Blow The Whistle - September 1, 2026

**Cenk Uygur** (0:01)
All right, back on The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian with you guys. Joining us now is Representative Ro Khanna.
And yeah, we're going to talk to him about a number of issues that are pressing right now, both in foreign policy and in Congress. Representative Khanna, welcome back to the show.

**Ro Khanna** (0:17)
Great to be back on.

**Cenk Uygur** (0:19)
All right, so I'm going to ask you about something that happened just now. So there was a resolution introduced by four so-called Democrats against DSA. And they wanted other Democrats to come in and bash the Democratic Socialist of America as a message statement.
I have a theory as to why they did that and it has nothing to do with socialism. We'll get to that in a second. But you are not in DSA, you're in an arguably different wing of the party. You're more of an economic populist. But you objected to that resolution anyway, why is that?

**Ro Khanna** (0:55)
Well, the resolution was basically a smear. I mean, Democratic Socialists were running and winning across the country, like Mamdani, like Milad Kairos, like Adam Hamawi, like Chris Robb are running because they want Medicare for all, they want to tax billionaire wealth. They don't want foreign wars, and they want no aid to Israel. And that is a platform that a lot of young people are resonating with. And so if we're going to build a broad coalition, a New Deal coalition, we need these people in our tent. And if anything, a lot of the energy is wounded their candidacies.

**Cenk Uygur** (1:39)
Yeah, so I'm going to show you a graphic of the four that introduced this resolution. I don't think it has anything to do with economics. They mentioned Mao and stuff, like what Mao is going to take over America, that ideology. Anyways, this is all their track APAC numbers, and it's in the millions. And my sense of it is that they did this resolution to attack all the candidates who criticized Israel. And a lot of those same names are constantly attacking Abdullahi El-Said in Michigan. Under the guise of criticizing Hassan Piker, or a streamer, or a blogger, or a poet.
So is there a faction inside the Democratic Party, because it certainly looks like it, that is trying to make sure that Abdullahi El-Said and other Democratic candidates lose, because they've been criticizing Israel?

**Ro Khanna** (2:27)
Yes, I mean, whether they admit it or not, I mean, they certainly are making more criticism of him than some of the Republicans are. And have you noticed that the vitriol in the criticisms, I'm very proud of co-chairing Bernie Sanders' campaigns.
But Bernie never got even this kind of personal vitriol, where they are going after Abdullahi's faith and his wife and his statements. I mean, it's really playing on religious and ethnic stereotypes.

**Ana Kasparian** (3:04)
Maxine Waters referred to DSA as the plague, which makes me think that a lot of this division among establishment Democrats and establishment Republicans seems to be nothing more than theater. They seem to be in cahoots on a lot of the important issues, whether it be foreign policy, economic decisions.
It's fascinating to me that Tucker Carlson, who literally helped Donald Trump get elected, is the only one who's shouting from the rooftops about how Trump needs to be impeached because he's considering the use of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. I haven't heard a single Democrat even broach the topic. Do they enjoy what's happening in the Middle East? Are they enjoying the global economic meltdown that we're all dealing with on behalf of precious Israel?

**Ro Khanna** (4:00)
Well as you know, Thomas Massey and I used the War Powers Resolution to stop this war in Iran before it began. And I have called for it, Trump's impeachment since he threatened extinction of Iran with nuclear weapons months ago. And I said that we need to speak out about the more depravity of what he's doing. But I do believe that there are more and more Democrats who are winning across the country who are opposed to these foreign wars, who are opposed to the funding to Israel, who are horrified by Trump's foreign policy.
And who are horrified by the establishment in our own party's foreign policy. And so that side needs to win. I mean, it's as simple as that. I mean, this party is up for grabs, and the question is who's going to lead it?

**Cenk Uygur** (4:54)
All right, and now let me go to Jared Musk was unfortunately one more time because he's involved in this drama between Hakeem Jeffries and Jared Kushner. So they meet, they say it's about affordability.