Inauguration Interviews: Trump's Talent, Dem Rebrand & more w/ Whip Emmer, Reps Swalwell & Khanna

Tom Emmer, we're honored to have you here. You're the U.S. representative from the amazing state of Minnesota, home of Bob Dylan, Prince, the Coen brothers, and Tim Walz. Let's start there: how much of a disaster was the Democratic Party? When you watched what happened with Biden, do you think there was a cover-up in terms of his mental acuity? And what do you think of Kamala Harris's campaign, not doing podcasts, essentially being anointed, and not having a primary?

The Democratic Party seems lost and crooked.

I have good friends who are Democrats, so I'm not going to disparage them. First, all of you, thank you. It's nice to be on All-In. I've heard everybody's heard about it, and everybody wants to be here, so it's just nice. You promised you'd listen to it after this, right?

I actually listened last week. Sadly, it was about the fires.

The way they did this was wrong. Ballot access is a big thing. You have to run for months, get delegates, and make your case state by state. You have to meet certain requirements to actually end up on the ballot.

How were the Democrats able to remove Joe Biden, literally in a backroom coup, and install Kamala Harris in a matter of hours or days? They avoided any convention where real democracy could take place, where people debate their candidates and where they're at.

As to your other question, was there a cover-up? A cover-up is when you don't see it, when you don't know about it, when you're totally unaware. This wasn't a cover-up. This was a conspiracy.

Everybody in this town, for 4 years, watched. When he came in, he was already diminished, and they watched him continue to diminish over the course of his term. It was the mainstream media that refused to comment on it. Then, overnight, when he had the debate last June, it was suddenly, “Oh my gosh, this is terrible. Look at this,” as if they'd never seen it before.

This was a conspiracy by a left-wing media littered with people who have a partisan view. They write about it, create stories about it, and don't tell you the whole story.

Let's pull this thread a little further. You said the Democrats themselves are good people—some of them, many of them—but that the leadership is corrupt. Can you help us understand who the leadership is and how the corruption plays out?

Remember, I'm on the Republican side.

No, but you can tell us what you watch. If somebody said, “Who is the leadership, elected or otherwise, that runs the Democratic Party?” a lot of people would point to the Obamas and some of the super-donors. Is that your perception of how it works?

It is. There were 2 times when whoever they are—whether it's the superdelegates, Barack Obama, the Clintons, or whoever—made a decision.

As you'll remember, Bernie Sanders was marching toward the Democratic nomination. They got to South Carolina, and all of a sudden Amy Klobuchar, from my state, said, “I'm out. I support Joe Biden.” Then it was one after another. Clearly, whoever that is—you're right, we're not in the room to see whether it's the Obamas, consultants like Carville or Axelrod, or somebody else—had a plan when it got to the end.

I never thought Joe Biden was going to be the candidate.

That's not how the Republican Party operates. Some people in the public have the perception that both parties operate that way—that there's a cabal of the most influential people, and ultimately they pick the candidate. Is that not the case?

No, and clearly that wasn't the case with Donald Trump.

Watching from the outside, we're not on the inside of the Democratic machine, but it looks like a top-down process. On the Republican side, it's a bottom-up process. Donald Trump is the best example because people in this town, especially in the House where I serve, say, “We have the American people. We have a mandate.”

You have to remind them that Donald Trump has a mandate. He got 77 million votes. We got a little less than 75 million. If you're looking at who is expanding this party and pulling it over the line, it's 1 guy: Donald Trump.

Do you view him as the party leader?

I do.

To your point, this was almost like a Donald Trump hostile takeover of the Republicans. If you look at the establishment rhetoric about what Republicans stood for, I don't think Trump really cared. He had a point of view, and he had his own intellectual agenda and ideology. To your point, 77 million people said, “I go with that.”

Do you think something similar is possible on the Democratic side? Do you think there's a different ideology that needs to be born there?

I can only tell you the experience I've had with 1 of my Minnesota colleagues, whom I won't name. He might have run against the sitting president.

