about that testimony on Wednesday with
00:24Howard Lutnick.
00:25You said regarding his connections to Epstein, he made a, quote, farce of the English language and that Trump would
00:31fire him if he heard what he said.
00:34And I wanted to ask you, are you sure about that? Are you sure you think the president would fire
00:39him if he knew what he said?
00:41I am because the president would see him sweating and mumbling and struggling to answer very basic questions.
00:49I mean, Howard Lutnick's testimony was that when he told the nation that he would never visit Epstein after 2005,
01:00that what he meant was that he himself would never visit Epstein.
01:04But it was fine for him, his wife and his kid to visit Epstein's island.
01:08That just makes no sense. Anyone listening to it would know he was lying and he was not honest.
01:17That's the real issue.
01:19I want to ask about the Epstein Transparency Act and where we are in this process.
01:22So a signal moment having the Commerce Secretary up on Capitol Hill testifying before the Oversight Committee.
01:28There was a lot of commentary early on that the Justice Department hadn't upheld its obligations to that act.
01:34Have they since? Are you satisfied with what you've gotten from the Justice Department?
01:37And indeed, where does this investigation, in part helmed by the Oversight Committee, go from here?
01:43Well, it's been the largest release of documents over decades.
01:46Three million files released.
01:48And they have shown an Epstein class that feels like they don't need to live by the rules, that treats
01:55these women as dispensable.
01:58But there's still three million files that need to be released.
02:01And the biggest thing that survivors tell me is they want to see investigations and prosecutions.
02:05There are people who abuse them, rape them or traffic them in these files.
02:10And there haven't been any investigations or prosecutions.
02:13So we need the release of the remaining files and we need investigations and prosecutions.
02:17I was also wondering, and stick with me here, it is a bit of an odd question, but I'm wondering
02:22if you have any insight into why Melania Trump, seemingly out of nowhere, made that odd and rare public appearance
02:29in April, denying any connection with Epstein and calling for Congress to bring survivors forward to testify.
02:35Do you know what prompted that?
02:38I don't, but I actually welcomed it because unlike her husband, who's calling these survivors a hoax, First Lady Trump
02:44is saying that they deserve to be heard.
02:47First Lady Trump is saying that there should be investigations and prosecutions.
02:51And the most important thing she said is Epstein was not alone.
02:55She knows that there were other men involved in abusing, trafficking, raping these young girls.
03:01And she is saying there needs to be an investigation.
03:04There needs to be prosecution.
03:06And she's contradicting her own husband.
03:09So what I would ask for the First Lady is to say, call on the Justice Department to release the
03:14remaining files and call on them to begin investigations and prosecutions.
03:19Congressman Khanna, as we mentioned, this trip is coming up this week, this postponed trip the president is taking to
03:24Beijing to meet with President Xi.
03:26You're the ranking member of this committee on China.
03:28And I'm curious of how you see the importance of this visit and indeed what you hope will come out
03:34of it.
03:34What is a good outcome in your estimation of this trip where the leaders of the two largest economies in
03:39the world are going to meet?
03:41Well, I've been in Pennsylvania and Ohio and Michigan talking to our farmers, talking to our factory workers.
03:47Let me offer four things we need to do.
03:49First, we need to get a deal for China to buy more of our soybeans.
03:55The farmers have been hurt.
03:57They're buying now from Argentina.
03:58They're buying from South America.
04:01They're not buying from our farmers.
04:03Second, we need to make sure that they're not sending their ships to our ports without a fee.
04:08We suspended this fee.
04:10And China is using their ships in our ports that are hurting American shipbuilding.
04:16Third, we need to find some way to lower the cost of fertilizer.
04:21It's really hurting a lot of our farmers.
04:24It's hurting a lot of the food prices in the United States.
04:28That means getting them not to have export controls on that.
04:31And that means figuring out how we open up the strata for most.
