All-In Summit: Ro Khanna on China, political reform, major challenges facing the US and more

join me in welcoming Congressman rocana to the stage please [Music] [Music] so uh I think you guys know rokana he's in his fourth term representing uh California's 17th District which is Silicon Valley and he's been a leading voice in Congress to restore American manufacturing and Technology leadership and I think we want to talk to you about um you know the chip spill and um and our and domestic politics but we just finished a great conversation with Graham Allison yeah about China and I think you're also on a subcommittee on China and so I think it'd be great just to maybe get start with just maybe an update from you on where is the thinking in Washington on China it it feels like

in general um you know other countries have Hawks and doves whereas in the United States we have Hawks and lunatics um like I don't know of any doves in Washington um and you know that's a little bit concerning I think that there was a readout I think from the last time um that I think uh we we sent I think Lincoln might have gone to China and the readoff from the Chinese side is they said relations with the US are the worst they've ever been since diplomatic contacts are reestablished in the 1970s so like Graham said the relationship was going from you know worst to worst um you know I guess describe to us what you're seeing from in in Washington how

should we how worried should we be about this relationship we should be concerned let me uh focus on three areas one where I agree with the bipartisan consensus and that is that we should have never allowed China to accumulate the trade deficit that they have the advantage with the United States I mean we have a trade deficit with China India has a trade deficit with China Japan has a trade deficit with China South Korea has a trade deficit with China I don't understand how the whole entire world said let's have all our production go to China let me ask you this if if we had said you know who who needs Wall Street who

needs a finance industry let London just do it or who needs a tech industry let Europe just do it or who needs Hollywood let Bollywood make all the movies people would have laughed and yet that's what we did with Manufacturing it's not that we need manufacturing as the penultimate industry it's that we needed it to be part of a well-balanced economy and so the push to rebalance the economy with China to bring production back which by the way is in China's own interests because they have over indexed for an export production economy at the expense of their own consumers and at the expense of real wealth generation which happens also in the finance and

Tech sectors that I think there's a bipartisan uh push foreign consensus and is the right policy and that's I think actually what people in Pennsylvania and Ohio care the most about give us our jobs that went to China in terms of the defense on Taiwan there is a difference of approaches I am clearly uh of the belief that we should continue with the Strategic ambiguity in one China policy it was a policy that Kissinger uh had and we had three communique after that now what does that mean it means simply that we can do everything possible to assist Taiwan under the Taiwan Relations Act to make sure that China is deterred from a military invasion of Taiwan and we

should we should provide them long-range weapons we should provide them harpoons we should provide them hymers but we should recognize that the future of China and Taiwan is to be determined by China and Taiwan in peaceful uh dialogue but if China does anything to be coercive the United States will do everything to assist Taiwan with the defense that is the policy that has stood as well for 50 years and I believe can continue you to stand as well some people have demagogued this issue I'm not going to name names saying well we're not prepared we are prepared I mean we have the enabled superiority in the Pacific uh we have our seventh fleet

deployed we have nuclear-powered submarines in the area we will make sure that China is uh detard and then the final policy is do we want to talk to them I think we should talk to them like I don't understand why you wouldn't have people having dialogue or communication with China we had that at the height of the Cold War do they want to talk to us it seems like they're not so talkative right now we keep sending people over there and trying to start a dialogue oh they talk to Elon I mean that's it you know I Elon showed up there I think before our secretary of state or said hey you know I and and I I'm being half

serious but uh our business leaders have more access into China than our military political or government leaders that's a problem like how is it that Bob Iger Tim Cook and Elon Musk are doing the diplomacy with China and get more meetings and more uh conversations they're in business together well yeah but then we need to have a policy where we're meeting them and helping determine what that part is why something with the person say the other half of it it's what is happening or what is what is our political class saying that is short-circuiting the ability to go over there and actually have the money I they

