Rep. Ro Khanna, one in all President Biden’s most seen supporters, got here to Michigan lately to just accept a “braveness in public service” award from an Arab American group that opposes American help for Israel in Gaza — and detests Biden.
The stress of the California congressman’s twin roles — as a presidential surrogate and one in all many Democrats constructing his personal base for a post-Biden period — was evident earlier than dinner was served. James P. Allen, chairman of the Arab American Civil Rights League, was blunt as he launched Khanna to native Democratic energy brokers over cocktails.
“We’re going to work evening and day to defeat Biden,” Allen mentioned.
Democrats want a dose of “Trump chemotherapy,” Allen added, likening Trump to a toxin that may purge Biden, the most cancers, from the Democratic Get together.
Khanna pushed again awkwardly however not convincingly. “I disagree as a result of we’ve bought a journalist [here],” he mentioned, pointing to the reporter he allowed to shadow him for the evening.
Undeterred, Allen repeated the metaphor earlier than Khanna shifted the dialog to himself: “You suppose individuals like me can choose up the items sooner or later?”
“I do,” Allen advised him. “The way forward for the Democratic Get together is with individuals of coloration.”
“And on the proper aspect of this challenge,” Khanna mentioned, highlighting his distinction with Biden over Israel.
By means of 4 phrases representing the Bay Space’s seventeenth District in Congress, Khanna has sought to construct a fame as a novel crossover artist.
A Silicon Valley progressive who can construct his sizable political struggle chest with fundraising assist from the likes of David Sacks — a enterprise capitalist who hosted a Trump fundraiser Thursday — however who endorsed Bernie Sanders’ democratic socialist bid for president.
An ally to offended Palestinian-rights activists who can nonetheless attend bill-signing ceremonies with the president.
A politician who decried the “anachronism of two 80-year-olds working for president” to a bunch of school Democrats whereas insisting he was there to assist a kind of outdated males get reelected.
Does he plan a White Home run? He will get requested usually, and appears to relish it.
“Who is aware of?” Khanna replied as he waited to board the flight from Washington to Detroit. “What’s the zeitgeist of 2028 or 2032 going to be?”
It’s a tricky determination, he mentioned. He and his spouse, Ritu, whose immigrant dad and mom grew to become rich promoting auto transmissions, have two youngsters, aged 5 and 6. They reside in Washington however he travels extensively, each to his district and to political occasions, whereas making an attempt to spend the mornings and alternating weekends with them.
He hit the “lottery” with Ritu, he mentioned, however worries concerning the influence of social media on his household. Nonetheless, he’s retaining his choices open, giving speeches in Michigan and New Hampshire to get his message out. “I actually need to be a part of the nationwide dialog.”
Rep. Ro Khanna
Consultant for California’s seventeenth District
It’s common for members of the Home to think about themselves as president, however solely two have made the leap straight, and one was Abraham Lincoln.
Khanna must leapfrog better-known home-state rivals like Vice President Kamala Harris and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Nonetheless, there’s loads of precedent in utilizing a presidential marketing campaign to construct a profile because the social gathering’s unofficial progressive chief. Sanders, who achieved that position by two rebel runs for president in 2016 and 2020, is 82, and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who fought for the 2020 nomination, is 74.
“He pays consideration to his politics,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat who leads the Congressional Progressive Caucus, mentioned of Khanna. “He’s very near our revolution.”
Khanna doesn’t yell or crack many jokes, however admirers and opponents word how the congressman, who’s all the time in a go well with, sees worth in participating his critics and anybody else who desires to listen to from him. It’s laborious to discover a reporter in Washington who doesn’t have his cellphone quantity.
His workplace estimated that he appeared on tv 142 instances in 2023, almost thrice every week, together with native, cable and Sunday community information hits. He laughed as he recounted how former Vice President Al Gore lately ribbed him for happening air so usually.
His marketing campaign pays a social media advisor who cultivates relationships with influencers and helps generate movies that draw 100,000 and typically 1,000,000 views on TikTok and different platforms.
Final yr, Khanna was a loud and lonely Democratic voice calling for the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein to resign amid an prolonged absence from work.