04:35And finally, we need to make sure that they're not dumping into the United States.
04:42They continue to have unfair trade practices.
04:47And we need to clamp down on that.
04:49Historically, the Chinese have been very adept and very tenacious negotiators, especially when it comes to matters of the economy.
04:56We've been talking this morning about how the Treasury Secretary has laid the groundwork and established a relationship with his
05:02counterpart in Beijing.
05:03But I'm wondering if you think this administration, if you think President Trump is ready to go toe-to-toe
05:10with the Chinese,
05:10if he can get successfully the things you were all just talking about out of these negotiations.
05:17Well, he hasn't shown that ability so far.
05:20Obviously, I'm rooting for him because he's the American president.
05:22But we've lost 80,000 manufacturing jobs on his watch.
05:26We've seen 316 farm bankruptcies on his watch compared to 215 the year President Biden was in office.
05:34We've seen the trade deficit for the United States actually increase.
05:39We've seen the cost of inputs increase because of blanket tariffs.
05:44So he has a lot that he has to reverse.
05:47And we've had China hold us hostage on rare arts and critical minerals.
05:51I want a deal that actually helps American farmers, American shipbuilders, American manufacturers.
05:57And I hope he will work to get that.
06:00He hasn't so far.
06:01Part of that committee's remit, as I understand it, is to look at this balance of power,
06:05this level of competition between the U.S. and China.
06:08And I'm curious how you see that dynamic at play right now.
06:11So we had just a few days ago Iran's foreign minister going to Beijing to meet with China's foreign minister.
06:16It's clear that China, by not getting actively involved in this conflict in the Middle East,
06:20is positioned, shall we say, differently from the U.S. right now.
06:24And perhaps that's something I think advantageous to the Chinese leadership.
06:27It's not a war that's draining resources from them.
06:29Sure, they'd like to have the energy that's stalled in the Strait of Hormuz.
06:33How do you see that competitive dynamic?
06:35And how worried are you about the degree to which the U.S.,
06:38the administration is paying attention to that binary between the U.S. and China?
06:44Well, I'm concerned that we're draining our resources in a war in Iran.
06:50We haven't been able to get their enriched uranium out.
06:53Iran's regime is more hardline with the IRGC having more control.
06:57Iran has more control over the Strait of Hormuz.
07:00It's cost us billions of dollars, and it's increased our food prices.
07:05And China basically is just watching from the sideline.
07:08They're not sinking that money into the Middle East.
07:11They're sinking that money into building their ships, into building alternative energy, renewable energy, into building their economy.
07:19So what I want is for the United States to be putting our resources in investing in manufacturing here at
07:24home,
07:25jobs here at home, research and innovation here at home, and not getting sucked into the Middle East.
07:30That's a drain of our resources.
07:32Congressman, I do want to ask you a more armed services-y question.
07:36And there's this report in the Washington Post about U.S. intelligence analyzing the data and saying that Iran is
07:43situated to last at least three or four more months of this blockade before really feeling the economic pressure.
07:50When it comes to a war of attrition, if you're looking at Iran versus the U.S. versus even China,
07:56how long they're willing to sit this out,
07:57do you think the American public and real people who you've been talking to in the Midwest are going to
08:03give the president the benefit of the doubt for this conflict for three to four more months,
08:07given what it's doing to prices of almost everything?
08:12No.
08:12It's because we're spending a billion to two billion dollars a day.
08:17But that's not just the cost.
08:18I mean, when it has Pete Hexed, what's the cost?
08:20He said it's a gotcha question.
08:22But Pete Hexed may want to go out to Ohio and Michigan and Pennsylvania because the cost is the increased
08:27cost of gas.
08:29The cost is the increased cost of diesel.
08:31The cost is the increased cost of fertilizer.
08:34All of that means increased costs for Americans when it comes to food, when it comes to their rent, when
08:40it comes to filling up their tanks this summer.
