Democrat Ro Khanna’s 2028 pitch: tax the rich, regulate tech | NPR's Newsmakers

**Ro Khanna** (0:03)
I tell people all the time, I'm 49 years old, I'm about to turn 50 I'm the nice guy. I just want a new social contract. Have you met these folks in their 30s? They want pitchforks and torches.
They want your scalp.

**Steve Inskeep** (0:18)
Should Democrats nominate a more progressive candidate in 2028 than they have in the past?

**Ro Khanna** (0:23)
Yes. I'm tired of the platitudes, affordability, renew the American dream, have a good job.
Branding is not an agenda. If you don't have enemies, people who dislike you, you probably aren't saying anything substantive.

**Steve Inskeep** (0:41)
Hey, this is Steve Inskeep with a special episode, a conversation from our sister show, Newsmakers, Home of NPR's biggest interviews, including a familiar voice, me. I have a conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna. For more interviews like this one, follow or subscribe to Newsmakers on Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you watch or listen. You can also find us on the NPR app.
Many Democrats are considering a run for president in 2028, and one of them is Ro Khanna, California congressman, best known for his efforts to disclose the Epstein files, for his progressive economics, and for representing Silicon Valley, the richest part of the US economy. We sat down here at NPR at a moment when Khanna's Democratic Party is trying to decide what it stands for. Ro Khanna, welcome to NPR.

**Ro Khanna** (1:34)
Thank you for having me.

**Steve Inskeep** (1:35)
I want to begin with the kind of question I might normally have asked at the end. It's about your ambitions. What are you thinking about when you think about 2028?

**Ro Khanna** (1:45)
Well, you know, they said Lincoln had an engine of ambition that knew no rest.
I don't apologize for ambition. The question is, is it ambition for a public purpose? And for me, the two central questions in our country are the economy. Right now, it's working for my district, $20 trillion, one third of the nation's wealth in my district, but it's not working for the people I grew up with in places like Bucks County, Pennsylvania, especially lower bucks where the steel factory shut down. And do I have a economic roadmap, an economic vision that can deliver prosperity, not just for the billionaires, but for every American?

**Steve Inskeep** (2:22)
Okay, do you?

**Ro Khanna** (2:23)
I'm going around the country and we were just in Pennsylvania, five days in Pennsylvania, Erie County, Washington County, Philadelphia, and testing out some of the ideas.

**Steve Inskeep** (2:33)
Just to note, you were born there and also presidential swing state. So you're thinking seriously about this.

**Ro Khanna** (2:39)
Yes, I'm thinking serious about it. I was born in Philadelphia and I grew up in Bucks County, which is a swing county. But beyond Bucks, it was in counties where there was deindustrialization. I saw it in my hometown. Fearless works shut down, steel shut down. My father was an engineer. He would go to Bristol.
Of course, more of the state was impacted. The problem is, we didn't do anything. We urge these folks to go to financial centers, get technology jobs. Johnstown still hollowed out, Ferrell hollowed out.
I believe we need a next new deal for America, an industrial investment bank, a thousand trade schools, tech centers, a care economy, child care, elder care. China has $1.5 trillion of an investment bank that they're investing on industries and sector after sector. You know how much we put in an industrial bank? We don't have one. I mean, so we have never had a strategy for economic development in this country since FDR's new deal.

**Steve Inskeep** (3:41)
The Biden administration had what was called an industrial policy. It sounds like you would have that maybe even more so.

**Ro Khanna** (3:47)
I would have that. I think they took some good steps towards that, but they're broader things I would do.
First, they didn't target deindustrialized communities. It was a broad-based tax credits and the Chips Act, which I helped write, but I would actually target places like Warren, Ohio, Johnstown, downriver Michigan.

**Steve Inskeep** (4:08)
You're naming places where there were steel mills, auto plants.

**Ro Khanna** (4:11)
Auto plants that went away. Second, I would ask them what they want. I mean, did we ever ask them what they want? I mean, I wrote the Chips Act. You can't put a semiconductor plant in Johnstown. You know what they want? They want a modern steel plant, and they, because I was just there, and they want a tech center for young people to get technology jobs. So let's listen to them and ask them what they want.
Third, we need to involve the private sector as well. FDR, before he did the New Deal, actually mobilized a lot of the business leaders to be investing in communities. Bill Knudson, the CEO of General Motors, led the industrialization of America. So I would get faith leaders, business leaders, community leaders saying, this is our mission, economic patriotism, how are we going to invest in these communities?