they've invited me to come over and I've said I'm in the Democratic side of the house and I said I've got to go on a bipartisan basis I'm trying to get a republican to go over with me and to get senators and I said I don't understand how we're not going over to have a conversation you want to lecture them about the uyghurs let's go over and lecture them about the uyghurs you want to make sure that they're not engaged in spying let's talk about that but let's talk there has not been a bipartisan Congressional Delegation to China since before covet this is not in the interest I don't care whether you're a hawk or a

dove you have to why because people are afraid of being seen as a week of people which group of people are you saying Republicans are afraid to well I don't want to I I think they're they're that's what you mean David's sitting right there there's a lot of crazy Hawks in the GOP establishment I mean as I think about the biggest lunatics in foreign policy in Washington that like someone like Lindsey Graham comes to mind so I'm not I'm not a defender of the GOP establishment on on foreign policy I'd like to see some changes there but I think you know Roe you brought up a great point about the unwillingness to

engage in diplomacy one of the ways that um that you first really came to my attention I became a fan of yours is when you and the progressive caucus wrote a letter to the Biden Administration encouraging there to be a diplomatic track on this Ukraine war even as you are still you were still saying listen we're going to provide Ukraine with everything it needs but in addition we simply want to have a diplomatic track with Russia and the amazing thing was even suggesting that was so transgressive that I think virtually every member of the progressive caucus except for you retracted the letter and so you know I really applaud you for

sticking to your guns on that and that's when after and um and then there was also the the uh the episode in the Twitter files where you were encouraging the old Twitter management to realize that the censorship they do were doing was backfiring so after those two things I was like this is a Democrat I could support and uh and we did a we did a very successful fundraiser for you so uh at any event so I've been a fan of rose for a while but I think this um this unwillingness to engage in diplomacy and talking to the other side because somehow it's weak or somehow it'll give the other side or is it anti-patriotic because that's the tone I seen change in

Silicon Valley in the last three years you know this summer I pointed out some friends we went to this thing and suddenly everyone was anti-china I couldn't believe it because two summers ago three summers ago I was like maybe it'll be a couple years maybe it'll be a decade something something will happen something's a brewing this summer it was like you're talking to China you're not a patriot you were with us or against us and if you start to suggest anything otherwise any sort of coopetition or cooperation you are un-American is that a sense you're getting that the tone has changed in Washington that that's sort of

blanketed now the yeah I think there are a lot of people who assume that we are in a cold war whereas I want to try to prevent the 21st century from defaulting to the same paradigms of the last one but you know what's unpatriotic the hollowing out of this country where were these voices for the past 40 years where you had corporations say we want to go to the cheapest labor we want to go to the lowest environmental standards we want to build profits and we don't care what happens to Johnstown Pennsylvania and Warren Ohio and down river Michigan we're going to hollow out the industry the working class is going to fall

behind we're going to let wealth concentrate in a few areas do you think people who are growing up or in these areas are saying you know what I really really care about is the defense of Taiwan no they care about their jobs they care about access to the American dream they're wondering why this country let them down for the past 40 years patriotic would be to rebuild that you represent a district in Silicon Valley and a lot of this has been driven by The Leverage and we've gotten from technology and a lot of the beneficiaries of what you're saying are the shareholders the employees the executives of Silicon Valley technology companies when they say to you this is

what the consumer Market wants they want an iPhone for 400 not for two thousand dollars how do we respond to the conversation about what market and what technology and what you know economic progress is demanding of them as representatives for their shareholders I don't I'm not a believer in autarkey I'm a Believer in having some enough self-sufficiency why can't we build the modern steel plants in the United States we went from the largest exporter of Steel to the largest importer of Steel the carbon footprint of Steel is three times higher in China nine out of 15 top steel companies are in China we don't have a single one why can't we have the government work with