We were talking on the House floor one day, and I was giving him a hard time about some of the off-color remarks coming from the Squad.

Off-color?

Let's just say there were some antisemitic comments—“All About the Benjamins”—and a censure was being worked on.

It was public, but the point is, when I was saying, “Boy, you've had quite a week,” he said, “Yeah. That's a very small group of people in our party with very large voices.”

My response was, “That might be true, but then people like you have to stand up, speak up, and take my grandfather's Democratic Party back.”

I think they have a problem. Identity politics, which they've perfected and been playing for years, has now come back to bite them. Where is the way out? They don't have a brand. They don't know who they are.

They're fighting about things like men participating in women's sports. It just isn't resonating with the American people. They're going to have to figure that out for the future. On our side, we're going to have to figure out that Donald Trump is the person who pulled this across the line.

Here's the problem with the Republican Party for me. For the last 30 years, we've had great people representing us, but the public has been very frustrated because it seems like government and the bureaucrats always get a better deal than the average citizen.

I'm talking about Main Street USA—not Silicon Valley, which has its own Main Street, but rural country and people who are just trying to live their lives. They feel like their government hasn't been listening to them for years.

That's what spawned the Tea Party. We've had this over and over. Donald Trump deserves credit because that energy was out there, and he grabbed it. He showed us what it looked like when he ran in 2016, and he took the time to understand it—or he just innately has an ability to read people better than anyone I've ever seen.

I think he is a generational retail politician. He's a 1-in-150-year leader.

You have a passion for fiscal responsibility, and you've been banging the drum on the national debt. Tom, you also have a passion for responsibility. Maybe you can give us your thoughts on how much of an impact the Department of Government Efficiency can have and what you think reconciliation is going to look like. This is going to be a very gnarly pitched battle.

How do we get $2 trillion out of the government?

Why are you stopping at $2 trillion?

Actually, let's ask that question. Is $2 trillion even possible? If so, how do you think you can get it out?

I'd rather look at it 2 ways. We do this privately, so you won't get me to say what it is or where it is, but I'll tell you there's a list we've sat down with that reaches somewhere between $5 trillion and $7 trillion over the next 10 years.

That $2 trillion would be over the next 10 years?

The annual budget is $7.2 trillion, right?

Right.

The first thing we have to do is balance the budget. We've got to quit bleeding $1.5 trillion to $2.2 trillion a year.

It's another trillion dollars.

Whatever it is, you've got to balance it. The second thing you have to do is start to bend the curve down. We have the greatest economy in the world, and it hasn't been performing where it could.

I think with Donald Trump, we can put things in place so that revenues start to go up again. If you're controlling it, you could pay that down rather quickly. If you're talking in terms of a decade, this requires sacrifice. It requires representatives from each city and each state to go to their constituents and say, “We fought to get you X, Y, and Z, and you're only going to get X and Y.”

Be careful. Some people tell you they fight, but they're not really fighting.

This thing is going to happen because of Donald Trump. I leave it to Mike Johnson, the Speaker. He'll make these decisions. I'm the whip. Whatever you tell me, my job is to make sure we get it done, and that's what we'll do.

I think you're going to see a 2-track process. Mike Johnson has set a deadline for reconciliation. He wants to vote on a budget resolution by the first week of February.

Why is that important? You have to have the budget resolution before you can even move forward with reconciliation. That's usually pre-negotiated with the Senate. If we can keep to that aggressive timeline, you'll have it back to the House sometime in February.

Once you have that, it allows your 12 appropriation subcommittees to get their allotments and start building out their budgets. Jason Smith, our Ways and Means chairman, believes we can have that process done by the end of March.

Mike Johnson, in this very aggressive timeline, would like to vote on it in the House in the first 2 weeks of April. This includes the permanent extensions of the Trump tax cuts from 2017. If we're able to keep to that schedule, you could realistically have a reconciliation bill on President Trump's desk by Memorial Day weekend.

Let's talk about the other long-term challenge and your point of view on the solution. What's going to happen to Social Security by 2030, 2032, or 2033? Where is this headed?