08:43And that's not a worth in Iran that is more hardline and that still has enriched uranium.
08:51So we haven't achieved anything and we've created enormous economic hardship on the American people.
08:57We need to end this war.
08:58We need negotiation that opens the Strait of Hormuz, allows gas, allows diesel, allows fertilizers, prices to fall.
09:07How blind are you, other lawmakers, flying right now?
09:10I guess it's no small thing that the defense secretary did make his way to Capitol Hill to answer some
09:14questions.
09:15Not all of them, but at least some of them.
09:17You know, I think when we first heard about the funding request the administration was making,
09:20there was some speculation that lawmakers would welcome that as an opportunity to kind of use that
09:25to get Secretary Hegseth and others on the Hill to answer questions about this conflict, about the trajectory of this
09:31war.
09:32How much confidence do you have in your understanding of what the administration wants to do and where this war
09:37is headed?
09:41The administration doesn't have a clear strategic goal.
09:44First, they said they wanted regime change.
09:46Now they acknowledge that the regime that's in place is actually more hardline than Khamenei.
09:51Then they said they wanted the nuclear energy out and for Iran to be denucleared.
09:57Now they acknowledge that enriched uranium is still buried under Iran's soil.
10:02Then they said, well, they want the Strait of Hormuz to be open.
10:05Well, the Strait of Hormuz was open before this war.
10:08So now we have to figure out how we get the Strait of Hormuz open.
10:11There is no strategic goal.
10:13The strategic goal right now should be the immediate opening of the Strait of Hormuz,
10:17the end to these hostilities, not shooting at each other so that the price of food and the price of
10:22gas can drop,
10:23and then negotiation with the international community to get Iran to commit on getting enriched uranium out and inspections,
10:32something Obama had achieved that Trump tore up.
10:35The president has been very frustrated with European allies who have so far been unwilling to engage directly
10:41in either helping with the blockade or helping American action in the region.
10:45Part of the repercussions of that are he has now threatened to take a significant number of troops out of
10:51Germany
10:52after the chancellor had some harsh words about Trump and saying he was getting played by the Iranians.
10:58Are you concerned that that will really happen and at what level do you worry it will impact American operational
11:04abilities?
11:05Because those are big bases.
11:07The U.S. relies on them for a heck of a lot of stuff in that theater.
11:10Why is he doing this and are you concerned it's going to impact military readiness?
11:16Well, I'm concerned that he's doing it in a retaliatory way.
11:19If he wants to look at lessening our footprint on our 800 bases overseas to reduce cost, that's a separate
11:28conversation.
11:29But he shouldn't be threatening the German chancellor with our troop presidents in Germany
11:34because the German chancellor doesn't want to engage in a blockade that isn't being effective in the Strait of Hormuz.
11:41What we need to do is bring along our European allies, like President Obama did,
11:46to put pressure on Iran to have a deal that forces them to submit to inspection and give up their
11:52enriched uranium.
11:54Obviously, the military option didn't work.
11:56Yes, the military destroyed Iran's navy.
11:59Yes, it destroyed Iran's air force.
12:02That may weaken them regionally.
12:03But it did nothing in terms of getting them the enriched uranium out.
12:08And for that, we need our European allies, NATO, and diplomacy.
12:12Let me pivot from the shooting war in the Middle East, shooting war in Europe,
12:16to the political war here in the United States over congressional districts.
12:19And as I said, you're uniquely positioned.
12:21You're in armed services oversight, the China committee.
12:23You're also from the great state of California, which is wrestling with some of these issues having to do with
12:27congressional districts.
12:28I'm curious what your reaction is to what we've seen in recent weeks out of Virginia.
12:32The Virginia Supreme Court ruling that the redrawn districts that were passed by voters there does not comport with the
12:39state's constitution.
12:40Obviously, a setback for Democrats.
12:42We saw the ruling from the Supreme Court on the Voting Rights Act.
