Ro Khanna - Jacob Soboroff - MSNOW - 10/9/2026

MSNOW - Jacob Soboroff - Ro Khanna 10-9-2026

Duration 07:27 · Created 2026-10-09

Congressman Ro Khanna is a Democrat of California.

He sits on the House Armed Services Committee. Good to see you tonight. Thank you for being here.

RO KHANNA: Good evening.

SOBOROFF: What do you make of this—uh, barbaric is the word—of this barbaric plan to livestream an execution by the military of the United States of America?

RO KHANNA: Pete Hegseth says he has a mentality of winning, but he is presiding over a war which we're losing. It's not just because he's compromised our morality; it's also a strategic blunder.

And when you look at this, this is like the spectacle of the Coliseum, for entertainment and for shaming people.

I mean, it has no basis in modern humanitarian law.

It's going to make us an outlier.

It's actually going to glorify the terrorist who did this, and be a recruiting tool for terrorist groups all over the world.

But it is this total idiocy of governance that really is why we're struggling as a nation.

It is twisted. It is despicable. It is—it is a deranged thing.

And you are so right about the way in which it will embolden other people by watching something like this.

Last week, by the way, Pete Hegseth was calling for a more Christian military.

This week he's being condemned by bishops for ordering soldiers to kill a prisoner on a livestream.

But I don't know if you saw what the chairman of the FCC, Brendan Carr, said this morning about this: that it's "no big deal," basically.

Let's—let's watch so everybody can listen to it. I trust Secretary Hegseth.

I mean, he's implementing the laws and the regulations that are, you know, relevant to the Department of War.

I think he's doing a great job, and I trust that he's making the right call on these issues.

Is it something that you would allow on broadcast if they wanted to?

Look, I mean, ultimately we're going to defer to Secretary Hegseth and, you know, his decisions on how to move forward with this. What?

We're going to—we're going to defer to Secretary Hegseth if we should livestream an execution by the military?

What's your reaction?

RO KHANNA: I mean, he's—we no longer have an independent agency.

He wants fifth and sixth graders watching this on the internet?

He's got no responsibility.

What happened to his responsibility to America's kids, to America's families?

The reality is you have people who have a bravado, a sense that they're tough guys, that they're going to do this and make America tough and strong.

And we are less respected today under their leadership than ever since World War II.

I traveled to see the Pope, and you know, in Italy, in Germany, in the UK, in Canada, they trust China more than they trust us.

Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth have destroyed America's credibility in this world because they have no sense of morality, no sense of strategy, and they're relying on sort of just gut masculinity.

It's not just morally bankrupt; it's also just strategically dumb.

Not to mention, by the way, J.D. Vance, who was talking to reporters about this, and he said he's not going to watch the livestream, but I think he said he was unsure that it was actually going to happen.

SOBOROFF: What do you make of J.D. Vance's weighing in on this and saying, you know, maybe I'll turn a blind eye?

RO KHANNA: You know, I forgot him in my little rant because he's kind of disappeared.

I don't know how much he matters anymore.

Nobody shows up to his events when he goes to campaign for people, either.

You know, he's just in a pretzel; he has got no real power, he's got no real beliefs, and, you know, he's out there trying to say, well, I don't know if Kimberly Guilford taking $100,000 to do the government's bidding is right or wrong. Well, I don't know.

I know they taught me at Yale Law School that you shouldn't do this; it's a violation of international law, but I really don't want to upset the president.

I mean, he's just totally ineffective.

At least Hegseth and Trump just kind of say what they will, and you know who they are.

They have no moral court.

Vance has just become this irrelevancy because you can see him agonizing in public, and his ambition has gotten the best of him.

This episode also makes me think of the way Pete Hegseth so proudly broadcast those videos of those extrajudicial killings of alleged drug boats that reporting has shown is not the case in some of these incidents, at least.

SOBOROFF: I wonder if the Democrats retake control of the Congress.

What are your plans for bringing people in and holding hearings and holding those folks accountable for those types of extrajudicial killings that they're carrying out, the military?

RO KHANNA: Well, first, we don't have to wait until we take back the Congress.

Right after the elections in the Lame Dock, Thomas Massy has an impeachment resolution on Hegseth, and that is going to get, in my view, 20 Republicans.

He needs to be impeached. But that's not enough.

We need a truth and accountability commission in this country, and we need to hold accountable people like Pete Hegseth, who ordered firings on fishermen's boats, who fired generals, who are having public spectacles like executions in public.

And we need to hold accountable the people who doged this country, the Trump family that is being enriched by cryptocurrency.

I don't want us to have a kumbaya moment and move on, not because of vindictiveness, but because the rule of law matters, the Constitution matters, and there has to be accountability for the people who violated it.

SOBOROFF: Before I let you go, I want to ask you about something you were campaigning for here in California earlier in the week.

It's a big ballot measure that was put onto the ballot here.

It's called Proposition 40. It's the so-called billionaire tax.

It's a one-time tax on billionaires here in California.

And you and Bernie Sanders were here, and other folks.

And Bernie Sanders said at the rally, "It's the most important thing on the ballot in November anywhere."

Do you agree with that?

RO KHANNA: What are the stakes here for this Proposition 40?

It's the most important ballot initiative in America and in the world.

It's the first time we're taxing billionaires.

You know, there are 989 billionaires in our country.

They're worth 22 percent of the economy.

They're worth $8 trillion.

If you were to have a 5 percent tax on them, you would raise $4 trillion.

And their net worth is going up 144 percent.

And for that 5 percent tax, you would be able to get free college, free childcare.

You'd be able to pay every teacher $60,000.

Now, in California, a one-time 5 percent tax would allow us to prevent 3.5 million Californians from losing health insurance.

This is a policy that could transform the economy so it's not just working for a few billionaires.

And the question is, why are so many Democratic establishment people against this tax?

It's because these folks are funding the campaigns.

And at some point we have to ask a basic question: are we going to be with Bernie Sanders and restore the New Deal Democrats that are for working people, or are we going to continue to cater to a donor class that has hollowed out jobs, hollowed out the working class, and lost us two elections to Donald Trump?

Bernie Sanders was right in 2016, he was right in 2020, and it's about time we start to listen to him.

SOBOROFF: Congressman Ro Khanna, thank you so much. Have a great weekend.

RO KHANNA: Thank you.

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