I think people are going to have to innovate, and you have to honor the promises that have been made.

There are many different things being looked at, like a voluntary program for people in a certain age range who are just coming into the system. It would give them a choice: They could stay in Social Security as we know it or pursue a private route that would have federal parameters.

You couldn't just put it into a retirement account and take it out. It would serve the same purpose, but it would be more like Australia's superannuation system. It would obviously grow the private side.

Is that ultimately necessary? We need to change Social Security, but when do we have to change it by? Now that the election is over—because every politician is scared to talk about Social Security when they have an election coming up—are we going to hear something different this time around, or is it always going to be kicking the can down the road? It's such a golden goose. No one can talk about it and no one can touch it.

Donald Trump was elected for 3 reasons: to fix our economic woes and the inflation that's killed people; get energy moving again; seal the southern border; and create peace and stability around the globe.

If we perform—and I'm going to change that, because that's not really my attitude—then you start to build credibility with the American public. Only then can you start talking about this, because nobody believes us.

Right.

The media plays games. They try to pit us against each other with different ideas. The key is that you have to honor the promises that have been made to Americans since Social Security was created.

Then you have to look forward. We've said we're not going to touch Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid. That was the president who said that.

I got that.

There are some efficiency reforms you can make around these programs that would make them not only more financially viable but more efficient.

Should Americans be able to trade cryptocurrency freely without regulations, or do you think those regulations are in place for a good reason?

Remember Animal House, with the good and evil voices on your shoulders? I had that last night. I had the libertarian and the Republican with a small “r” on either shoulder.

The libertarian always wins for me.

It used to for me, but I realized I was a Republican with a small “r” when I was doing a radio show with an anarchist for several months. All he ever said was, “Shut her down. She's pumping mud.” I thought, “I must be a Republican.”

The libertarian says, “Absolutely.”

The Republican with a small “r”?

I think the key is that we have the greatest financial system and markets in the world here in the United States. We have an existing, legacy, 2-tier banking system. It needs to come into the 21st century.

The beauty of crypto to me is not just that it's crypto. It could help us if Congress does its job—if we put some parameters up, establish market structure, and give people rules of the road so they know what they can and can't do and who is responsible for oversight.

We can protect the existing 2-tier legacy system and allow it time to move into the 21st century. The key—and this is why the central bankers are so worried—is that this is so disruptive and potentially destructive that they're scared to death.

It's not just about losing their power. They're afraid that decentralization could somehow send finance back to the Dark Ages.

There's also concern that consumers who are not sophisticated or who are new to crypto might lose their money.

Yesterday, Trump launched a $30 billion meme coin, which we refer to on the internet as a coin. Are you troubled by him doing something like that? Was that a wise decision?

I don't know. Time will tell. He seems to make some pretty good decisions.

The regulations for that are still being worked on.

If he can do that, can we all do it?

You could have done it, too.

The SEC previously would have gone after you for taking money from retail investors.

Ding-dong, the witch is dead. Now we're moving forward with a new SEC.

If that's the case, then go for it.

What's YOLO?

You only live once.

My staff gives me a hard time because I don't know all those cute quips.

You're cool with him doing a coin 24 hours before the inauguration?

Did you see the meme that said Barron apparently had his dad's phone last night and made a billion dollars?

I love the Barron memes. They're my favorite. They call him the Lisan al-Gaib, which, if you watch Dune, is the savior sent to save all of us.

It's definitely going to be an interesting 4 years.

Let's talk about what is happening right now. Jason is about to implode. He has a big negative bias against these coins.

No, I have a bias against stealing.

Meanwhile, you want every retail investor to have access to buy startups because that would benefit you. But when it comes to coins, you're saying no one should be able to do that?

No, I'll address that. I think there should be a sophisticated-investor test where people learn about things like diversification. They should learn who owns 80% of the coins that have just been dumped on retail investors and under what circumstances those owners can sell them.

There is also a legitimate issue that foreign adversaries could buy these coins and influence the president. I think that's a real concern. You can diminish it, but it's a real issue.

