Let's bring in Democratic California Congressman Ro Khanna.
Congressman, your reaction to what we've heard from Republicans so
far,
I'm assuming obviously you don't have a dog in this
fight,
but I'm wondering as Democrats and you sit across the
aisle watching this unfold,
where do you guys think it lands?
Well, hey, man, Emily is right that we have very
serious issues.
Tomorrow morning we have a bipartisan briefing on the war
in the Middle East and how we can support Israel.
Right now, we can't have any vote on a bipartisan
resolution that has
390 House cosponsors, including me,
because we don't have a speaker.
Now, Democrats, just before this appearance,
we voted unanimously for Hakeem Jeffries.
And I just want Republicans to get their act together
to have some speaker nominee by tomorrow so we can
get on with the work of the American.
I wanted to ask you about Hakeem Jeffries,
because it seems like, you know,
there's a coalition to be built here,
right? I mean, Jeffries could approach a number of Republicans,
particularly Republicans, who are in Biden districts,
districts where President Biden won,
in some cases by a big margin.
He could put together some kind of coalition effort,
but sort of Washington just isn't culturally built that way.
Do you think he's tempted at all to kind of
reach across the aisle,
poach a couple Republicans and make himself speaker?
I do. I think you offered that
prospect in the Washington op-ed post op-ed
that he wrote a couple days ago where he said
let's form a unity government,
let's let's be fair. Here's my view.
If the Republicans can come up with someone tomorrow and
have unanimity,
fine. I mean, they have the majority,
but if they can't, then we need to govern.
We've got too many serious issues.
And they should really explore the moderates.
Forming a coalition with Hakeem Jeffries.
That's fascinating. We've never seen anything really like that.
Congressman, you're introducing a new platform proposal,
this idea that would you'd help fight corruption in government.
You outline several measures here,
including banning PAC money, stopping congressional stock trading,
term limits for members of Congress and Supreme Court justices,
banning former members of Congress from lobbying,
establishing a judicial code of ethics.
Pretty much everything that's going on in Washington right now.
You would you would ban,
right? I mean, and you've gotten some support from Republicans.
I wonder how practical that all is.
The idea of, you know,
members becoming lobbyists. That's how members cash out,
right. And they buy their beach house when they're done
being a member of Congress and go into lobbying and
all of that stuff.
It's maybe unappetizing to people in the country,
but inside Washington, all those practices that you are setting
out to ban are beloved by some people.
There's never been anything I've done that has struck more
of a North than the political reform plan.
And the premise is simple.
You shouldn't come to Congress if your goal is personal
profit.
Harry Truman won World War 2,
and afterwards he was too poor to even afford a
train ticket to Washington.
The plan has bipartisan support.
It says members shouldn't become lobbyists.
Don't have pack or lobbyists money.
Don't have members trading stock
and have some term limits.
I believe that this is enormous ly popular.
This is what Americans want.
They don't care who the speaker is
so McCarthy or someone else.
They want fundamental reform of the institutions can uses our
opportunity to do it.
Can you enforce term limits without like a constitutional amendment
or something like that.
I mean, if you pass a law,
can you make that binding on elected representatives who are
elected constitutionally,
who don't agree with you and say,
you know what, I don't care what Ro Khanna says
or what the law was passed that would do.
I'm just going to stick around.
You're absolutely right on members of Congress.
It would require a constitutional amendment.
But for Supreme Court justices,
we could do it through congressional statute.
And we certainly could ban PAC money,
lobbyists, money, congressional stock trading,
and Congress members becoming lobbyists through congressional action and even
in some cases through House rules.
So if you can't do all of my plan,
you can certainly do the low hanging fruit.