the private sector to build modern steel plants in this country why don't we do that with aluminum and number of number of areas to answer that question be that we have the lowest unemployment in the history of our lifetimes and we're not allowing people into the country and we don't have people to work in steel factory I don't think that's what I know I'm asking him well look I'm for immigration policy but when people talk about the 3.5 unemployment rate what they're not talking about is the lives of people who went from 30 jobs to 15 to 17 jobs who don't have the same Economic Security who've seen health care costs increase we've seen child care costs increase we've seen College

costs increase and we aren't being able to buy houses and so we're going around the governing class saying 3.5 percent unemployment inflation's at three percent and people are saying I'm paying five bucks for gas my kids don't have a future into uh the middle class and we've lost the productive capacity in many parts of this country I heard some of what Ray dalio talked about and here's where I think and I I think look I think Ray dalio dalio is a is what makes America exceptional because dalio would be would have been and I'm taking a little bit of Liberty here the person who would have been writing the article in the 1980s saying Japan and Germany are going to be the dominant post-cold

War economy is not the United States like Paul Samuelson predicted incorrectly but that's precisely what makes us great because we actually have voices who are skeptical and in some what pessimistic to recharge us the depth to GDP ratio matters if you can't increase the GDP we need debt which is productive investment which is actually going to grow the GDP and to the extent that we have Investments that are going to rebuild the productive base that's going to leverage all of this technology in the United States to help grow the economy that actually is what's going to allow us to be and continue to lead and I think jamad's question is to the point

I mean where are we people aren't going to put the money in India or China the issue is not immigration that regulatory corrosion has taken simple decision-making hostage in America I'll give you a simple example if you're a pro-climate change it is easier today to go into India and build a rare earth mine because it can get permitted within months than it is to even go to a red State like Nevada because for five years an effort to build the largest lithium reserve and to develop it has been held up because the BLM has been stuck in a lawsuit with some folks environmentalists who want to protect the Upper Land Grouse now I'm

not going to debate the value of the Upper Land Grouse except to say that's been a five-year slog through hell and this other one took 18 months and it's starting to ship and I know this because I'm involved in both and so the reason why it's problematic is when somebody like manchin tries to actually put in permitting reform simple things and he has to hold up or you know kill another build to try to get these things in somehow The Blob just comes in and then nothing changes that's actually why nothing really productive can happen sometimes if you want to build the right thing it's just not possible and I what

I want to understand is how much of that regulatory creep has just been independent of Democrats and Republicans and what do you do to pull it back well look I I I am for a version of Permitting reform I didn't I don't agree with all the mentions I didn't agree with the Mountain Valley Pipeline and The Willow oil drilling projects I want to be transparent and not just say to the to you what you may want to hear but I I do think we need permitting reform we need permitting reform on the semiconductor Bill the chip spill to make sure that those factories actually are getting built for nationally important projects we need it

for solar wind and for a clean infrastructure but I think it is a red here we need it for housing in this in this state I mean talk about one of the biggest regulatory captures is that we aren't building enough housing in California and because of restrictive zoning laws but I think it is it it's not sufficient to just say we lost our industry uh because uh we didn't have permitting I mean like we that's not why we lost steel we lost steel we lost aluminum we lost paper we lost textile because we didn't care we said let those jobs go to where it would be cheaper it doesn't matter people can go get other jobs and the governor government has to finance and this is where I am a

Democrat if you look at what Built America it was Hamilton and it was Roosevelt and it was Roosevelt after during World War II it wasn't just the New Deal unemployment at the until 1940 was at about 15 percent and then Roosevelt goes to corporations and he says we're going to finance the production in this country unemployment Falls to four percent that sets a modern industry and we need to have in an effort to rebuild America with government partnering with the private sector and uh labor to do that across the industrial Midwest I have a bill with Rubio actually to do that to create a permanent Economic Development Council

