How to Actually Drain the Swamp (feat. Rep. Ro Khanna)

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welcome to raging moderates i'm jessica tarlov and today i've got congressman ro kana with me he represents california's 17th district right in the heart of silicon valley he's known for being a bold progressive but also someone who knows how to work across the aisle when it counts whether it's taking on corruption in dc with his drain the swamp Act act or promoting what he calls economic patriotism, he's pushing for a Democratic Party that's both idealistic and grounded.

And he's not exactly subtle with his ambitions.

He's got a clear vision for the party's future and maybe even his own.

Congressman Conna, it's great to have you here.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me.

It's so great.

I always see you on Fox.

And I'm like, yeah, I've got a buddy here.

So it's wonderful to have you here now on the podcast as well.

Oh, I'm honored to be on you.

I wanted to start kind of big picture.

People have been giving their 100, you know, first 100 days assessment, but what has really stuck out to you most about what the Trump administration is doing?

Well, they are destroying the economy.

I mean, they are using 19th century ideas, blanket high tariffs by McKinley,

a sense that of James Polk like expansionism.

without understanding the 21st century world.

And the consequence has been the lowest consumer confidence in years, the bond yields going up, a really dangerous situation where you've got both Mark Carney, who was the Bank of Canada as governor, Bank of England governor, threatening to be selling bonds.

And now you've got Japan threatening to be selling bonds.

I mean, they're upsetting our allies really.

And if the bond yields go up, as you know, that means that the debt is going to be a huge burden.

So they've destabilized consumer confidence, destabilized the bond market, created volatility in the stock market and people's retirements.

and small businesses and manufacturers are having a hard time getting parts.

So, my biggest concern with them is what they've done to the economy.

The second thing is the disregard for the Constitution.

I saw Carl Rohon the other day, and he said, I don't understand it.

Just bring the Brego back, give him a trial.

If he's guilty, then you can deport him.

But the idea that they've let this drag on for weeks and that they have created fear in this country that any person who's here, even if they're on a legal immigration status, could get a knock on the door and be deported is a violation of rights and really is upsetting people's patriotism.

In America,

patriotism first and foremost means an allegiance to the Constitution.

Yeah, well,

he's not a lawyer, so he's not really sure about his constitutional duties at this point, or at least that's what he told Kristen Welker.

But you're dancing around this idea of economic patriotism, which you've been talking about.

How do you well, first of all, can you define that for our listeners, but then also put it in context of the Democratic Party's leadership?

Because it has been a big concern of mine that for as terrible as things are going for the Trump administration, and we see it in the approval ratings for the Republican side, that Democrats have actually not been able to capitalize on that and to affirm to the American public that we would actually be able to do a better job.

I will answer the question, Economic Patriotism.

I just do want to say that J.D.

Vance is a lawyer.

We both went to Yale Law School and I gave a major speech at Yale Yale Law School just a week ago that I hope some folks will check out, calling him out for basically telling the country that there should be no due process for those who are not citizens, which is a violation of the 14th Amendment, and for calling universities the enemy and calling for defying of the court.

He knows better.

But on economic patriotism, it's pretty simple.

We need to say we understand the economic future and we want to make sure that every community in this country, particularly communities that were hollowed out and deindustrialized, that every community, every family, every child is going to have economic security and economic prosperity in the 21st century.

And the way we're going to do this is to build things in this country, to build an economy in every part of this country by marrying the technology of places like Silicon Valley, the AI, the robotics with the work ethic, the industrial capability in other parts of the country to build advanced steel plants, to build biotechnology, to build a new industry, but also to have AI academies across this country that have manufacturing work hubs across the country at universities.

And then we can go into the specifics.

I would just provide three simple ones.

Have a White House Economic Development Council, like we have a White House National Security Council that has a Marshall Plan for America and the development of every community in this country.

Make sure that we're financing the workforce and the new factories that we want.

Let's also make sure we're financing technology and education and healthcare, recognizing that communities to have economic development are going to diversify.

Yes, they need advanced manufacturing factories, but they also need other sectors.

And let's build this in places like Lorain and Johnstown and Milwaukee across this country to help bring this country together.