“I feel he’s precisely assessing the careerism and corresponding mediocrity of the political class,” mentioned former Rep. Mike Gallagher, a Wisconsin Republican who labored carefully with Khanna on China and different points.
Khanna gained legitimacy on the left by backing Sanders in 2020 and has addressed his personal potential vulnerabilities, together with a private fortune price tens of tens of millions of {dollars} by his spouse’s household, by backing the Inexperienced New Deal and different anti-corporate positions, Jayapal mentioned. He has made contacts with activist organizations and used his $10-million marketing campaign account to spice up up-and-coming candidates and state events.
“So clearly, he’s bought a path lined up for himself,” she mentioned with a chuckle.
However even allies query that aim.
“We make a mistake by saying, ‘Who’s going to be the chief of the progressives?’ as a result of we have now many, many leaders,” mentioned Rep. Barbara Lee, the Oakland Democrat whom Khanna endorsed for the Senate this yr and counts as a mentor. “In a democracy, we work collectively.”
Khanna appears undaunted. His model of “progressive capitalism” differs from the main focus positioned on social points by culturally progressive lawmakers, akin to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan.
Khanna additionally differs from Sanders’ democratic socialist philosophy, partly as a result of his agenda features a dollop of “wealth era” — usually within the type of subsidies that assist the company giants Sanders rails in opposition to — to convey jobs to working-class Individuals. On the similar time, he helps excessive taxes on the rich and free common healthcare.
The identical tech growth that has made his district rich, he’s reasoned, may convey jobs to areas of the nation that suffered as manufacturing shifted abroad.
The zeal for spreading tech wealth to West Virginia, Michigan and different uncared for areas has not damage his means to win over voters and monetary backers in Silicon Valley’s tech sector, his main backers since he ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2014 in opposition to Mike Honda, a fellow progressive Democrat who served eight phrases. Khanna gained in 2016.
In 2022, when Intel Corp. broke floor on a semiconductor manufacturing unit in Ohio, Khanna was there, as had been Biden and different lawmakers. Bruce Andrews, the corporate’s chief authorities affairs officer, advised The Occasions that he’d by no means seen an elected official so enthusiastic about funding exterior their district.
The power is funded partly by the CHIPS and Science Act, and Khanna had been a bridge within the negotiations over the laws with Democrats who had been extra skeptical of companies, which gained billions of {dollars} in subsidies within the regulation.
“He spent a variety of time explaining to them how the economics labored and the way Taiwan and Korea and China have spent 30 years incentivizing this trade,” Andrews mentioned. “If we need to get these jobs again and construct, rebuild and rebuild manufacturing in the USA, we have now to shut the fee hole between the U.S. and Asia.”
China has been a selected goal of Khanna’s, reflecting the nationwide temper that helped Trump get elected and pushed many Democrats, together with Biden, towards a extra confrontational industrial coverage with Beijing.
“He comes at it extra from an financial warfare perspective, and I come at it extra from an precise warfare perspective,” mentioned Gallagher, the previous Wisconsin congressman.
The 2 additionally collaborated on congressional time period limits laws, touring to Trump’s White Home to hunt an viewers with the president . They bought a tweet from Trump, however the invoice died.
“He has a really legit resume and background and has interacted with each main chief within the tech world and doubtless sees the power, the pure churn of expertise, and the power of individuals at a comparatively younger age to have an enormous influence,” Gallagher mentioned.
Throughout their time working collectively on China points, Gallagher was impressed with Khanna’s means to get tech barons and enterprise capitalists on the telephone.
However the coziness with tech has drawn skepticism from fellow progressives and trade critics, who see Silicon Valley because the prime instance of concentrated wealth and energy and the aversion to regulation that comes with it.
Some critics level to intensive buying and selling of shares — a few of it tech firms — in his spouse’s portfolio. He insisted that his spouse’s intensive roster of quarterly inventory trades doesn’t violate his perception that members of Congress shouldn’t purchase and promote shares as a result of, in her case, the shares are traded by a 3rd social gathering as a part of a diversified belief.