Marco Rubio and that by the way that's a common mission for this country that we can get behind we need something that's going when my father came here in the 1960s this was a country that went to the moon this was where the energy was this is where we were building things we need to recapture that to have a common purpose in this country and one place to do that is to be able to rebuild industry permitting is part of it but we need a comprehensive strategy can we talk about um your proposal last week I think it was a political reform proposal and can you share some of the details of the announcement you made and why yeah I was

surprised I thought it was relatively I've never been able to predict which tweet goes viral you know there are times like Elon has retweeted me it doesn't go viral none of us can't you know only when sex retweets maybe it goes viral I don't know it's a slot machine so there are only two tweets that I've ever done that have like gone viral this year one was when I said the obvious which was that Senator Feinstein should step aside and then the second one was and you want to unpack that one the second one was this political reform proposal where I said you know let's have term limits for members of Congress and Senators let's not have any

corporate tax money or any tax money any lobbyist let's have term limits for Supreme Court Justices let's ban stock trading and also ban members of Congress ban it for members of Congress and also band members of Congress from becoming lobbyists this was Common Sense things and I think people are so starved for restoring trust now here is the honest truth in my view most members of Congress you may not disagree with this but of the 435 at least 300 to 350 of good motives going in they want to do the right thing they may disagree but we're in a situation where we have lost the trust of the American people most Americans think members of Congress are

lying they think they're corrupt they think they're self-serving I don't care that we have good intentions that's the perception so in that void stems the place for demagoguery because people are cynical about the process we've got to take some bold steps to clean up the system so that people can so we can do these big projects of rebuilding the country how did your co-workers take your well they haven't been retweeting yet so they you know we'll see how many okay so just our constituents we treated it so can you talk about politics of the career in answering that question I've always had this bias against Politics as a career you know kind of thinking about

the intention of the founding fathers that the citizenry should serve they should serve the people they should go to government they should do their their civil civic duty to the tour and do their tour and then leave and that building a career in politics and I don't mean this um in any negative kind of light on your choice but that that there is a career that is built in politics that there is a a return on that investment that that becomes uh you know a a career that some of these politicians have made a lot of money pursuing is that the right thing and how do you think about how we should have politicians elected and what the

intention should be on who should be in that role for how long and well there's a there's obviously a problem in our country and I don't say this with a any person in mind because I don't want to get in to too much trouble but look at people look at Silicon Valley it's one of the most dynamic places in the world and you have people who are elected there and still elected they're before AOL and Yahoo and we've had Facebook and Google and these are being disrupted politicians and you think how you know how is it that how is it that Silicon Valley isn't just producing more and different voices I mean and it's there's something broken the turnover rate of U.S members of

Congress was less as according to the economist than certain aristocratic and and and monarchies in in Europe what what what's broken fundraising or well there are a couple of things or democracy or the way we do democracy it's if you're an incumbent you have a huge Name ID advantage uh I would never have I mean you're gonna have vinod on next time and and and and I had people like him and others when I was at three percent in the polls uh going up against someone at 60 saying sure this seems like a great plan that's because in Silicon Valley you can get that and then when I lost people like yeah let's double down because you got

to have a couple of failures but that's so unusual you don't have that in most places so if you're going up against an incumbent it's very very hard you uh have a huge disadvantage it's a term limits solved that term limit solve that in terms of people say well we we should have the voters have the real choice but the voters aren't having real choice I mean let's be real they're only about 30 40 actual congressional seats that are contested so it's not like you have real choice in the matter because of the fundraising and the incumbency advantage and I I don't have a problem with people who want to dedicate themselves to public service but just you don't have

to do it in one position you can do it in a lot of other ways let's talk about age limits because it's front and center after what we saw at Mitch McConnell and everybody else I don't want to single anybody out but this feels like um it's uh I mean Biden obviously yeah go ahead sax fans of cheer um uh no it just feels crazy that we have people this old running the country and they're obviously glitching and there's a problem here we all see it why can't we just have an age limit and let people retire and enjoy their lives I mean or do you think we should have a cognitive test I'm I'm

