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Democrat Reps Ro Khanna and Jason Crow Talk America
Recorded: April 1, 2025 Duration: 1:05:12Space Recording
Short Summary
The conversation touches on the launch of meme coins by Trump and Melania, highlighting new token issuances. Discussions on the smart use of Bitcoin and crypto reflect ongoing innovations in the digital currency space. The End Dark Money Act is mentioned as a measure to regulate political funding, indirectly impacting fundraising practices.
Full Transcription
Thank you. Hello, everybody.
We're just waiting for all the speakers to come up on stage.
Give us a sec. Thank you. We're still waiting on Mr. Ro Khanna to get here.
Give us a few more seconds.
Well while we're waiting, how's everybody's day going so far?
Good, good.
How have you been?
I have a little cold, so I'm a little snotty. But other than that, it's going pretty good.
I'm excited about this conversation.
I see Ro is in here now and also Rep Crow.
So I'm excited you kicked us off.
Yeah, I'm excited too.
Thank you, Ro.
Thank you, Jason.
We really appreciate you guys making the time to be with us today.
You bet.
Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Yeah. Thank you for having me. You both have been speaking a lot about the Democratic Party and what went wrong and, you know, finding a need to adapt after the loss in November. So
just to kick it all off, what changes would you guys think are
necessary to kind of reconnect with voters who've drifted away? And what are some things that you
would say to people who are just kind of checking out, they're tuning out, they're not paying
attention, they're overloaded? Ro, do you want to kick it off? Either way, Jason, you want to start? Yeah,
no, go for it. No, I'll follow Roe. Okay. Well, first of all, thank you. It's an honor to be on
with Jason. You know, he's really on so many issues, but especially given his service on
national security and military issues, someone that caucus really listens to.
And our thank you to Ed and Brian for hosting this.
Look, I think the fundamental challenge in this country is still the economy.
I mean, I represent a district in the heart of Silicon Valley, and we have $12 trillion of wealth in our district, Apple, Google, Tesla, NVIDIA.
And at the same time, the bottom 50% of Americans have maybe 3% of the wealth in this country.
can't afford three months of emergency expenses and are basically unable to make a $2,000 payment.
We have 70% of the wealth really in the hands of 10%. So while tech and finance has boomed,
we hollowed out manufacturing, we hollowed out industries, we hollowed out towns,
manufacturing, we hollowed out industries, we hollowed out towns, people's wages didn't keep up.
And Donald Trump came in and he told a simple story, a false story, in my view, that, you know,
the fault was all of immigrants coming in, taking low-wage jobs, and the fault was all fixable if
we just had tariffs. And my view is what the party really needs to do
is think about a very compelling economic vision,
not the only thing, but the central thing,
that's going to make people feel that we get the future
and we understand how their families, their communities,
their kids are going to have economic success
in this modern era, knowing that they haven't had that
with rank inequality expanding
over the last 50 years. Now, Ro, you mentioned Tesla. Somebody asked if I would ask you the
question if you're still a Tesla investor and what do you make of the whole Tesla takedown movement?
Tesla takedown movement? Well, look, Tesla's in my district. I don't
trade or invest in stocks. My wife has a diversified trust, which I don't have any say
over. I don't know if they have any small holdings still or not. But my view on Tesla is that,
unlike some, I don't believe we should ever be cheering against a company.
I respect people's right to boycott and right not to buy it.
But in my view, there are thousands of workers, working class, middle class folks who are in my district who are employed at the Tesla factory.
And I have deep, deep problems with Elon Musk and what he's doing
unconstitutionally. But I don't want to take it out on the people who are working at Tesla. And
I think that we want to be ultimately for American companies succeeding. What we need to do is
end these super PACs that allow someone like Elon Musk to pour $250 million from Tesla money.
You know, Tesla was a public funded corporation through the Obama loans.
And so it's really offensive for people to say, well, the taxpayers helped get it started.
It's got a lot of employment.
Now, Musk's wealth is he's going to use $250 million of it to go spend on elections.
And the problem with that
is, in my view, not to root against the Tesla worker, but it is to do what Summer Lee and I
have proposed, which is to say super PACs should be abolished, or at the very least, you shouldn't
be able to give more money to a super PAC than you can to an individual candidate. And that,
I think, gets at the crux of what is really the problem, the big money in
politics. Do you think that Republicans are likely to, you know, work with you across the aisle on
something like this? They should, because Elon Musk is targeting them more than anyone. I mean,
why would you want some multi-billionaire determining whether you could stay in Congress
or the Senate? And it's constitutional even under Citizens United. I mean, under Citizens United, someone can't give me more than
$3,500. That's the maximum contribution limit. And so why is it that someone can't give me or
Jason more than $3,500, but then can go write a $250 million check to a super PAC?
Well, Jason, the New York Times has called you a Democrat who may just hold the key
to his party winning back the House in 2026. So to tie back to the earlier question about how do
we adapt to the loss in November, what changes do you think that we need to make within the party
and how do we reconnect voters that have drifted away? Well, clearly I have already failed
at one of the most important aspects of politics and that is managing people's expectations. So
I don't, if there's any illusion that I hold the key or some kind of secret sauce, let me
disabuse folks of that notion right now, because the simple fact is, is there's no secret to this,
right? There are two things that I know are true is, is there's no secret to this, right?
There are two things that I know are true. One is there are a lot of Democrats doing amazing
things in cities and counties, in states, up and down the ballot, who fight hard for the right
reasons, who are amazing leaders. The second thing is that's not been enough. It just hasn't,
right? We can't sit here right now with Donald Trump in the White House and Republicans in control of both chambers of Congress and say that this is a governing coalition and we're doing what we need to be doing.
So that then raises to the obvious question, you know, what has to change?
Right. Because obviously something has to change.