I actually agree with you. Securities regulations require that when you do an IPO, you file an S-1 and disclose who owns the shares. It has to go on a regulated exchange, so you know who the buyers are.

I do actually think your framework is pretty reasonable.

I thought you were just mocking me.

I do mock you. In addition, let's go to the next one.

No, I do think that's right.

You brought up the border. Steve Bannon says—

I did.

You said the border was 1 of the major parts of his mandate.

Let's talk about that part of the mandate. Steve Bannon says he wants all 15 million out on day 1. Stephen Miller says, “America is for Americans and Americans only.” Do you believe 15 million people should be dragged out of this country on day 1, as Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller have said?

I think we should look at what the American people think. A New York Times poll, of all outlets, said that about 80% believe that criminals, terrorists, and people who have committed bad offenses should be the hell out of here.

That's an easy one to get consensus on.

Then it starts to drop.

What's the next one?

I forget what the second one is, but it drops down to about 60%. About 55% of Americans believe any illegal immigrant should be out of here.

Fifty-five percent?

That was a New York Times poll.

What do you think that will do to the economy? You brought up inflation, and we have 4% unemployment, the lowest of our lifetimes. Agricultural labor costs have climbed by probably 3 times in the last 4 or 5 years, and there isn't enough labor to address agricultural production needs in this country, particularly in specialty crops. That's the world I work in.

How are we going to address both the economic demand for labor in this country and the immigration challenge?

You don't fix your labor problem with illegal immigration. You fix it by fixing your immigration system and making sure that it works the way it's supposed to.

I come from Minnesota. The 2 primary drivers of our state's private economy are manufacturing and agriculture. I have huge operations made up of families that have bound together as a cooperative. They literally have to bring in foreign workers. They've built village housing and have teachers.

There's the solution.

This idea—I come from Minnesota, which is why you made the hair on the back of my neck stand up—that illegal immigrants and their advocates are bracing for Trump's arrival, and then they write an article saying, “If they remove all these people, our economy is going to tank.”

Stop it. You have laws for a reason. You have to enforce the laws that are on the books. If they don't work, this is why we passed the strongest border bill in 20 years with 222 members in the last Congress, which Chuck Schumer never even looked at.

They wanted to say that Trump killed the bipartisan bill. The House bill did 5 things: finish the wall, reform the parole process, reform asylum, end catch-and-release, and restore Remain in Mexico.

Those were the 5 pillars that the so-called bipartisan bill actually codified. It said that if you don't have emergency authority on the border, nothing happens until you have more than 5,000 people coming across in a day.

We seem to have the answer. We seem to have pretty solid consensus in the country that criminals who are committing 2 crimes—the crime they committed here and crossing the border illegally—have no standing. They should go.

But you're punting on the question of whether the other 14.5 million people should be dragged out of the country in year 1. Can you answer that?

You're a journalist. I'm telling you right now that Trump was elected to do this.

What do you think, though? You're from a state where that is going to be highly unpopular.

I don't think you should be here if you're illegal.

So all 15 million have to go in year 1?

I don't think you should be here if you're illegal.

You're painting with a pretty broad brush. You don't know the specifics.

You're using Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, so I'm quoting their words. I think the goal is to make sure—

J.D. Vance came on our show and said you have to do the first thing first, then the second thing, and then the third. It's not all going to happen on day 1.

It's going to be—

I'm trying to interpret that, but you're being direct.

I resent that. I am being direct.

I want to know whether 15 million people are literally going to be dragged out. This is a big question for the American people. Are you going to drag 15 million people out of the country or not?

Stephen Miller, who seems to be a big part of this administration, and Steve Bannon, who was the architect of the previous administration, say that is actually going to happen. People are nervous about it.

This is when we need Sacks here to fact-check whether those guys have said that.

The problem is that you're using terms like “drag them out.”

I mean they're going to start with the worst of the worst.

