Ro Khanna: Congress Has Surrendered on War

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Ro Khanna: Congress Has Surrendered on War

The California congressman discusses the Iran war, unchecked executive power, California’s wealth tax debate, and the search for a shared American identity.

Nick Gillespie | 4.6.2026 10:31 AM

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Ro Khanna: Congress Has Surrendered on War

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Today's guest is Rep. Ro Khanna (D–Calif.), a self-styled "progressive capitalist" who represents such major Silicon Valley cities as San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino in Congress but who also supported the independent Vermont socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders for president. He has shown an increasingly rare willingness to work across the aisle, cosponsored with the libertarian-leaning Rep. Thomas Massie (R–Ky.) a war powers resolution aimed at President Donald Trump's bombing of Iran. He also joined forces with the Massie last fall to push disclosure of the Epstein files.

In this interview, Nick Gillespie talks with the five-term congressman about the need for Congress to reassert its control over the initiation of military force. They also discuss whether high taxes and regulations are why California was one of just five states to lose population last year. They argue the merits of California's proposed wealth tax that some say pushed Steven Spielberg, Mark Zuckerberg, the founders of Google, and other ultra-wealthy people to leave the Golden State.

They also discuss the role of government in spurring and regulating AI and other technologies, the meaning of the Epstein files, and whether the United States can redefine itself in a way that reduces polarization without reducing pluralism.

0:00–What is the biggest problem with the Iran War?
3:00–Did Trump start the Iran War to distract from domestic policy?
4:36–What should Congress do about the Iran War?
6:59–What is progressive capitalism?
9:10–Does Khanna support the proposed California wealth tax?
12:23–Are taxes and regulations causing California's population loss?
19:21–The role of environmental policy in California housing
21:03–Do billionaires weaken democracy?
24:19–The track record of wealth taxes
25:50–Will federal spending ever be reduced?
27:47–Artificial intelligence and impacts on the labor force
33:09–Assessing the New Deal
40:54–Is there a need for a national purpose?
46:24–The next attorney general and the Epstein files
51:19–What defines us as Americans?

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Transcript

This is an AI-generated, AI-edited transcript. Check all quotes against the audio for accuracy.

Nick Gillespie: Hello everybody. This is The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie, and my guest today is Ro Khanna. He's a representative, a Democrat from California, who represents Silicon Valley cities like San Jose, Santa Clara, and Cupertino. He's known for working across the aisle with people like libertarian Republican Thomas Massie. They cosponsored legislation to force a vote on the Iran war, as well as pushing to release the Epstein files. And Rep. Khanna calls himself a progressive capitalist, and he's a big Bernie Sanders fan. We're going to talk about that and what we have as common ground and where there might be some issues about that. So, Ro Khanna, thank you for talking to Reason.

Ro Khanna: Appreciate it. Thank you for having me on.

Let's start with the Iran war. You've been outspoken against the Iran war. As I mentioned, you co-sponsored a War Powers Resolution, a call for a resolution about Iran, with Thomas Massie. What is the biggest problem you see with the Iran war as it's being prosecuted?

It's both a moral and a strategic blunder. It's a strategic blunder for two reasons. First, we're not making America any safer. We have replaced Khamenei with his son, Khamenei Jr. Khamenei at least had a fatwa against nuclear weapons. Khamenei Jr. does not. If we replaced Khamenei Jr. by assassinating him, we would have the IRGC, the military, which is even more hard-line. They oppose the JCPOA. And at this point, Iran has leverage with the bombing in the Strait of Hormuz. When we stop bombing, which we should, along with Israel and Iran, we've actually given Iran more leverage in any deal that's going to come from it. So that's a…

It's kind of amazing that somehow we start this war and then the Strait of Hormuz is gatekeepered in a way that it had never been before. Not going well. You said recently Trump should just declare victory and get out. Do you think realistically there is any chance of that?

Yes, because he keeps going back and forth. I think Trump instinctively understands the American people don't want a long, drawn-out war. Unfortunately, today we had a plane shot down. One of the people was rescued. We're still waiting to see what happened to the second service member. We've seen 13 casualties already. Seven thousand of our troops are at risk. We've seen gas prices explode. Trump gets the risks, but he's got other people in his ear saying that he can somehow destroy the Iranian regime and bring about a new regime. And he's been, you know, made a terrible decision. But my hope is he can understand and recognize the longer we escalate, the more risk there is to the country and to his own legacy.

You mentioned people whispering in his ear. Two kinds of questions related to that. Why do you think Trump started the Iran war when he did? If you look back at somebody like Bill Clinton, to take a Democratic president, he bombed Kenya and Afghanistan. He bombed Kosovo when domestic politics got very messy for him. And it was very uncomfortable to witness that. Trump seems to respond to—when something is going bad for him in one place, he starts something new. Do you think Trump started the Iran war to take the focus off domestic policy failings?