So I think back to my background. I grew up in a working class family in the upper Midwest, a lot of construction in
my family. I actually worked when I was 15. I started working when I was 15 in Arby's and
McDonald's and then worked in construction to help put my way through college because I did
well in school. My parents didn't have the money to put me through college. And when I was working
construction, you'd get up and you'd go to that
construction site and you'd shake everyone's hand and you were feeling the other person's hands.
The first thing you wanted to know was, is this one of me? Is this one of us? Who is this person?
And the lesson for me there now is that Democrats think that we're having a policy discussion. We
think that just going and explaining these great policies that we have, and they are
very good policies, that's going to be enough. And the simple fact of the matter
is vast swaths of our country, rural areas and red areas have
turned away because they don't think that we respect them. They don't think that we see them.
Right? So finding the right candidates, right? Finding people with lived experience that they
can relate to, being authentic, just saying the thing, not trying to be caricatures of ourselves and talking in political speak.
Plain language is important here.
And actually listening and respecting people's way of life is essential.
Because until we start doing that, people simply are not going to listen to our ideas.
are doing that, people simply are not going to listen to our ideas. Well, I think that's why
Trump was successful is because he spoke in a simplistic way and appealed to people that,
you know, don't always understand all the ins and outs of politics. And I think that kind of
brings me to another question for you, Jason, and maybe Roe could actually also weigh
in on it. But why do you think conservatives seem to have such a dominant presence on social media,
on live streams, on podcasts? And what's holding progressives back from building a comparable
ecosystem? Well, nothing's holding us back. There's no doubt about that. And
you know, a lot of this is showing up. You know, the bottom line is folks opted out. There's a lot
of people who opted out. Now, not everybody. Like I go back to my original point that there's great
Democrats waiting in all the time and going into the fight. But, you know, we thought that,
that, you know, doing the traditional outreach and too many people listen to too many consultants
and throwing tons of money behind TV would do the job. Clearly not, because we outspent them
on TV in a lot of places. So showing up and being willing to go where you're uncomfortable,
to go where there's going to be a fierce debate. And even if 90% of the people aren't going to agree
with you, you're going to reach that 5% and that 10%. And people, even if they don't agree with
you, will respect you for showing up. I get this all the time back in my district. And I flipped
my seat. In 2018, I became the first Democrat ever to hold Colorado's 6th District. I flipped
it after 40 years of it being, thank you. Right. And I would
all the time, it was a 50, 50 district. And I walked in, I would walk into a room, half or more
of the people didn't like me, didn't support me, but I would tell them what was on my mind. I would
answer their questions. I would have a healthy debate. And more often than not, they'd say,
you know what? I may not agree with you, but I believe you.
I think you're telling me what you believe, and I can work with that.
And I'll take that.
I'll take that any day of the week.
I think both you guys do a great job of going into,
I don't want to say enemy territory, but opponent territory.
You're both on Fox News frequently.
I know, Ro, I see you on Fox News
like every other week pretty much. I think that's valuable because people see how you,
they see you in the other person's venue. Does that make sense?
I think you have to be willing to have an exchange of ideas, not be afraid of standing
for what you believe and not be afraid of jousting, not be afraid of fighting for your
ideas. I think when you don't go into places where people may disagree with you, you look
weak. I mean, if you're not willing, I would just did Bill O'Reilly today. Like, if you're
not going to take on Bill O'Reilly and are going to get cowered by his questions, then how are you going to take on the insurance companies?
Then how are you going to stand up to Putin?
Then how are you going to fight for the American people?
So it just it's sort of a but it's a cowardice.
And I think that that's how people see it.
And they see it as to to coach.
Now, when I go on these things, I've made mistakes. I said things I regret.
But at the end of the day, mostly people don't remember that.
They just remember that you go on and you're making an effort and they're getting to know you.
And I think that too many politicians are of the old guard, not of Jason in my generation, but the old guard.
The mantra was don't make a mistake. Don't give
someone an embarrassing soundbite. And I just think politics has changed. It's better to make
mistakes with warts and let people see you and get a sense of who you are than being so programmed
and cautious and disciplined that you're never making a mistake.
You know, there seems to be some sort of misnomer amongst Democrats.
They keep throwing out this phrase that Fox News won't let you on and Newsmax won't let you on.
And yet I see people like you guys, you know, going on there and taking on the opposition.
And what do you think it is that can kind of break that bubble and say to the rest of our party,
hey, get on, go do these shows.
I haven't found it to be true
that these places are inaccessible.
Some of them might be,
but I think by and large,
they're willing to have folks on.
Now, you have to have some confidence.
I couldn't agree more with Roe that we win on policy.
If you just ask people without any type of partisanship assigned to a certain issue
or policy, overwhelmingly, people support what we're trying to do.
So we win there.
We win on competency.
We win on people doing this for the right reasons.
But we're damn well losing on competence right now
and protection of strength, right? We are suffering from a crisis of confidence. So,
you know, it's time for us to stand up and say, you know, the vast majority of people are behind
us. We're going to wade into these venues. We're going to go, whoever will have us,
whatever podcast, whatever outlet, and we're going to defend our positions. We're going to defend the
people we represent and we're going to defend this country and do so with vigor.