In J.D.'s answer, you start with those because you know this is going to have an emotional aspect to it. If you start doing it the way you're supposed to, I'm going to suggest to you that a lot of them are going to leave voluntarily.

Then, if we fix the system we have, we can start to restore this.

That's already happening. I've heard from a lot of agricultural leaders that they're seeing labor leave the country right now in anticipation of the administrative change. A lot of workers are very scared of what is happening. They don't want to be caught. They just came here for work.

These are individuals who came to this country to work. They are employed, whether legally or illegally, to do work that is in demand in this country. They're worried they're going to go to jail, so they're leaving.

There's a massive outflow right now, particularly in rural areas, of labor that is critical to a lot of farming economies. People in the agricultural sector are very nervous about the impact of what's about to happen.

Let me ask you another question. Do you think, in alignment with Elon Musk's point of view and some of the things that have been promoted, that there's a big push by the Democrats to keep the borders open, create more Democratic voters in this country, and then convert everyone to legal status?

Is that a big reason or rationale for the alternative of allowing illegal immigration and then converting everyone to legal status?

I think it's more basic than that. There is a political element to it. In states like Minnesota, the traditional, educated, entrepreneurial population is leaving and being replaced, in many cases, by illegal immigrants. We're a sanctuary state, so they come into Minnesota.

Whether they vote or not, there is a big argument that many of them do. But I think the bigger issue is how Congress is divided up. You're losing and hollowing out states like Illinois and New York. They bring illegal immigrants in, and incredibly, the census counts them in the numbers.

That doesn't make sense.

No. You have these blue-state gerrymandering cartels trying to hollow out the state.

How does that work?

That's a longer conversation, and we probably need to wrap up in a minute.

I never understood how that works.

I have a totally different question—something more fun. The job of whip was totally romanticized after House of Cards. There was this famous scene where Frank Underwood said, “When I was whip, my job was to whip the votes,” and he was screaming into the phone, “Whip the votes!”

I remember thinking, “That seems like a really cool job.”

His nickname is Chairman Dictator, just so you know. He was voted the No. 1 commentator by Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party in the first year of the podcast.

I have a lot of important people who look up to me.

Is the job of whip as enjoyable as it sounds?

Everybody likes to say to me, “You have the worst job in Washington, D.C.” I think the Speaker has the worst job in Washington, D.C. He can be having a great day, and there are all kinds of people throwing sandwiches at him.

The majority leader manages the calendar and the floor and works with the committee chairs. That's a great job. The whip doesn't get to do anything those guys want to do unless we can get it across the floor.

The world has changed. I think—and I know—they elected me because they thought my personality was very direct. I am from Minnesota.

I get the sense that you're incredibly effective. You can whip the votes.

You just have to be honest and respect everybody.

It's a different world because probably 40% of our members will vote for whatever Mike Johnson says we're going to put on the floor. But we have 60%, and this is what has been changing over the last couple of decades. That group keeps getting larger.

They didn't come here to follow somebody. They came here to lead and represent their people. They need to be involved in the process.

I tell them all the time: I don't care if you like each other, despise one another, socialize together, or run to 2 polar-opposite places the second you walk out of here. When you're here, the American people elected Donald Trump, and we have the benefit of a majority.

You're opening up the votes.

That's what it is. I tell them they have to get over themselves. We're going to let everybody participate in the process and take all their ideas.

We put the more centrist part of our majority and the more right-wing part of our party together. That list of savings, cuts, and offsets I was talking about is privately run through small groups, 1 at a time, so they can talk to each other.

If you come from a ruby-red district down South and I come from a swing district in New York, we can have a conversation about why I can or can't do something and why you will or won't do something.

At the end of the day, that's how you're successful. Everybody wants to be involved. It's hard only because you can't afford to leave anyone behind.

Last question. The Senate confirmation hearings that started last week were pretty prolific. We're still waiting to figure out when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to come up.

Do you see any pushback? Who might not make it?

I think everybody is going to make it.