being a little funny here but I'm dead serious like why don't we have a cognitive test for the presidency for these positions and would you be in favor of that I think the cognitive tests should be the American public but I think if you have the reforms if you have the reforms that I'm talking about of term limits of getting the PAC money out of getting the lobbyist money out of uh having uh a a fairer political system then you'd give new voices and opportunity you wouldn't be stuck with people just because they have Name ID and fundraising running for these positions but I will be a little bit philosophical about why we have a

situation where we have so many people who are older in all these positions and I I think we're we're not going to see the dam break in 24 but I do think we'll see the damn break in the next cycle and the reason is look this country is going through incredible change the people who are down on America I think forget how exceptional it is what we're trying to do we are 60 white non-hispanic Canada it's like 87 white Britain 80 some percent white Australia 80 some percent white we are trying to become the first cohesive multiracial multi-ethnic democracy in the history of the world and to think

there was going to be a linear line from Obama to that was I think naive and some of what is happening is people feel that the challenge that the country is changing the country they knew was changing and so people who are familiar who have a familiarity have an advantage in having that trust factor with the American public but we have to we have to at some point be willing to say look we need new leadership but we need new leadership that's going to speak to people's concerns and and the past and that's why I talked about steel because at least that's a job that people can relate to

we have to be empathetic to their narratives why has Vivek and RFK which we had on the program resonated with the American public to such an amazing extent and what do you think of each of those individuals you could be candid this is all in yeah this is all on the internet you can go candid look thanks you know obvious obviously I'm supporting President Biden but I've said people should run and they should bring things in and uh you know let me there are a lot of places I disagree with Robert Kennedy but one place that I think he has raised uh important issues is why do we have so many overseas bases

why do we have a defense budget that's approaching a trillion dollars uh why do we have so many uh handouts for pharmaceuticals so my hope is that the places where he is raising some of those points will become part of our Democratic platform their large places I don't think you're you know he's he's ready to be president United States and I think I support President Biden and I disagree with him on some of the let's just now you know what it's like to be me in the YouTube comments this let's do the vague what do you think here's the thing though with politicians that one of the problems they go to it you think I don't

know the people in this audience like Bob Ken Robert Kennedy Jr but they go and they tell one audience one thing another audience anything it's something else when I was at Sax's house or if I go to a progressive group I tell the same thing to every audience and I think ultimately people want that because he's 38 years old becoming a bit of a sensation getting to double digits in the polls is nothing to um you know yeah it's pretty insignificant so well look what I think of him I I I think people wanted uh there's an underlying hunger for the Next Generation but I but my sense is well what are the proposals I mean I

disagreed with him when he was in my view demagoguing the Silicon Valley Bank issue I don't think he has you know to describe the uh January 6th uh insurrectionists or people who broke into the capital as non-violent peaceful protest which is what Gandhi talked about with satyagrah is a real Distortion of what that what movement was about to say that the Civil Rights Movement would have been better if you had people armed like did he read Dr King I didn't I don't I don't think that there were guns so do I think it's it's it's it speaks to our democracy look why why did I defend Free Speech because that's what I love about America that

anyone can have an opinion in this kind tree and that's part of the messy democracy and to that extent I'm glad we have all these candidates but I have profound disagreements with him do you think President Biden is intent on running because he has the energy and desire to be president or is that just the uh is that is that or is that just more the expectation when you're the incumbent and it's the it's the opposite that's worse than you know the uh the the idea that then seeding power to the other side keeps them there to run well this is someone who ran for president three times you know you don't want to underestimate a person's ambition and

their resolve and I think people have uh underestimated Biden both in the primary and against Trump my sense is he probably thinks that he has the best chance to win against Donald Trump who I think will be the nominee and the reason is because until other people in the Democratic party can speak to folks in places like Pennsylvania Michigan Ohio about the loss that they have felt in uh industry and can connect and have a real Vision there they're not going to be able to win those States in my sense is he probably thinks that he has the best chance to win those States against Donald let me let me ask a question that's not Biden because I think it

applies to Biden Trump when Reagan left the presidency we learned that he had early onset Alzheimer's and that he had Alzheimer's I think he like it started showing symptoms in the last two years of office it's a very scary idea again and I think Reagan did a lot of great things but the reality is it creates a risk of a shadow government right of people that were unelected people that we don't necessarily know where do they stand what are they about in charge of very critical aspects of the presidency when you have two older individuals in that age Spectrum now either one could be president definitely will be in the