And like Rose said, it's not always going to be perfect. You're going to make some missteps,
but that's human, right? People want real people doing these jobs. They don't want the
politician bot anymore, and they deserve better than that.
a politician bot anymore, and they deserve better than that. Now, one thing that everybody can agree
on is that Republicans seem to be kind of in lockstep with respect to all of their stances,
with respect to foreign policy. So there are a lot of people that are kind of, I don't know,
disenchanted with Democrats and being somewhat scattered when it comes to foreign policy. They're pro-Ukraine
defending themselves, but not pro, you know, letting folks in Gaza live and humanitarian
aid for Gaza. So how do you see kind of reconciling the foreign policy issue going into midterms?
policy issue going into midterms? Well, I don't want to belong to a lockstep party. I just don't,
right? And that's one of the reasons I'm proud to be a Democrat, because there is no loyalty test,
and you don't have to pledge fealty to any one person or ideology, right? I'm a Democrat because it's a big tent party, because we're the
party of fairness for working people in a level playing field. And we welcome a lot of different
views and perspectives, right? That is healthy. Show me an organization, whether it's a business,
a family, a nonprofit, a PTO board, where everyone's in lockstep in agreement. And that's, that's a healthy
organization. You can't, right? Because healthy organizations and groups have dissent, have
variety of different views. And I don't shy away from that. I don't think we need to try to replicate
the model of mega where we have unity and everyone's doing the same thing. I just,
you know, we would lose ourselves if that were the case.
So we have, we're what, two days away
from all these tariffs going into effect.
What are you guys hearing from your constituents
in Silicon Valley and Colorado 6th District?
Are they worried?
Are they coming to saying, you know,
these tariffs are going to harm our businesses, harm our economies?
Let me say this.
First on the national security, I think we've got to make sure we don't become the party of war.
And it's mind-boggling to me that we've allowed the Republicans to start talking about cutting the defense budget, bloated defense contractors, a trillion dollar defense budget,
and our party hasn't been willing to do that. We need to talk about making the defense budget much
smarter and not just giving handouts to the big defense contractors. And we need to be very clear
that Biden had a failed policy in Gaza. Too many people died. I mean, that's just the blunt reality.
I mean, the fact that Kamala Harris was not willing to say that there was a failed policy in Gaza,
that thousands and thousands of people were dying, that we were unable to check Netanyahu,
I think lost a lot of votes.
I mean, and so I think we have to be blunt.
I think we have to understand that the previous administration had certain blunders in foreign policy
and that we need a new direction.
On the tariff policy, my view is that, look, I support strategic tariffs on steel and aluminum.
I think that the country made a huge mistake by letting manufacturing go offshore.
But what Trump's done is just have blanket tariffs without any forethought. So
let's consider if you're Mary Barra, okay, you have tariff now on cars, but you have no idea
because it's not bipartisan whether this is going to last a year, two years, four years.
Is it going to last in the next administration? And there's no investment. There's no incentive
or saying, okay, Mary Barra, if you build the factories here, we're going to give you funding like the chip sack, or that if you build
cars here, we're going to buy it like Operation Warp Speed. So it's one tool without the full
tools of actually having reindustrialization in this country. And it's done in such an arbitrary
way also with our allies that I think it's going to have the worst of both worlds.
It's going to help make certain prices go up if the retailers choose to do that.
And at the same time, it's not going to lead to investment because it's not long range enough.
It's not certain enough and it's not coupled with with with government procurement or government investment
And that's that's why I think it's a shame because we do need manufacturing back
But the Democrats have an opportunity to present what it's really going to take to have
new manufacturing in the 21st century
Well exactly and like no company is going to want to invest over multiple years for you know new
Manufacturing plants if they don't know
if the tariffs are going to end in two weeks.
So he has this long-term vision, but his tariffs are so sporadic and so chaotic that no company
can actually plan ahead for them.
And talking about tariffs, what are your thoughts on his long-term ambitions? Do you think he
actually wants to bring manufacturing back? Does he want to raise capital, raise revenue so he can
cut taxes? What is he actually trying to do? Do you have any thoughts on that?
I think Donald Trump is largely using tariffs to put himself in the position of picking winners and losers to consolidate power and do advance corruption.
That's what I think.
I think he doesn't have a long-term economic vision.
And there's nothing in Donald Trump's history that would show that he's interested in reinvigorating the industrial Midwest and reinvigorating working-class America.
He's never shown an interest in that.
What he's shown an interest in is his own power in picking winners and losers.
And he's already doing that with the administration, weaponizing agencies and departments.
So I think if you assume that what he does is for his own self-interest and to consolidate power, you'll never be disappointed with him.
So I guess my view, I mean, I certainly think he's taken actions to enrich himself.
But I do think he struck a nerve in 2016 and continued to because he spoke to real anger and frustration in this country that we were taken for a ride by China. We lost too
much industry there. We let steel leave, aluminum leave, 90,000 factories shut down. He was the
first person, candidly, who spoke about how China was taking advantage of us in the modern economy.
And I think that's how he became president the first time. And my guess is that if he, I've never had a long conversation with him, my guess is he wants to
bring manufacturing back. I think he does want to do that. The problem is his ideas.
I mean, he wants to be James Polk and McKinley, like let's go conquer land and acquire land and
do tariffs. And, you know, maybe that strategy would have worked in the 19th century.
And some of his ideas are 1980s ideas. But it's not what's going to build wealth in the 21st
century. It's not what's going to build new industries in the modern economy. And this is
where the Democratic Party, as the opportunity to become the party of the future, say, OK,
you want to re-industrialize? You know what will do that is if we combine hardware with software, if we combine the industrial talent of the Midwest with
AI and software, because now we're going to have massive productivity advantages and we can put up
advanced manufacturing. And we should say, if you build it, we'll buy it as a government.
And we're going to finance the workforce we need. And we're going to help finance the scaling of
factories. And we will have strategic tariffs to make sure there's no dumping. But I think
the Democrats can articulate an economic vision and say, look, you voted for Trump.
We understand why. You were upset. A lot of people betrayed you. In our party, a
lot of people betrayed you. And you gave Trump a try, but it didn't really work.
And here's an actual vision for how we build economic prosperity, economic wealth, new manufacturing, new industry, new jobs for your kids.
And I think the whole contest is an economic contest.
We have not been successful in painting a vision that we know how to build wealth and economic security for people in this country.
And we should.
Well, I want to touch a little bit on SignalGate. So, Rep Crow, you are a member of the House
Armed Services Committee and also the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. So how big of
a threat do you think SignalGate is? and how do you think Congress should address it?
