Washington
—
The House vote to release the Jeffrey Epstein files was, in the finish, 427-1. That’s a margin usually reserved for proclamations and put up workplace namings, not for what was perhaps the biggest defeat of President Donald Trump’s second time period, a battle that GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene declared on Tuesday had “ripped MAGA apart.”
A bunch of Epstein’s survivors, sitting collectively in a single part of the House gallery, applauded. Democrats applauded. Some Republicans applauded. No one appeared to say a lot to Rep. Ro Khanna as he stood in the middle of the flooring, towards the entrance, chitchatting with colleagues. When Illinois Rep. Joshua Jackson patted Khanna on the again a second later, it wasn’t clear if he was acknowledging Khanna’s work or simply attempting to squeeze by to get to somebody on the different aspect.
That morning, Khanna had seen that Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie, his Republican co-sponsor on the discharge petition leading to Tuesday’s vote, have been trending on X and he wasn’t. He is attempting to be advantageous with that, as enjoying down the Democratic function to woo Republican assist was at all times a part of the plan. He provided a “Schoolhouse Rock”-like optimism about legislating, saying, “It feels like you can make a difference in Congress.”
But Khanna doesn’t conceal his perception that Tuesday’s triumph proves he needs to be taken critically as a celebration chief and perhaps even for the long-shot 2028 presidential run he is at all times blissful to speak about. He argues the vote vindicates the worth of his lengthy relationships with Republicans – he and Massie related years in the past engaged on legislation to halt US military support to Saudi Arabia for its struggle in Yemen – and his willingness to speak to virtually any celebration.
“I make no secret about wanting to be part of shaping the national future of the Democratic Party of this country. I make no secret about the fact that I believe I have the best economic vision for this nation,” he mentioned in an interview with NCS earlier than the vote, ticking by means of his emphasis on forgotten communities deserted by billionaires he says have rigged the system.
“The knock on me from some — I mean, there are many knocks on me — but one of the knocks on me has always been: ‘Okay, Ro, you can write books on this, you can write op-eds on this, but can you really, brass tacks, get things done?’ And it’s easier if you’re a mayor or a governor or a Cabinet member to show you can get things done. And what this is showing is, you know what? On one of the biggest things, which is getting MAGA on board, it’s not just ideas. I’m able to get things done.”
Others are prepared to present him credit score too.
“It took him on his side and me on my side, and our working relationship before this, to be able to do this,” Massie mentioned after ending thanking the survivors at their press convention exterior the Capitol on Tuesday morning. “Our chance of success was about 4 percent at the beginning, and we’re going to succeed. So I am a little bit surprised. I’m used to fighting battles and not winning.”
“I think Ro Khanna is a brilliant human being. I think he stands for justice. He’s on the right side of history,” mentioned Haley Robson, an Epstein survivor serving to arrange the trembling “sister survivors” who are inclined to arrive holding up footage of themselves after they first met Epstein, chatting with NCS after the vote. “If it wasn’t for Massie, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ro Khanna, I don’t think any of this would have been possible. They are just incredible people who genuinely care.”
Khanna, a 47-year-old who represents Silicon Valley, has gotten used to typically getting a greater reception as the token Democrat on right-wing media than he does from a few of his colleagues. This time, he’d like a bit of extra credit score for being forward of the curve.
“In the beginning,” he advised NCS, “I’m not going to say who, but some of the folks in our own party were like, eyerolls, ‘There goes Ro on one of his issues…’ ‘Why aren’t we talking about the price of eggs?’ ‘Why aren’t we talking about the price of health care?’ ‘What’s up with this?’ And I said, ‘No, there is something legitimate here.’”
That included constructing a relationship with Greene, whom he mentioned he barely knew earlier than – however had by no means blasted on Twitter like so lots of his colleagues – and now texts with. Or fastidiously maneuvering how to get Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert in September to signal the discharge petition that compelled the vote. Massie relayed that she’d do it if she didn’t have to attend in line, so Khanna pulled the paper away from a Democratic colleague on the House flooring and let her stroll over and do it.
To report about Khanna is to encourage exasperation from political journalists and operatives who’ve rued for years how many tales the congressman at all times manages to place himself into as the hinge level.
But it’s additionally to listen to from an individual who speaks to Barack Obama typically that the former president retains a watch on Khanna as an administration alumnus (Khanna was a deputy assistant commerce secretary in the first time period, earlier than launching a main in opposition to an incumbent whom Obama endorsed). Without overstating it, the individual mentioned, Obama “appreciates that Ro is willing to show up across all varieties of platforms.”