80s what do we do as a democracy to make sure that there is this check and balance how does that happen when there could be people that are sort of in the shadows directing things of an 85 year old that is less probabilistically likely of a 55 year old let's say well the answer to that is active democracy I don't want to embarrass the audience but how many people here have knocked on more than 500 doors on a political campaign how many people here have hosted events for candidates how many people here have uh had encouraged friends to run for office you know I I just think that a

large part of the group of Americans who are upset or dissatisfied or are not engaged in the political process and you know that to be Plato said the price of not being engaged in politics it will be ruled by worse people and so the the reality is that if you want to have younger people engaged if you want to have new voices you've got to realize there's a huge power establishment and we've got to get active and be much more involved and then be strategic the amount of people it's mind-boggling to me you have like the most brilliant Business Leaders who will obsess about every part of a business plan and think about like what

it takes to make a successful company and then they'll be like oh let's just run this guy for president and he's going to connect what about the infrastructure in Iowa and New Hampshire and what it takes to win there's no business plan like that you it being in politics to lead the Free World is the hardest possible job to get in the world it requires requiring a winning presidential campaign is no joke and I think people have to take it seriously political activism if they want change bro let me um let me just flip the conversation from external politics to the internal administration of our federal government we heard

um from Graham Allison about the challenges of the Department of Defense um what's your view and what's the conversation on the ground about accountability Department of Defense and elsewhere in the federal government what are the the measures that you think we should be taking and prioritizing to addressing these these concerns I always reference the Jon Stewart interview with the under Secretary of the defense for comptroller or whatever her title was and kind of says you couldn't pass it on it it's like hundreds of billions of dollars M.I.A and meanwhile you know we are ill-equipped for the conflicts ahead

potentially and the threatened conflict ahead what's the solution and what's the the conversation on the ground in DC on on this matter and is it a priority for folks it's not a priority it should be a priority everyone will watch 60 minutes should know it's a priority I was the only person in the entire armed services committee 56-1 to vote no against the defense budget going to a trillion dollars not because I don't believe in a strong defense but because we are paying three hundred or ten thousand dollars for an oil pressure switch that NASA is paying 328 dollars for it I didn't

realize I was giving you such a size you know where Raytheon in The Patriot defense missile is making 40 profits 50 profits that they admit you have a situation 300 to 400 billion dollars a defense contractor and no one is holding him accountable because they're giving money to to to to to people's campaigns and no one wants to be seen as weak on defense well look Harry Truman became president of the United States just by holding defense accountable in World War II this should be a bipartisan issue and we should hold it the defense department accountable to actually having real defense for the prime percentage now do social security and Medicare

you'll disagree with my plan on Social Security but my view is that you shouldn't scrap the payroll tax cap and that would make Social Security solvent but if you it but here is where what I'll what I'll end with the the um look I I think that there there is two things that have divided this country deeply one is the hollowing out in the working class middle class across this country and what we need to do to have a common mission to rebuild it and the other thing is kind of a a moral smugness a sense that we know uh and have the Monopoly on the truth the amount of criticism that I have gotten for like going on Fox news or even coming to the

all-in podcast I mean look try and finding some of my Democratic colleagues it is staggering we have we've got to have more humility to have conversations we've got to have those conversations with empathy not just judgment and think about where other people are coming from and their stories and we've got to figure out how we're going to bring this country together thanks well done we really appreciate it great job thank you [Music] and they've just gone crazy [Music] besties [Music] [Music] we need to get Mercies [Music] I'm going all in [Music]