Well, I was certainly appalled by what is a very obvious security breach,
the transmission of classified information about an operation, an ongoing operation,
over a non-classified channel. There's no doubt about it.
But there's two things that really stick out to me here.
One is the actual threat to those pilots who are flying that mission.
We sent F-18s, which is a crewed piloted aircraft over enemy territory that has some of the most advanced air defense systems in the world that actually has shot down American systems in the past year.
world that actually has shot down American systems in the past year. And, you know, hours before that,
we were transmitting those plans over a non-secured channel, right? And we know that there's a
connection between the Russians and the Houthis, and that put them at risk. But I think going
forward here, right, we can talk process all we want. We can talk about violations of the Espionage Act, which may have occurred, violations of classified handling protocols. But this is a pattern and practice
of recklessness and impunity in the administration that continues to put our service members at risk.
This is not a one-off event. There's very real questions about other signal chats on other topics that we're just
digging into. That's why a thorough investigation is necessary. But what this administration
basically says, the culture of this administration is that the rules don't apply at the top.
If you are at the top, you are immune from the rules and the expectations that everybody below
you is expected to comply with, right? When
I was in the army on day one of bootcamp, you learn that leadership by example is the most
important element of leadership above anything else. It's what you do, the example that you set,
right? If you're a private, if you're a sergeant, if you're a captain, if you're a general,
at any level, you're supposed to set the example yourself and then
other people follow. And when I was a paratrooper, that took very, very specific forms, right? When
you're a paratrooper and you're in the plane, the most senior person there, the commander,
jumps out first. And then only then do your people follow, right? You set the example.
It's turned upside down in this administration,
and that is the commanders and the appointees at the top don't have to comply. And I'm just
very disturbed about the message that sends our military and our men and women that will erode
their culture. Well, what do you guys think that Democrats in Congress can do about it? I mean,
White House Press
Secretary Caroline Leavitt basically came out today and said, you know, the investigation is
closed, in our opinion. So without any sort of proper investigation, I mean, what can you guys
do to kind of keep this in the forefront of people's minds and address it? Well, I know Caroline Levitt wants it to be closed, but it's not going to be closed,
right? Because we're going to keep talking about it. We're going to keep digging into it.
And we have formal and informal ways of getting information. We're coming up on Hegseth's
testimony in the Armed Services Committee in the next couple of weeks. So we're certainly going to
address it pretty vigorously there. But if our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate
are not willing to join us for what is a very obvious example of something that needs to be
investigated, then we're going to make them own that too. They're going to own cutting health
care. They're going to own cutting veterans benefits. They're going to own supporting
tariffs that are going to make everything more expensive. And they're going to own not
investigating and not making sure something
that is fixed, that is directly putting our men and women in uniform at risk.
What about the concerns of a constitutional crisis? I mean, it's quite apparent that we're
at least in the early innings of one, right? We've had Trump already ignore the judges' orders when it comes to deportations to El Salvador.
What can Democrats do if this progresses further?
And what sort of, I guess, guardrails are there in the Constitution to push back on this?
Well, it's very dangerous that you have the vice president, Vance, saying that universities
are the enemy and that the administration should defy courts, that if the Supreme Court
rules against them, they should say, well, the court has ruled, how are you going to
enforce it?
We haven't had this kind of conversation for over a century, where an administration is
just threatening to defy court orders.
But one of the things I say is there are enormous amounts of centers of power in America.
It's not just the president, the House, the Senate, and the courts.
You have universities, you have law firms,. I mean, you have universities, you have law firms,
you have media, you have filmmakers, you have technology companies, and all of us have to
stand up for the Constitution. We don't have presidential sovereignty, we don't have congressional
sovereignty, we don't have judicial sovereignty. We have something called popular sovereignty. That means it's the people ultimately who have the power.
And Lincoln called it patient confidence, that ultimately he had such faith in the people
to prevail in standing up for the encroachment of one branch.
And so the heartening part is that even Republicans have 80 percent disapproval of Donald Trump
violating the Supreme Court order.
I had a guy who ran against me.
I'm not kidding if he's listening.
Two years ago, he's a MAGA Republican, voted for Trump, hates everything about what I stand
for, loves everything about Donald Trump, emailed me this morning saying, I will not
vote for Donald Trump if he runs for a third term. So I do think that there is a sense in this
country that we are citizens, that we're not going to give that right away to anybody. And that's
what's going to be needed. And people will say, what can Democrats do? We can, of course,
make sure that we're speaking out and going to every place.
But what we need to do is inspire the American people to speak out.
It's when citizens speak out and exercise their popular sovereignty that the excesses of branches of government are checked.
You quickly mentioned J.D. Vance.
I know you are actually going to be traveling to Ohio, I think, right?
And to take on Vance in his home state.
I'm going to the Cleveland.
I was invited to come to the Cleveland City Club where I'm going to give a speech on economic patriotism,
some of the themes of what I think it'll actually take to rebuild the economy in this country.
And then I'm going to Yale Law School where J.D. and I both went.
And I don't I don't know if the JD Vance, the student,
would recognize the JD Vance of what he's saying. I mean, JD Vance used to be a pretty thoughtful
guy. I knew him. I mean, his book was pretty good. I didn't agree with all of it. It was very well
written. It's a very compelling story. You know, he served his country. He went to work hard. You
know, the people who were in my party attacking him for going to Yale.
I was like, why are you attacking a guy who came from nothing and served the country and made good grades?
And so he got an education.
I attack him because he got this education.
Now he's attacking universities.
He got this education in law school.
Now he's saying defy the Supreme Court.
And it's sort of like, what have you become?
And so I want to go there and just talk
about how dangerous it is, what he's saying. I mean, it's one thing to engage in sort of political
theater and take attacks on me or others. It's another thing to be out there saying that I'm
telling the president to defy the Supreme Court. I mean, as vice president of the United States,
that's dangerous.