Well, that sounds great.

And it sounds like what Howard Lutnick wishes that he was able to say when he does these haphazard interviews, but I'm being generous with the term haphazard.

How have you found that the vision that you just put forward is being embraced by our party?

Well, Lundick has got all the right buzzwords.

He would say, oh, I agree with Raul.

We need to have manufacturing.

We need to have steel.

We need to have mnemonic aluminum.

My question is, how?

How?

How can you do it when you don't fund the workforce?

How can you do it when you don't finance the factories and you're competing with other countries?

How can you do it when you don't have government be a source of procurement?

How can you do it when you're defunding, not funding universities to build that technology hub?

So all he's saying is, well, we're going to have tariffs, but tariffs with

you can't protect industry until you build industry.

And tariffs are hurting the manufacturers actually in getting the supply parts before we built the supply chain here.

So that is the fundamental challenge with Latinx.

So one other point.

I wish he had a few economists around him.

He said in this speech that If we lower the trade deficit by $300 billion, we're going to increase our GDP by $300 billion.

I wish it was that simple.

And so, if we eliminate the trillion-dollar trade deficit, magically we'd have 3% GDP growth overnight.

The problem with that reasoning is that if you increase domestic production by lowering the trade deficit, you also reduce capital inflows, and capital inflows go to lower treasury bond yields, which go to domestic manufacturing.

I know it's a little bit wonky, but it's not a one-to-one relationship.

Now, most people don't need to know that, but the Commerce Secretary does.

He can't be spouting economic nonsense and expect to rebuild the country.

I think Democrats need a greater fluency in the language of the economy.

I think we need a greater sense of understanding that you have to not just have economic fairness, but economic growth.

We need to be a party that stands for building things.

We need to be a party that is not afraid to involve business leaders in the economic renewal of this country.

We need to be a party that understands that we need technology.

as part of the economic renewal of this country.

And I think there's going to be a clash of ideas for the democratic democratic future.

I have my ideas that I'd like to

share and I believe resonate in places like Lorain, Ohio, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania and Orangeburg, South Carolina.

But other people have different visions and that's good.

Let's just make sure it's not a top-down process and a stale process that we really have a clash of ideas and

think of what can move this country forward.

Yeah.

wanted to ask you about your future plans later in the podcast, but you kind of brought it up already.

So how do you you see yourself as being part of the conversation and shaping the party's future are you thinking about running yourself or

supporting someone who has a kind of an aligned vision or running yourself

well it could be either i don't i don't know i'm what i want to be is a strong economic voice in the country i'd love for others to take my platform i mean i it's up out there i write books i write uh articles.

One of the great things is Chris DeLuzio liked it and he created a whole group in Congress called Economic Patriots and some great members in there, Pat Ryan and Angie Craig and Chrissy Hulahan, all committed to this agenda of economic renewal, economic revitalization.

And so I want to be a strong economic voice for the party.

I want our party to, when people think of who's going to lead America into the economic future, who's going to grow America's economy, who's going to make sure that this country is wealthy, not from a 19th century perspective, at a 21st century perspective, who's going to build economic economic security for families and communities in this time.

I want people to think of the Democratic Party.

And I want people to say, Rokana played a role in getting the Democratic Party to that.

Yeah, I imagine that they're going to.

And one thing that I've always felt that you've done really well is have the strong progressive bona fides, but also be able.

to speak like you just did to the fact that we are a capitalist country and that capitalism is one of, if not the greatest, engine for good that we've ever had.

And you represent a lot of capitalists.

I thought it was really important that you were on, I think your interview was on CNN,

when people were setting Tesla dealerships on fire and Tim Walls was wanting to tank Tesla's stock.

And you said, I have, was it 60,000, 70,000?

people in your district whose pensions are tied to Tesla.

No, 25,000 at Tesla, but of course they spend money and are supportive of the economy.

And a lot of people in my district are employed, but I would speak out against vandalizing Tesla or cheering for Tesla's stock to go down if there were any American company.

Sorry.

Yes.

I, you are not an arsonist.