12:45Where do you see this war, that political war heading, as we see Republicans and Democrats going back and forth
12:50on the way those congressional districts are drawn?
12:54Well, the Virginia decision was overruling Virginia voters.
12:58I mean, Virginia voters just voted on maps.
13:00And for the Virginia Supreme Court to invalidate an election is deeply anti-democratic.
13:07And then for the U.S. Supreme Court to gut voting rights in the Deep South, to not understand that
13:15there's racially polarized voting in the Deep South is completely out of touch and undermining the efforts of the civil
13:23rights movement.
13:24I mean, they're going after Jim Clyburn's district.
13:26There was not a black member in Congress in South Carolina for 100 years between Reconstruction and Jim Crow.
13:33Jim Clyburn won that scene in 1992 because they drew a black majority district.
13:39And they're trying to eliminate that.
13:41They're trying to eliminate the work of the voting rights and civil rights movement, eliminating black majority districts in the
13:47South.
13:47It's deeply concerning and not on a political level, just on a level of anyone who cares about civil rights
13:53and black representation in America.
13:56So what are you going to do about this?
13:58What are Democrats going to do?
13:59And at this point, is this a map Democrats can reasonably win and hope to flip either of these bodies
14:05in November?
14:07We're going to win the House.
14:09They will win despite all of these games.
14:12My concern is what is this doing in terms of our civil rights representation?
14:16I would encourage people to watch Jamie Harrison's passionate defense of a black majority districts in South Carolina and beyond
14:24when he spoke at the South Carolina legislative session.
14:27And I do believe that we can convince in some of these legislators not to do what they're thinking of
14:35doing, eliminating black districts.
14:36It's not right for the country.
14:38And it may actually backfire on them creating more democratic districts in the process.
14:44So as they eliminate black districts, they may actually be creating more democratic opportunities.
14:49So we're going to be fighting in each one of these states to make sure that they don't eliminate these
14:55districts.
14:56What do you say to the viewer of Bloomberg Television, the listener to Bloomberg Radio, who sees the gentleman from
15:00Fremont, California, in Maplewood, Ohio,
15:02and wonders if this gentleman has higher aspirations than representing a congressional district in California?
15:09And if you're demure on answering that directly, what does the Democratic Party need to know from the places that
15:13you've been spending the last three days visiting?
15:17I'm here in my capacity as the top Democrat on the China Select Committee, and I'm here with colleagues from
15:24Michigan, from Pennsylvania, from Ohio.
15:26But what I would say is the Democratic Party needs to spend more time in places in rural America, on
15:32farms, in factory towns, and then understand that they're upset.
15:36They're upset with both parties.
15:37They've seen manufacturing job loss.
15:39They've seen the prices increase.
15:41They've seen wealth pile up in districts like mine in Silicon Valley, while the American dream seems farther out of
15:47reach here.
15:48And we need to offer a vision.
15:49I call it economic patriotism, a new industrial bank that invests in communities, a thousand new trade schools.
15:56A new sense of tech institutes across America, a trade agenda that actually opens up foreign markets for our farmers.
16:05So we need to offer an economic agenda for the future.
16:08So you're exploring running for president.
16:12Well, right now I'm exploring what the agenda for the China Committee and House Democrats should be.
16:17But I do believe whoever runs to represent our party and our nation should have a comprehensive economic agenda for
16:24the future.
16:25I think that's the central issue.
16:27How are we going to improve the lives of Americans in many of these places that were hollowed out after
16:32NAFTA, hollowed out after China came into the World Trade Organization?
16:35What is our vision for bringing them back, for having economic security and economic independence?
16:40How dare we go?
16:40How dare we go to China?
16:40What is national andness?
16:40Well, let's go to China.
16:40It was about winning all kinds of elements, but it was a good surprise.
16:41a long way to our lives who abide by khou-aktin, because of society can only do RODOM skysđS, but
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