Jason, I think you wanted to add something.
Yeah, well, you know, I like to think the best of people. I like to think that, you know, people's motivations are generally good. And when I came here to D.C. and when I was first elected
to Congress in 2018, I was fully expecting that most of my colleagues,
Republican, Democrat alike, were in this for the right reasons, that they were driven by service.
Because, you know, that's how it was when I was in the military. People were driven by
their love of country, patriotism, service, family. But what I've come to realize is that most people here are driven by the desire to
keep the job, right? Now, not everybody. There are some incredible people here. But most people here
will do anything to keep the title, to keep the job, to keep the accoutrements of being a member
of Congress. They will sell out their
principles. And that's the story of the Trump era, right? We have seen the Republican Party
prostrate itself at the altar of Trump. And people that I have known and respected
completely give up on their principles just to keep the job. And right now for Republicans,
what that means is doing what Donald Trump tells them to do, because the political calculus for
them and for people that have that mindset is if I have to keep the job and Donald Trump controls
the base of the party, then I will do what Donald Trump says and I will be safe, regardless of what happens. So the key in the midterm here
is we have to change that calculus, right? We have to go to those districts. We have to go
in the middle part of the country, in the western part of the country, and we have to go where we
haven't gone before. And we have to make those people more afraid of the people that they
represent, more afraid of shirking their represent, more afraid of shirking their
duty, more afraid of not showing up to town halls, more afraid of losing their job for ignoring their
constituents than ignoring Donald Trump. We have to shift the risk calculus for them. And that means
doing the things like Ro and I are doing. That means going to town halls, going into podcasts, going into Fox News, and our other colleagues
joining us in that effort, and Americans joining us in that effort.
And they already are.
The tide is turning.
So we've seen when Biden was president, Republicans hammered him over and over again for Hunter
Biden working for a Ukrainian
gas company. And now we see Trump come into office. He launches a meme coin. Melania launches
a meme coin. Who knows who's buying that meme coin, providing him with trading fees. I know
the lockup period, I think, ends April 17th I, I suspect he's going to pump it again before April 17th so that he can,
you know, bail out and at the expense of all those people who supported him.
But both of you guys have kind of taken on corruption.
I know Roe, you had to drain the swamp act, which is in,
I don't think it's up for vote yet. You can correct me if I'm wrong.
And Jason, you have the End the Dark Money Act.
Do you guys want to talk a little bit about whether or not you think this is a good play
in kind of countering some of the corruption that we're seeing?
And maybe that's a direction that Democrats can go in to kind of win back some of the working class in America?
Yeah, absolutely. I think corruption is so key here, right? When I go back to that time,
you know, growing up in the working class area and, you know, listen, most of my,
most people I grew up with, including my family, support Donald Trump. Right. They just do because their life hasn't turned out how they wanted it to.
They they're in a position where the American dream is out of reach, regardless of what we want to tell them about economic numbers, about how the stock market is performing.
They know the American dream is out of reach. They can't afford a home.
They can't send their kids to school. They can't do all the things that generally make up the American dream. And what they don't want is somebody to solve it for them. What they don't want is for an answer or a handout to be given. Because people are driven by dignity. I'm driven by dignity. People want to maintain their self-worth and they want to work and they want to deliver, they want to provide.
worth and they want to work and they want to deliver, they want to provide. So for me, this
is about how do we provide a level playing field? This all boils down to a level playing field and
making sure the game is not rigged. If people want to ask me why I'm a Democrat, it's because of that,
because we are the party that will ensure a fair play, right? That anybody who wants to work, honest days work for
honest days pay can do so and it won't be rigged. And corruption is the primary driver behind the
rigged system. And our bills, the End Dark Money Act, actually is a very simple bill. My bill says that the IRS simply has the authority
to enforce existing law, to make sure that these 501c4 organizations that were set up,
these advocacy organizations, are not turned into basically a political organization
to funnel money against or for candidates. But right now, I mean, because that is the law,
but right now the IRS does not actually have the authority to promulgate the regulations and to enforce that law.
So my bill simply gives them that authority.
It's pretty straightforward.
And if somebody wants to oppose it, I'll say, all right, so you just want to oppose enforcing the law and making sure that people don't abuse nonprofits?
OK, I see your position then.
Ralph? nonprofits? Okay. I see your position then. Well, the drain the swamp act is pretty simple.
The President Trump campaign on draining the swamp. And one of the first things he did was repeal an executive order that Biden had that said that White House officials couldn't get
gifts from lobbyists. And all the drain the swamp act says is that White House officials couldn't get gifts from lobbyists. And all the drain the Swamp Act says is that White House officials shouldn't be getting gifts from lobbyists, whether it's for Trump or future administrations. When I proposed that, a lot of mega folks supported it. I mean, it's a common sense. And the reality is, most people know there's way too much money in politics. They don't like it when the Democrats do it with the billionaires on super PACs. They don't like it when the Republicans do it with the super PAC billionaires.
We need to abolish super PACs, abolish these billionaires giving more than $5,000 of whatever they give to a candidate, to a super PAC.
And of course, you shouldn't have a meme coin.
And I'm pro the smart use of Bitcoin and crypto.
But just like elected officials shouldn't trade stock,
they shouldn't have meme coins. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. I will say this,
I'm very, very strong in an anti-corruption issue. But to Jason's point, and maybe it's
because I represent Silicon Valley and I've seen so much wealth generation that we've had in this
country from tech and finance. There's a lot of problems in this country because of big money and because of corruption.
But we have to do something far more fundamental if we want to have factory towns that have been hollowed out,
rural communities that have been hollowed out, have economic opportunity and opportunity for the American dream.