I didn't mean to imply that, but it felt distinctive at this moment where Democrats are kind of trying to claw at anything that was anti-Elon Musk for you to just have this common sense approach to answering the question about an American company, but also about capitalism and saying we have to be able to separate whatever our political ambitions are or whatever whatever is resonating the most, which is this anti-Elon messaging, with what's actually right for the country.

Absolutely.

I mean, look, we should be cheering for the success of American companies.

We should be cheering for American companies to build wealth, but then to pay workers well, to give workers equity in there to allow for labor neutrality and unionization to invest across the country.

But I am a believer in technology.

I'm a believer in entrepreneurship.

I'm a believer that you have to have the government investment to build the infrastructure.

That's what DARPA did.

That's what NSF did with the internet.

But then you need private companies to help scale it and commercialize it.

And why do you need private companies to do that as opposed to the government?

Because it requires a lot of adjustments and testing and changes.

And it has to be done very fast to be able to scale.

And it is the collaboration between that government investment and the private sector that has allowed for America to emerge as the greatest economy in the world.

And that is what we need, not just in places like Silicon Valley, but around the country.

Do you think that trying to bucket people into progressive or centrist moderates is outdated for our party?

No, I mean, I think that I call myself a progressive capitalist, a pro-business progressive, but there are definitely differences of opinion.

I mean, I'm proud of the progressive views I have on saying that we need Medicare for all or saying that we need to have higher taxes on billionaires in my district or saying that we need a living wage.

But I also believe that you can have a belief in economic growth and innovation.

I don't think that there are people who are centrists or moderates who may disagree with Medicare for all or may not agree that we need higher taxes on the wealthy.

And that's fine.

We shouldn't be afraid.

In the Democratic Party, we sort of have this fear of a clash of ideas.

And on the Republican side, they argue all the time that I don't, I think our party has been too stale, has been too timid,

has had the same sort of cask of characters around.

And we need to shake things up.

2028 will definitely be a big shake up,

or that's what I'm imagining and hoping for.

Can you talk a little bit about your legislation, the Drain the Swamp Act, which you recently introduced with representatives to leave and leave?

So I've been introducing a couple bills.

The Drain the Swamp Act is the most obvious.

President Biden left saying there should be a ban on White House officials getting gifts from lobbyists.

That was the executive order Biden had and the rule in his administration.

President Trump comes in and he takes that executive order away.

I said, how is that draining the swamp?

So now White House officials can get gifts from lobbyists.

Why don't we have a Grain in the Swamp Act?

that prohibits White House officials, not just during Trump, but from any future White House, from getting gifts from lobbyists.

We as Democrats need to take the mantle against political corruption.

I mean, I was flabbergasted yesterday.

I read that there is a small business that is paying $20 million to Donald Trump's mean coin.

They're buying $20 million.

And the CEO is bragging that he's hoping that he's going to get exemptions for the trade negotiations with Mexico.

How is this

happening in plain sight?

And we aren't railing against it.

Our party should be the party that says we don't take PAC money.

We don't take lobbyist money.

We should be against super PACs, abolish them.

No one should be giving, allowed to give millions of dollars to a super PAC when they can only give $3,500 to a candidate.

That's similarly in my bill

to do that.

And Maine passed that by 70%.

We should be, of course, against stock trading.

We should be the party that says we're not for members of Congress becoming lobbyists.

that lobbyists shouldn't be able to give members money or gifts or White House officials gifts, that no elected official should be able to trade in mean coins.

Let's become the party that says, let's clean up the mess.

I feel like we are always that party, right?

Who says these things?

And then you come up against the fact that the laws haven't changed and you're going to be handicapped versus another side that can take infinite money from super PACs or that can be building resorts in the Middle East or whatever it is that Kushner and Don Jr.

are doing at this point.

And does it kind of feel like we would be showing up to a gunfight with a knife?

You know, I think we can advocate advocate for the legislation, first of all, to

stop it before,

you know, voluntarily complying.

Where I do think we should voluntarily comply is in Democratic primaries.

I mean, if, look, if the Republican nominee is Donald Trump in the past, I had no problem that Mark Tamala Harris had to match the spending.

But we don't need to do that in a Democratic primary.