“It’s very laborious to see how one can categorical affection for Silicon Valley giants and be a full-throated advocate for social democracy,” mentioned Jeff Hauser, who heads the Revolving Door Challenge, a company affect watchdog.
Khanna disputes that view, pointing to his vocal help for a sweeping bipartisan Senate invoice (which in the end failed) to manage tech. However he didn’t help an analogous effort in the Home when he had the possibility in 2021, drawing extra skepticism from critics who see a spot between his rhetoric and actions.
Garrett Ventry, a former Republican congressional aide who labored on antitrust points, mentioned Khanna dodged most of the bipartisan efforts to curb the ability of Apple, Google and Amazon, regardless of his “Elizabeth Warren rhetoric.”
“That basically speaks extra volumes than simply saying powerful issues on Twitter,” Ventry mentioned.
Upfront of his Dearborn go to, Khanna and his employees billed “a serious speech” to put out his imaginative and prescient for the Center East, a bit lofty for a rank-and-file member of the Home minority. However he was nervous on the way in which there. His marketing campaign’s videographer was caught in an extended safety line in New York, jeopardizing his plan to clip the speech for social media.
Khanna was unsure how a name for civility and a two-state resolution would go over. He mentioned he would ship the identical speech he’d give if he had been chatting with a pro-Israel group.
However the speech in Michigan omitted a line from an op-ed he revealed that morning, tailored from the speech, which condemned the phrase “from the river to the ocean,” which many Israelis and American Jews see as a name to get rid of Jews from Israel. Khanna mentioned the Washington Publish added that line and he by no means meant it as a part of the speech.
His op-ed and speech by no means talked about Biden or famous how Trump banned guests from primarily Muslim nations and took a extra hawkishly anti-Palestinian place than Biden. It might be inappropriate, Khanna mentioned to a reporter, to upstage the award with this discuss, and he wasn’t there in his position as a Biden surrogate.
After about an hour of selfies and political networking, Khanna sat down for a dinner of lamb, rooster and rice. Different audio system described the neighborhood’s profound ache and anger, none extra so than Allen.
“Our personal president, who many people voted for” is “a keen confederate to homicide,” Allen advised the viewers.
“This betrayal is compounded by the pernicious affect of twin loyalties, the place our elected officers nakedly serve, not the American individuals, however international pursuits,” Allen continued, echoing the language of antisemetic tropes.
Khanna smiled awkwardly however congratulated Allen and the opposite audio system as they left the dais.
“I hope my speech goes over effectively,” Khanna mentioned to a reporter throughout one other set of fiery remarks. “That’s a fairly radical speech.”
As his flip arrived, Khanna appeared composed.
“I’m not going to let you know perhaps all that you simply need to hear,” Khanna advised the gang, providing “a brand new strategy to political dialogue in America.”
Over quarter-hour, he tried to search out widespread floor, a two-state resolution, a mutual recognition, coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis. Iranians too. He invoked the inspiration of his grandfather Amarnath Vidyalankar, a member of Gandhi’s independence motion in India who spent 4 years in jail and ultimately served within the nation’s first parliament.
Khanna didn’t use the phrases genocide or ethnic cleaning as the opposite audio system did. He known as for a everlasting cease-fire and a launch of hostages.
There have been perhaps two boos when Khanna reaffirmed Israel’s proper to exist, and the concluding applause was well mannered.
Khanna thought it went effectively, and the group’s founder muttered later that the speech sounded presidential.
Mingling afterward, attendees provided comparable reward, and in the event that they mentioned nothing, Khanna requested what they thought. His political director, Elizabeth Cavalieri, then recorded testimonials from a number of of them to put up on TikTok.
It had been an extended evening, and virtually everybody was cleared out. However Allen, the one who had sworn to defeat Biden, was filming a TikTok video with Cavalieri praising Khanna’s speech, repeatedly mispronouncing his identify as “Ka-hanna.”
When Allen completed, he advised Cavalieri they wanted to remain in contact. He’s raised some huge cash over time and desires to assist Khanna with what’s subsequent.
Bierman reported from Dearborn, Oreskes from Los Angeles.