We have to have a real economic vision, understanding where the country is going, understanding AI, understanding technology, understanding how we democratize that to people and their kids, understanding how we actually build advanced manufacturing in this country so people can build wealth in their communities.
We have to have a real economic vision, understanding where the country is going,
Donald Trump basically, I think, won because he told people he knows how to restore the American dream.
He knows how to make them wealthy.
He knows how to make them economically successful.
And in my view, I wish that he would succeed.
I just don't think he's on the path to succeeding.
And I think what our party fundamentally has to do is convince people that we have a, not
just we see them and hear them, but we have a real vision, a real plan of how, how we're
going to do that and credibility to do that.
And that's the only thing that's going to change the division.
With all due respect, and I have a lot of respect for President Biden, but he said,
I want to heal the soul of America.
And the question is how?
I want to build.
You got to build wealth.
You got to build economic opportunity to heal the soul.
People are tired of the platitudes.
I mean, it's like, how are you going to materially improve people's lives who don't
have healthcare, who have high premiums, who don't have wages, who don't have high jobs?
That to me is the key thing. You know, Republicans spend a lot of time
talking about the housing crisis during Biden's administration. And now we see it,
it's going to get exponentially worse with tariffs on lumber from Canada and building materials.
So how do we channel this message of, yeah, the American dream is dying and this is why,
and it's getting worse? Do you think that's a winning message?
I do, but I also think we have to fix our own house and make sure that we have our things in order, too.
Because, you know, here's another reality, and this goes to my statement at the beginning here where I talked about the map, you know, and the Democratic Party becoming the party of cities.
We can't both claim to be the party of working class folks and also govern in areas where working class folks can't afford
to live, right? It is too expensive and takes too long and is too hard to build in cities,
right? So we have to change some of our own policies and we have to address that because,
you know, we can't lead from a place of hypocrisy if in the places we're already governing,
we simply are not making life affordable for folks.
What do you think some of those solutions could be?
Well, I do think reducing regulation is a big part of it.
Streamline regulation. It takes eight years or more to build a bridge or a major infrastructure project than a lot of places in
America where we could do it in one or two, right? So I think one of the major problems of the Biden
legislation was that we didn't couple some of the regulatory and permitting reform with the
bipartisan infrastructure bill and with the Inflation Reduction Act, right? So we passed
billions of dollars of funding for electric vehicle stations and only built about a dozen of them. How can you say that that's a
success? So coupling those was a missed opportunity. So I think we just have to have an honest
discussion about making sure that regulations and laws that are intended for very good purposes,
actually, making sure that vulnerable communities
are protected, that environmental regulations are protected. And these are all noble pursuits that I
support 100%. But there is a reasonableness test here. I always say that the art of governing is
the Goldilocks test, right? You want the porridge just right, not too hot, not too cold. And I think
we've lost sight of that in some places.
Well, Ro, I know that you were on the House Oversight Subcommittee on the Environment,
and the younger generation obviously is really concerned about what's going on with Donald
Trump and big oil and deregulation. And what do you say to those people that are looking for ways
to get involved and want to do something about the honeybee die off?
And people are, you know, they're just scared and worried.
Well, they should be worried.
I mean, we've had huge wildfires in my state caused because of climate change where the temperatures have gotten hotter and the place drier.
And you're seeing these kind of catastrophic events and you're already at nearing 1.5 degrees
warmer than at the industrial age.
We need to be bold and that we need to make sure that we're actually declare that there's
a climate emergency.
I mean, Donald Trump, when he came in, you know, he was like talking about going to Greenland
or something and conquering Greenland and Panama.
And we're afraid of saying that there's a climate emergency.
I mean, we've got to, as a party, speak basic truths and be willing to stand up for that.
And then we need massive continued investment in solar and wind and geothermal.
I believe also in small modular nuclear.
I think nuclear has to be part of it.
We need to continue to invest in the reindustrialization of the country
in ways that are carbon reducing.
So we can build new steel plants that have hydrogen or direct reduction iron
so that we are
improving the industrial base of this country, but also reducing the carbon footprint.
And we need to make sure that the new infrastructure that's being built is for
the goal of renewable energy and clean electricity.
And I think those are things that young people can mobilize around,
are passionate about, and are going to lead the party.
And so I would just say that this is your party.
I mean, there's so many young people who are going to run for Congress,
for Senate, for local office, And I think that's fantastic.
So there's a lot of.
No, go ahead, Art.
You know, there's been a lot of chatter recently about Donald Trump running for a third term.
Now, there are people in the Democratic Party that will say that people were too focused on beating Donald Trump and stopping Donald Trump
and that the messaging for the party just revolved around Donald Trump. So with this
chatter and albeit it seems like it's not very likely that he will be able to run for a third
term because of the constitution and all. But how do you kind of snap people out of
this mentality of stop talking so much about Donald Trump and start talking about our policies?
Well, I'm just laser focused on the midterms, right? Because I think one thing has become very
clear in the last couple of months, and that is, you know, we can hold rallies, we can chain ourselves
to the front door of departments and agencies, we can, you know, gnash our teeth all we want.
This administration just doesn't care, right? They don't care and they're not listening.
They're moving forward with their awful agenda. So what they care about is power, right? So our task is to take power away from them,
to seize it, and to win, right? So we have 18 months, 19 months to do that.
We have, and we have to do it in red places, and we have to do it in places where Donald Trump won,
and we have to be laser focused on that effort. And that is my job. I've been assigned as the co-chair of
recruitment for the DCCC. So my job is to find those candidates, those women and those men in
places where Trump won, who can make the case, who can talk about their lived experience. And
these are business owners. These are nonprofit presidents. These are Rotary Club presidents.
These are combat veterans. These are nurses. These are doctors. These are Rotary Club presidents. These are combat veterans. These
are nurses. These are doctors. These are people who are not politicians, but they have lived life
and experience that people can relate to. And people will pull the lever and mark the ballot
for them, even if they don't trust the Democratic Party because they trust them. Right. And that that is our effort and our task over the next year and a half.