It has taken the focus off of Epstein. I mean, the search results are down, but I don't believe that is the only reason. He, in my view, saw the Maduro capture and a more client leader coming there. I was opposed to that, but he saw that as a success and they thought, "Well, I can do this around the world." Of course, there've been three famous great American presidents, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and FDR. People said, "Wow, they all won wars, so what are you going to do, Donald Trump, to have your military glory?" I mean, the State of the Union was all about the regalia of military achievement. So I believe that he's been talked into saying, "Well, you're going to be the one who gets rid of bad guys around the world." He thought it was simpler than it is, given what he did with Soleimani in his first term and Maduro, and has made a mistake of hubris.

What can Congress do, or what should Congress do? This is something that is beyond partisanship. The president has been dictating foreign policy and when wars start and kind of when they stop for decades now. Is there anything that Congress can or should be doing that it is not?

First, we should be showing up. I don't mean this rhetorically, but we're in one of the major wars that we've been in in many years. And the Congress is out for two weeks. Like, I'm not saying that members of Congress are having a vacation. Some of them are doing district work.

Well, some of them are vacationing, right? We saw those horrific images of Lindsey Graham at Disney World, for instance.

And Lindsey has been the biggest cheerleader of the war. But even if they're working in their districts or doing things, I mean, don't you think that when we're engaged in a war where Americans are dying and where the president is saying, "I want 400 billion more dollars," that we should be every day debating that from the House floor? That we should be voting on War Powers Resolutions?

Is that a failure of Speaker Johnson, essentially?

Yes, but he's not the only one. We've had these speakers, candidly, who've given up an assertion of our authority. One of the things that Massie and I, when we succeeded with the Epstein Transparency Act, is we were relentless. People could have said, "Oh, they're going to ignore a discharge petition. Oh, Donald Trump will ignore you. They'll never sign the law." But we said, "No, we're going to speak about this night and day and we're going to push it." If you have an executive branch, which is taking maximalist power when it comes to war and peace, and we've seen this obviously with Trump, but we've seen this, as you alluded to, with other presidents, Democrats and Republicans, and you have a Congress which is basically silent, then who's going to win that fight? Obviously the executive branch. We haven't seen Congress stand up and say, "No, we're going to push back" in a meaningful, assertive way, where then you really have a conflict between two branches. And that's why the Federalist Papers aren't working, is because we've got a pliant branch of government on war and peace, because many members of Congress are fine not having to deal with these complicated, controversial issues.

But you guys, you've got a lot to do, right? You've got to get reelected. So, you know, we all have different priorities. Let's talk about an area that I find very fascinating about you. You call yourself a progressive capitalist. What do you mean by that?

I mean that I believe in entrepreneurship, I believe in markets, but I don't believe in unfettered capital going wherever it wants. For too long, we've had capital basically dictating to the state with deregulation and allowing for the free flow of capital.

Before we get to the progressive part of this equation, who are some of your favorite capitalists? Because I want to talk to you about kind of tax policy and your take on tariffs and things like that. But, you know, are there capitalists who are—you're like, "These are the people we need more of"? You know, who are your favorite businessmen or women heroes?

Well, Bill Knudsen, he came in FDR's government and basically helped industrialize America to win World War II, off the top of my head. That's one person. But, you know, Warren Buffett is someone who has talked about having more fairness for billionaires and having economic development—I mean, there are other people. Andy Grove is someone who talked about….

Intel. Long-time head of Intel, yeah.

You know, David Packard and Bill Hewlett were people who built HP, but had a sense of ethics, of contributing back to the…

Are there any billionaires today who fit that bill for you, you know, a kind of Hewlett-Packard model, or are they all…

I'm having a fireside chat with Jensen Huang of NVIDIA. I don't want to put him on a pedestal, not knowing all his views, but certainly he's, for example, said that, "Well, if I have to pay a tax, a billionaire tax, so be it." And he is really focused on how do we make sure that the economic development in this country is more even. I'm not saying he's a saint, but he's in a direction, I think, more of economic development and building an economy that works for everyone.

So you've come out in favor of a billionaire tax, you know, generally, and you've worked to introduce things. You've said recently, if Bernie Sanders were 15 years younger, he'd be the next president of the United States…

I believe that.

Yeah, and that kind of encapsulates the progressive element of this. Let's talk about billionaire taxes. I have read kind of differing, or I have a surmise of your view, on the proposed ballot initiative in your home state of California for a one-time 5 percent wealth tax on billionaires. That would be retroactive. Do you support that initiative?

I support the idea of a one-time 5 percent tax to pay for health care and to pay for child care. I've had issues which I'm hoping get clarified, which is that it should not be a tax on founders' voting shares and it should not tax illiquid assets of paper billionaires.

It shouldn't be on unrealized gains, basically.

Well, it could still be on a— I don't want to, you know, if you had public stock, for example, that still may be a tax on unrealized gains. But I'm talking about people who have totally illiquid assets and some startup that's valued at a billion dollars, but really haven't—could go down the other day. And—

How do you feel about the retroactive nature of the tax? This seems also kind of, it's a little bit different than usual, that if it passes in California in the fall, it would tax all of 2026. Is that good constitutional lawmaking or is that........

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