STEVE INSKEEP, BYLINE: Democratic representative Ro Khanna is not shy about preparing to run for president.
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RO KHANNA: Well, you know, they said Lincoln had an engine of ambition that knew no rest. So I don't apologize for ambition. The question is, is it ambition for a public purpose?
INSKEEP: He would be running as a progressive, which he discussed on the NPR video program, Newsmakers.
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INSKEEP: Should Democrats nominate a more progressive candidate in 2028 than they have in the past?
KHANNA: Yes. And - but what does that mean? It means we need America's next new deal. I believe we need a economic realignment in this country.
INSKEEP: Ro Khanna is less prominent than other Californians who might run for president - Kamala Harris, Gavin Newsom. But he has raised his profile for years, involving himself in issues ranging from the Epstein files to taxing billionaires. And its expirations come as Democratic moderates and progressives battle for the party's future. Khanna represents Silicon Valley, home of trillion-dollar companies. He says he's for the Valley's enterprise and against its inequality.
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KHANNA: Is that the country we want? That one-third of the nation's wealth is in my district?
INSKEEP: He'd like to raise that question in a national campaign, though his wing of the party will first face a test. The political left is running candidates in high-profile races this fall. One of them is Abdul El-Sayed running for Senate in Michigan. I suggested to Khanna that Michigan's election might reveal if a progressive could win the presidential swing state of Michigan in 2028. He disagreed.
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KHANNA: I love Abdul's candidacy. I've endorsed him. I don't think any statewide race is a test on national prospects. By that logic, we would have had President Jeb Bush or President DeSantis. What matters...
INSKEEP: But it's a state that Democrats must win.
KHANNA: Yes.
INSKEEP: If he can't carry it, that might say something.
KHANNA: Well, but, you know, I do think he's going to win, but I believe what we need is Abdul's clarity on Medicare for All, Abdul's clarity on not having foreign wars but also what I call economic patriotism - a strategy of industrial economic development, a strategy of new trade schools. The American people will look at a number of great candidates and they'll say, who can lead this country for the future? Who's going to deliver economic prosperity? Who can lead us around the world? And that's a very personal, deep bar that someone has to cross that is not ChatGPT calculus of what swing state someone is winning.
INSKEEP: There's been an interesting evolution in President Trump's rhetoric. Recently, he's moved on to calling you all communists.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The communists want to take their ruinous and deadly ideology of misery and squalor to every state in America...
INSKEEP: Which may sound absurd to you, but Republicans have often picked out a label like that and repeated it and repeated it and repeated it, and then it turned out to stick. Are you concerned about?
KHANNA: Labels usually don't matter in American politics, in my view. We've been...
INSKEEP: Are you kidding me?
KHANNA: We've been calling the guy a fascist for 10 years, and he's won two terms. I mean, you know, I mean, communist, fascist. Well, here's what people care about. What are you going to do for them?
INSKEEP: Ro Khanna is the son of Indian immigrants, an official in President Obama's administration and, he says, a capitalist. He says he wants to save capitalism from itself. For a decade, he has represented a very liberal district where some of the biggest tech leaders turned out to support President Trump.
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KHANNA: There are a number of reasons for that. First, they want no regulation on AI. They want no regulation on cryptocurrencies. They want to be seen as the founders of carrying civilization on their back, or they're trying for immortality and think of themselves almost as demigods, the Peter Thiels and the Elon Musks. It's an arrogance.
INSKEEP: If you think about someone like Mark Zuckerberg or some other tech executives who showed up at the president's inauguration, do you think they're just blowing with the wind?
KHANNA: Yes. I think there's opportunism. They...
INSKEEP: Meaning if the wind blows differently, they will be different for the next president.
KHANNA: Yes. Now, whether the next president wants them or not is a different question. But my view is, what we should mobilize these technology leaders to do is to invest in America. Let's make sure that we have a federal jobs program. If you're a young person graduating high school or college and you're having a difficulty getting a job, why don't we hire people for four years to rebuild communities, rebuild this country and then defend employee jobs with bargaining? We need truck drivers on trucks. The idea of just having self-driving trucks with no truck drivers or planes without pilots is the wrong way to develop an economy. We want to be improving worker productivity, not displacing it.
INSKEEP: Is there any Silicon Valley leader or billionaire whose move to the right actually surprised you?
KHANNA: Elon. I mean, Elon Musk blurbed my first book when I came out of the Obama administration. I've known him for years. And it's this lack of social obligation. You know, I was in New York. I saw the Rockefeller Center, whatever else you think about Rockefeller. You know, he funded the university I went to - University of Chicago. He funded all of these public libraries and museums, so did Carnegie. You look at his plaque that was in the sort of Rockefeller Center, and he talks about how he's just a custodian of the money, and he really will be judged by his public impact. And you don't have today's founders creating libraries and universities. I mean, they're trying for their own immortality. They're trying to get to Mars. There's not a sense that they need to care about what happens in Lordstown, Ohio.
INSKEEP: Elon Musk has actively said there is no effective way for me to give away my money for the public good. He doesn't think that that's really practical.
KHANNA: Well, he doesn't think that it's necessary. In other words, these people - someone said to me, which was such an insight, they said, these folks would have been the conquerors in a different era. They think that Elon Musk having this money, Zuckerberg having this money, Peter Thiel having this money, that they're going to carry American civilization on their backs. And it's dangerous.
INSKEEP: You represent part of the country that has a huge economic growth, as you mentioned, that also terrifies a lot of people. And I think even including some people in the tech world themselves wonder about the end of humanity or the end of democracy. I don't know if you have those fears or not, but I'd like to ask in the biggest way possible, what terrifies you? What keeps you up at night?
KHANNA: That we're at a breaking point in America, and that if we don't do something dramatically different, we may break. And 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.
INSKEEP: Ro Khanna, thanks. It's been a pleasure talking with you.
KHANNA: Thank you.
INSKEEP: The California lawmaker spoke on the NPR video program Newsmakers. You can watch our discussion of data centers and Jeffrey Epstein. The video is on the NPR app and on YouTube. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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