I really like that strategy. I think, you know, it needs to be people, people that voters can
identify with or look up to outside of politics. I think that's super important. Another topic that
I want to kind of touch on is the deficit. You know, every president we have, they say, oh, we need to balance the budget when they're running for election, I guess.
They say we need to balance the budget. Trump said it the first time. He obviously exploded
the deficit, exploded our national debt. Now he's kind of saying, oh, we're going to use tariffs to
help balance the budget. We're going to do this and that.
And I don't think it's going to happen.
I mean, I think the idea that tariffs
are going to balance the budget is absurd.
I think we're just going to see imports decline in revenue.
The revenue is just going to barely go up at all.
But what do you think the messaging should be
from Democrats when it comes to the deficit? And what do you think the messaging should be from Democrats when it comes to the deficit?
And what do you think can be done to help, if not balance it, at least get it closer to balance?
Well, the budget deficit today, which is around $2.1 trillion, and we're sitting on a $36 trillion debt. The Republican budget over 10 years adds $4.6 trillion to that
deficit. I mean, it's $28.5 trillion over the $36 trillion in debt. And the budget deficit
is far, far more than the current deficit, which was basically inherited from Biden.
So this idea that he's balancing the budget is just factually false.
You don't have to take my word from it. Just look up the charts.
The tariffs on his account would raise $600 billion.
And I don't think that's right for the reasons you mentioned, because you've got less imports being bought. But
even if you assume that, you're running at still $2.4 trillion deficit. So it's still
nowhere close to balanced. And the reason is because they're giving tax breaks to the very,
very wealthy. 1% of their tax breaks go to the top 83%. That's why they can't balance the budget.
We have a spending
problem in this country, but we have a bigger revenue problem. The spending is about 22% of
GDP. Revenue is down to 17% of GDP. If you were to tax some of the billionaires in my district,
I don't know why this is so hard for 434 other members, you would raise some revenue. If you
tax stock buybacks, you would raise revenue. If you tax stock buybacks, you would
raise revenue. If you taxed and increased the basis, step up in basis when people give their
stocks that appreciate and they never pay capital gains tax and then they give it to their kids and
their kids never pay capital gains tax. If you force someone to pay capital gains tax, that would
raise revenue. If you said that at Social Security, people making over $250,000 should still
pay Social Security tax, that would raise revenue. That would help balance the budget. And then if
you cut the bloat of defense contractors, you cut the fossil fuel subsidies, you cut the way
that Medicare Advantage rips off the American people, you cut the drug companies that are
fleecing Medicare because we don't negotiate. All of those things would be
substantive cuts in the budget. So the Democrats actually had the math to get the budget to go
down. We just have not, unfortunately, been good at the marketing of it. And Trump gets up there
and says he's going to balance the budget, and he's proposing budget deficits that are worse than anything we've seen.
Now, about every other day I get an email, a fundraising email from Donald Trump's campaign,
basically saying, am I interested in the Doge stimulus?
Do you guys, have you heard anything in Congress, any rumblings from Republicans
that actually makes it seem like this is something
they're seriously considering? Or is this just a way for them to kind of hoodwink their supporters
even more? I would probably opt for hoodwinking. I mean, if you assume anything, it's that there is usually a hoodwink involved or some type of deal to be had here.
That would be my guess.
No, the math doesn't add up.
I mean, they're not saving enough.
You can't – the total federal workforce is 3% of the federal budget.
And by the way, a third of them are veterans.
People like Jason who wore the uniform, gone to Afghanistan, gone to Iraq, served the country. You know, some of them
coming back, they're giving park tours. And really, Elon Musk is going to evaluate whether
they've done enough and are effective. I mean, how about that they wore the nation's uniform
and risked their life and are coming back and working? You know, it's not Tesla. It's not
SpaceX. I mean, you're not it's offensive to have
veterans who risk their lives, come back and and are doing their jobs and now are being told that
they're somehow not qualified. And it's not it's not going to add up to the numbers of giving a
five thousand dollar stimulus. You know, I don't think we have to copy Trump in style.
You know, everyone's like, oh, just be simple.
You know who we've elected as strong presidents?
Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
Let me tell you, they weren't simple.
But they knew what they were talking about.
And they had depth.
And they convinced people that they actually had a real vision for the future and they were going to improve their lives.
And I fundamentally believe the American people are very smart.
I think they voted for Donald Trump because they thought that the system had failed them and
the system had failed them. And it was sort of rage. But I think what they want now is to recognize
that anger and they want people's, they want a real substantive vision, an experimental bold
vision of how we're going to improve their lives. And I think whoever
offers that is going to earn people's trust. But it starts, and this I think is really important,
it starts with a respect for the people who voted for Trump. I mean, the American people,
you can't say, you know, it's only the Democrats. It's like I think of it as a company. It's like
the Democrats remind me of like a, if like the Apple new iPhone version didn't sell.
A bunch of Apple engineers think, well, wow, the consumers are really dumb.
Why didn't they like the Apple iPhone?
No, how about the iPhone you built is really dumb.
And the consumers knew what they were doing.
Like the Democratic Party's problem is not that the voters didn't know what they're doing.
Democratic Party's problem is not that the voters didn't know what they're doing. It's that we didn't know what we were doing. And we got to have the guts to say, like, out with the old guard and let's stop running mediocre candidates and let's actually have free elections.
It's that we didn't know what we were doing.
Like since Barack Obama, we basically had handoff after handoff after handoff to party anointed candidates. You know, one thing that Donald Trump had, he was willing to call out the BS in his own party.
Trump had, he was willing to call out the BS in his own party. I think that builds credibility.
And so we need change. We need the old guard to step aside. We need a new generation.
We need to realize there was a mediocre governing class that for 30, 40 years shipped off jobs,
didn't have a real economic vision. And we need new ideas.