We can say there can't be unilateral disarmament against a Republican, but that shouldn't apply to a Democratic primary.

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I guess the newsiest bizarre things that Trump is proposing and California-centric, the movie tariffs and reopening of Alcatraz, which is, you know, was a tourist attraction, I think, bringing in $60 million a year at this point.

What do you make of the proposals?

Do you feel like this is just, it's not going anywhere kind of thing?

Or what are you thinking?

Well, the movie tariffs are to hurt Hollywood.

I mean, Trump knows that we export far more movies than we import, and that the only thing this is going to do is hurt Hollywood, which he has been waging a cultural war on.

So

I stand very strongly with

the American film industry to say that we don't want to meet cap one of our great exports to the world.

On Alcatraz, I mean, that's just like him talking about taking over Greenland or Canada.

I mean, this is his distraction because he knows that he's losing on the economy.

He knows that people are upset that he's violating the Constitution.

And he keeps throwing things out there to

try to change the subject.

Yeah, I imagine the subject he wants to change away from to some degree are this proposed $880 billion in cuts to Medicaid.

Can you talk about what's going on in terms of the reconciliation bill and how you feel like Democratic leadership has been in ushering us so far through this process?

Well, it is devastating, these Medicaid cuts.

And I have been doing town halls across the country.

We've done five already, red districts, talking about $880 billion of Medicaid cuts to give tax breaks to the billionaires.

I mean, it's ridiculous.

It makes no sense.

And I have two town halls coming up in competitive competitive red districts in Pennsylvania, in Allentown, and in Bucks County.

And people are outraged about it.

Thousands of people showing up at these town halls.

So I am convinced that you now have Republicans having second thoughts.

We'll see what they do, whether they're going to vote for these draconian budget cuts or not in a couple of months.

But right now, the Republican budget guts public education, cuts medical research for Alzheimer's, for Parkinson's, for cancer, cuts Medicaid funding, all to finance more tax breaks for billionaires.

And what about the leadership component on this, for Leader Jeffries and then also for Schumer in the Senate?

Well, look, I've been candid that Senator Schumer hasn't risen to the moment.

And I've worked with him to do the CHIPS Act.

He was very effective during President Biden's years in the White House, but he needs to be stronger in standing up to these draconian cuts.

And I don't know why he didn't try to get a better deal when he negotiated

and just capitulated to Trump and Busk.

On Leader Jeffries, I think he has the strong support of his caucus.

He will be speaker.

He has a clear strategy of targeting of these 30 red districts.

We're being very aggressive and organizing there, phone banks there, town halls there, advertising there.

And I'm confident that he's going to be the next speaker.

What do you hear the most often from these town halls when you're showing up in these red districts?

What are their top concerns, the constituents?

Fear.

Fear.

Two places of fear.

Immigrants who show up say, I'm concerned for my family, for people who may get a knock on the door and be deported without any due process, deported to a dictatorship.

It's a scary place in America if you are an immigrant who has not been naturalized or a citizen.

People feel very, very vulnerable.

And then I have people coming to me and saying, cutting the cancer trials was a death sentence for someone I know.

What am I going to do when mom came to me in tears?

What am I going to do with my two-year-old?

He was in NICU.

He survived.

He had health issues.

He has a full-time nurse with him, and he's finally going to get to go to preschool.

He needs this nurse.

A Medicaid gets cut.

I'm not going to have this person nurse to be able to take him to school.

These are real stories, real people who rely on

basic government services, not because they're looking for a handout, but because they need the health care and education to be able to lead meaningful lives, to be able to work, to be able to support families.

And they're fearful that this is going to be snatched away from them.

How are they feeling about their own representatives?

They feel that they can't be heard.

That's a big source of anger.

The Republicans have said they don't do a town hall.

And so they're inviting in people like me to do town halls.

A thousand people show up.

And they just want to shake my hand.

They just want to have a question.

They don't even know if I can do anything, but at least I'm listening.

At least I'm listening.

Now, in some cases, these town halls have worked.

Republicans have flipped their vote.

David Valdale said he was going to cut Medicaid, voted to cut Medicaid.

We did our town hall a few weeks later.

He said now he's against the cut.