That offers Khanna a telephone stuffed with contacts to advertise himself and his concepts, from MAGA podcaster Steve Bannon to eternally never-Trumper Bill Kristol to Larry Summers, the former treasury secretary and Harvard president whom Khanna is now disgusted to suppose he was on the telephone with arguing about financial coverage simply weeks in the past. The batch of Epstein property emails released last week revealed Summers had been asking Epstein for advice on how to sleep with a mentee of his till simply earlier than Epstein’s closing arrest.
“If there was no media attention to this,” Khanna mentioned, “this thing would never have gotten a vote. So the idea of politicians being ambitious to raise issues they care about to the American public is a good thing, if the ambition is for a good public purpose. This idea that we should not be savvy about getting our message out in the media is setting us up for being ineffective.”
A spokesperson for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who voted for and touted the win, didn’t reply when requested what the Democratic chief product of Khanna’s pushing the invoice by means of.
Rep. Don Bacon, the retiring Nebraska Republican who’s turn out to be pleasant with Khanna by means of their subcommittee work, argued Republicans at all times wished to launch the recordsdata, regardless of Speaker Mike Johnson in a flooring speech on Tuesday calling the vote a distraction from “urgent legislative work.”
“It could have been anybody” main the cost, Bacon mentioned. Then he reconsidered.
“He was smart enough to get on it,” he mentioned.
Anger and regrets
At first, Khanna says, he took up the Epstein recordsdata trigger as a result of it was one other manner of sticking it to the elite class, the ones he travels the nation speaking about below his “economic patriotism” umbrella for delivery out their jobs and promoting out their communities. But he was modified by what he calls the “emotionally horrific” conferences with survivors who began to return by means of his workplace — the guilt of getting recruited pals, the trauma of being coerced, the girls breaking down about how they’ve blocked reminiscences of their very own rapes and wanting the information of what occurred to allow them to at the least reclaim their very own experiences.
He ought to have listened sooner, he mentioned Tuesday. He shouldn’t have let it slide when he says he introduced up releasing the Epstein recordsdata with former Rep. Elijah Cummings, the Democrat and House Oversight chair who died in 2019. He shouldn’t have waited till Trump’s backing off his promise to launch them bought him moving into the spring.
“Had I met the survivors in 2019 or 2020,” Khanna advised NCS. “I would have been more vocal in the Biden administration. I think it is a fair point that all of us should have been more vocal earlier.”
Khanna’s father taught him to be stoic, he mentioned, so tears don’t are inclined to movement, however the anger does. This was insidious, he felt, “a rottenness in our civilization that allowed this to happen — like, how are we allowing these people to get away with this stuff?” he mentioned.
This wasn’t about billionaires rigging the system, Khanna began to say. Men so wealthy and highly effective and interconnected that that they had means and the gall for a “rape island” after which to attempt to intimidate away any penalties represented one thing extra: This, he argues, was about “the Epstein class.”
Khanna doesn’t know if he’ll be invited to the invoice signing Trump is now promising. He hasn’t talked to the president since January 6, 2021, not that their relationship was ever way more than hellos at first-term invoice signings and one chat in the Oval Office a few new term-limits legislation. He thinks Trump received’t have the ability to wiggle out of his promise, or of complying, and believes there are too many survivors’ attorneys and former Justice officers who’ve seen the recordsdata to know in the event that they get selectively scrubbed.
Khanna is already speaking to Greene about becoming a member of collectively to attempt to ban personal fairness corporations from shopping for up single-family houses. He wonders if he can get a number of Republicans to increase Medicare to folks beginning at 55, regardless that he nonetheless favors Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Medicare for All. Cutting protection budgets appears to have some crossover attraction. Maybe they’ll provide you with a billionaire’s tax that they’ll say is all about taking over the Epstein class.
“My point is, if your goal is just, ‘How do Democrats win,’ maybe anti-Trump is enough for a moment. If your goal is, ‘How do we build an enduring majority, which is what progressive Democrats like me want to do?’ This is absolutely essential,” Khanna mentioned. “This is a proof of concept that we need to actually figure out how we bring disaffected MAGA voters into our coalition, that we need to focus much more on railing against a system that has screwed Americans and offering a hopeful message about how we help them, more than just meme-ing against Donald Trump.”