2028 is going to be here sooner than most of us can really realize.
We know that most likely we're going to see Buddha Judge run.
We're going to see Gavin Newsom run, probably Shapiro.
Do either of you guys have any intentions or are you considering maybe potentially running in 2028?
I think we're in the position right now where people just need to do the work,
right? If anyone's thinking about running for anything or trying to position their campaign for the next step, then they are not the leader we need, right? There is a very immediate crisis
facing our country. We need to win in the midterms. We need to revitalize our party.
We need to go into red territory. We need to re-earn people's trust. That's a lot. And what we need to do is we need to see who among us can do that work and actually build enduring coalitions and connect with people and earn people's trust. The leader that we need, I think, will rise to the surface on their route. And those who are jockeying for it already will not be the person.
Well, Roe, you've kind of tapped into it a little bit.
You were talking about the rage that voters feel.
And arguably, Democrats are starting to feel that rage within their own party and with leadership.
So how can people effectively use their voices in order to get stronger leadership,
get leaders that will be bold and channel the angst and anger that a lot of Democrat voters feel
about the old guard? Show up to town halls, show up to events.
If you don't like someone, if they're a Democrat, support their primary challenger.
I mean, this hypocrisy where people get these positions, oh, you can't tell someone to primary
Why?
Who gave these?
These aren't birthrights.
Like, if someone is better than a Democrat, then go run.
Go run.
You know, I'm all for
competitive elections. And if you don't like the job someone's doing, tell them to step aside.
I think the, but I will say this, that Jason is absolutely right on, there's an immediate crisis.
One of the answers I was giving at town halls is, oh, we're going to take back 2026. And people
said, what are you doing now? What are you doing to stop the cuts? What are you doing in issues of life and death? And I think most people,
even people who have ambitions, are focused on what they have to do now to mobilize the country,
to stop the unconstitutional actions. And what I would say to people who are frustrated is get out and
do something, whether it's running for office, whether it's showing up, whether it's supporting
candidates, whether it's speaking out. This is the time to rebuild the party.
Do you feel like there's a sense of, I guess, urgency within the party that this old guard needs to go.
I do. I mean, I think they are going to go. I think it's a matter of,
but I mean, they may not see it yet, but I think that there's such a fervent grassroots movement
building in the country, which is what gives me hope. People are energized. You know, I saw the Congresswoman from Indiana who said that, you know, we should be deporting
people without due process.
And they asked her about—in a Republican town hall, they got up and they asked her
about would she call for Hexeth to resign?
And she said no.
And 50 people started booing her.
And I thought, wow, this is the exhilaration of
American democracy. Like citizens are alive again. And so we've awoken a sleeping giant,
the American people. And I think you're going to see a new generation of leadership
in this country. And that's exciting. I also think, though, the question of do people
recognize that there needs to be a changing of the guard and a reinvigoration of our bench is not necessarily the right question, because with rare exceptions, people don't willingly give up power in politics.
There are some rare exceptions of people who do that.
They are the exception to the rule.
Power just has to be taken.
That is just what needs to happen. Right. And we can't expect people in dire need of their leadership and their service right now.
within, you know, dealing with other people across the aisle
and getting any sort of legislation passed that would benefit the American people.
Well, you know, I showed up, there was a roundtable that we got a call from Melania Trump's office.
And I said, what's the legislation about? It turns out the legislation was to remove AI
generated sexually explicit images of people from the Internet. So I said, sure, I'll show up.
And I was the only Democrat there. It was Ted Cruz, the first lady, a number of other Republicans.
But I have a pretty simple test. If something helps the American people and can move things forward, I support it.
If it doesn't, I don't get involved.
And to me, even with this administration, if there are things that I think we can do that are going to make life better, like make life better for high school kids who were having people create sexually explicit images of them on AI to force Internet companies to take it down. Well, let's get that
done. And so I always look for those kinds of opportunities. And, you know, most consequentially
I did what Todd Young did the Chips at Science Act. And I'm very proud of Todd Young, Republican
from Indiana for standing up for that, despite the administration talking about cutting it.
the administration talking about cutting it.
Roe is totally right.
Roe is totally right here.
I mean, we have to find those opportunities.
I just vehemently disagree with anyone who says that we need to dig in and just erect
barriers to any movement, any legislation.
I mean, there are moments in time, right, and certainly on specific issues where you
need to do that. But if you're operating off the assumption that we are not time, right? And certainly on specific issues where you need to do that.
But if you're operating off the assumption that we are not them, right? If we're not mega,
if we're not Trump and we have a different thesis, right? Their thesis is government can't work,
shouldn't work, tear it all down, you know, burn the house down. Our thesis is build, unite,
bring people together. Then we have a different goal. And we need to
pursue that goal. And we need to show that government can work, that leadership can bring
people together. And that requires us to actually pass things and get it done. I just finished last
term being the co-chair of the Bipartisan Veterans Caucus, half Democrat, half Republican,
all veterans. There's always one Democrat co-chair,
one Republican co-chair. We're self-governing. And this group of about 30 of us is now the most
legislatively successful caucuses in the Congress. We have passed over 100 bills into law,
everything from veterans benefits to community service bills to health care bills. We are finding overlap and we're showing that it can work.
Because the moment we give up on that project
and we say it's all for naught,
then it is actually, then it is all for naught.
And I refuse to give up on it.
So I believe Art Candy's having some sound issues.
She can't hear a lot of people here,
but I do have one question I wanted to ask, Ro on this and I don't know how much time
you guys have left we didn't we didn't actually go over that so just let me know
if you guys have to cut it short soon but AI artificial intelligence I mean
it's it's the talk of everything online right now and if you talk to any experts
in the field, they're
telling us that artificial general intelligence, AGI could be here anywhere in the next two to five
years. Thank you.
