Just weeks before last year’s US presidential election, California Congressman Ro Khanna, the so-called ‘rep for Silicon Valley’, told Mehdi that he’d be “surprised” if billionaire Elon Musk joined the Trump administration in an official role.
Now, over six months later, Musk has become perhaps one of the most powerful people in the United States government, with Khanna now saying that Musk – who has said he will be stepping back from DOGE – “needs to be held accountable.”
“I was surprised, but I turned out to be both right and wrong. Wrong obviously that he joined, right that he'd get quickly frustrated and exhausted and leave,” Khanna tells Mehdi. “He's the only person I know who's gone from 65% approval to 35% approval… He went on a cultural crusade. And what he didn't realize is that Americans will cheer you to put rockets up in space, but they don't want those folks making decisions for them.”
In this wide-ranging interview, Mehdi and Ro Khanna discuss the congressman’s online feuds not only with Musk, but also Vice President JD Vance. When Mehdi asked Ro Khanna why he spars with JD Vance so often, whether it’s because he sees Vance as the heir to Trump or just because he finds Vance annoying, Khanna replied, “probably the latter.”
“JD is the only one who's making some pretense of trying to give an intellectual justification to what Trump's doing. Even Trump doesn't say, ‘I want to deprive people of due process.’ He says, ‘I don't know about it.’ JD Vance is saying, ‘No, no… an immigrant shouldn't have due process in this country,’” Khanna says to Mehdi.
Mehdi also presses the congressman on his own party, with Khanna admitting that Democrats were too cautious in this past election, despite President Donald Trump constantly endorsing extreme policies, such as pardoning Jan. 6 rioters and buying Greenland.
“If you get one person promising sweeping change and the other party saying, ‘well, we're basically going to give you what you've had for 40 years,’ people keep rolling the dice and saying, ‘let's roll the dice because what we've had for 40 years hasn't worked,’” Khanna tells Mehdi.
Khanna also calls for the “loudest condemnation” of the Netanyahu government’s actions in Gaza and reveals what he thinks the next Democratic presidential nominee should say about Israel and Gaza. (Will that be Khanna himself? Mehdi, of course, asked the question!)
Paid subscribers can watch the half-hour interview to hear Mehdi and Ro Khanna discuss the congressman’s plan to help Democrats try and win back MAGA voters, the recent fighting between India and Pakistan, and, yes, whether or not he is laying the groundwork for a presidential bid in 2028.
Free subscribers can watch the first 5-minutes of the interview. Do consider becoming a paid subscriber to Zeteo and skip the paywall every time!
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