So people are seeing that their speaking up is working.

And that's what gives me hope in this country.

I mean, we are seeing citizens mobilized, showing up to town halls, showing up to protest.

There's a Harvard professor who said that in societies moving towards authoritarianism, if 3.5% of a population get active, that is the best safeguard against a move towards authoritarianism.

That's about 10 million people or so in the United States.

And we're seeing that kind of mobilization.

Yeah, that was definitely the message that J.V.

Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, was delivering in that New Hampshire speech where he said,

you have to be out there.

And you did see, like, there was an immigration case in Sacketts Harbor, New York, where I think the town of 1,400, 1,000 people showed up to support this undocumented family that had been taken by ICE and they were returned.

Do you think that having mass protests or this coordinated civic uprising, nonviolent, of course, is the way forward?

I do.

And I was so moved by that story where it was MAGA support.

It was Trump supporters.

You can't be deporting kids in this country.

That's not who we are as Americans.

And I have seen a rejuvenation of the American spirit of democratic participation.

I haven't witnessed my whole life.

People are reclaiming their rights as citizens.

They find it offensive that the world's wealthiest person is determining how our country should be run.

They find it offensive that any person, even if they're president, can get to defy the courts or the Constitution.

They find it offensive that people are threatening the services that they've relied on since the New Deal, since FDR.

And they are speaking out.

And a mobilized citizenry is

unstoppable in this country.

Abraham Lincoln said public sentiment is everything.

And so I appreciate the people who are spending hours standing in line, going to these town halls, standing in line, going to rallies, writing to their members of Congress.

It all matters.

Don't let people tell you it doesn't matter.

It matters.

It's why the president's approval ratings are coming down.

It's why members of Congress are suddenly flipping their votes.

It's why in certain cases,

people, the media is highlighting unjust deportations, and some of them are being stopped.

It's not Congress.

It's not the Senate, other than the bond market, that's been the biggest check on Donald Trump.

The other check has been the American citizens.

So you're optimistic?

I'm very optimistic.

You know,

it's always darkest before the dawn.

And in American history, after the Civil War, we had the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendment.

After the Robin Barron era, we had the progressive era that outlawed child labor and had some sense of

work week, hours of the work week.

After

Hoover crashed the economy, we had FDR and the New Deal.

And then after George W.

Bush, we had Obama.

I think Trumpism is going to give rise to a new progressive era.

Well, that's exciting to me.

And looking at our approval ratings, I'm certainly concerned, but the way that you paint it makes me think there will be a brighter day to come.

I wanted to ask you our final question.

We asked all our guests this.

What's one issue that makes you rage?

And what's one issue that you think we should all calm down about?

What makes me rage is the attacks on universities in this country, calling them the enemy,

threatening to defund them.

The universities, it's not just that they have been the leaders of

medical research in this country.

It's not just that they've been the leaders of technology research, that gave the world the internet, that gave the world the GPU, that gave the world robotics and AI.

It's that they are the place for

thought in the questioning people in power,

that they are the foundation of a liberal democracy where we have speech and ideas that challenge power.

And the attack on them out of a false populism by the same people who went to those universities, who want their kids to go to those universities, is rank hypocrisy and is really

degrading democracy.

I mean, you know, John F.

Kennedy said there are few few earthly things more beautiful than a university.

And from that

pinnacle of America

as a light of hope for civilization, this is how far we've fallen.

What gives me hope in this country

is the

decency and resilience of the American people.

There was anger in this country because places like Lorain, Ohio, and Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and Gillsburg, Illinois

had been dealt a raw deal.

The factories had shut down, the communities had closed, and they wanted the system changed.

But that doesn't mean they wanted America burned down.

And so I believe that

people will correct the leadership.

And it's for Democrats to say, we aren't just going to go back to a status quo that has failed people.

We're going to offer a more hopeful vision, the kind of vision Hamilton had, Lincoln had, FDR had, to rebuild this country for the 21st century.

Rebuild it not just in Silicon Valley or Seattle, but rebuild it everywhere.

Love it.

All right.

Thank you, Congressman Conna, for your time.

It was so nice to have you.

Thank you, Jesse.

Appreciate it.