Anybody who listens to you guys or watches any interview where this comes up should remember that this has been the left's playbook since Robert Bork. They started with Bork, taking him out of his Supreme Court appointment. They did it to Clarence Thomas. They did it to Brett Kavanaugh. Now they've moved it to Cabinet picks.

Pete Hegseth is a great example. None of us is perfect, but all of that was anonymous. Once it started going through the process, somebody asked me this question a few weeks ago. I said they're starting with Pete. Pete is going to get through the process. Then they'll move on to Tulsi Gabbard, and then to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Those will probably be the 3 biggest targets.

My perspective is that, in the absence of somebody being compromised, an ideological difference should not stop Cabinet picks on either side. Whoever is president should get to pick their team and put the team on the field. That's the mandate he was given by the people, and then the people should get to vote it up.

It's supposed to be an advisory capacity, right?

It is. But the beauty of what Donald Trump is doing is that you can't fix what's broken with the people who broke it. He's going outside this godforsaken place and bringing in people with completely new ideas.

Whether you like them or not, let's see what this does. We've been doing the same thing for years, which is what happened 250 years ago when this country was founded.

Congressman, give us the red-state opinion. You said you listened to the fire episode we did. From the outside, as a Minnesotan looking at California, diagnose what's going on there.

It's more complicated than the right and the left want to make it seem, but there is definitely a problem. It's not limited to California. It's across the country. We're not managing our resources the way we should.

We had this problem in northern Minnesota 20 or 25 years ago. We had a blowdown in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. All those trees were lying on the ground like kindling.

Our governor at the time, Jesse Ventura, said he was going to go in and log it so we could protect citizens and their property and make use of the trees destroyed in the storm. The federal government told him he couldn't do it. Of course, we've had fires.

California is tragic. My brother-in-law sent me a picture. He lives in Woodland Hills, and he sent me a picture of flames at the end of his cul-de-sac, above where my parents live.

My parents live a couple of blocks away in Woodland Hills.

The fire stopped 2 blocks from their house. That's the picture he took.

Did the winds just take it?

The Ventura County line comes up to right there. The fire department—and CAL FIRE and the fire department are incredible—stopped it from entering the neighborhood.

That's amazing.

It was amazing. I don't know how his house is still standing, based on the picture he sent.

Tom, this has been amazing. You fit right in here. We appreciate the honesty and candidness. We'd love to have you back anytime.

I appreciate the conflict. I love that.

The American people have to see this. This is why we love you. We went to a Spotify dinner last night, and they were talking about journalism. You said, “I'm a journalist. I'll show you guys. I can do journalism.”

I think it's a really important conversation. The 1 thing I'm concerned about is clarity. Trump has an ability to say things in a bold and effervescent way, and sometimes those things affect people. They want a little more clarity.

The whip has to find clarity among 219 people.

Good luck with that job. We appreciate it.

Thank you. You guys are fine.

Eric Swalwell, you got shellacked this time around.

It wasn't great.

What lessons can the Democratic Party take from this? I'll insert myself into this a little bit. I'm a moderate who's voted Democratic 2 out of 3 times, and I was absolutely disappointed.

I was disappointed that you didn't have a speed-run primary, that Biden was put forward when he was clearly in cognitive decline, and I'm disgusted by the Democratic Party's hatred of successful entrepreneurs in this country.

You've lost me as somebody who voted Democratic 2 out of 3 times. Now you hate entrepreneurship and winning, and you seem to hate democracy because you wouldn't even have a primary.

We don't hate democracy.

This is my perception, and I think a lot of Democrats feel this way.

We lost a lot of folks. There are a lot of middle-of-the-road folks who left.

We need a story that connects with everyday Americans. When you look at a lot of the policies we believe in, and you look at polling and focus groups, people say, “I like that. I like that. I like that.” But our story right now—I don't think we know who we are or whom we're fighting for.

It's exciting that we can go through this reset and renovation to find a story that connects. I'm a blue-collar kid. I was raised by a cop and a mother who had 6 different jobs. I was the first in my family to go to college.

You were raised by 2 Republicans.

I was. They were, are, and remain Republicans. I have 3 little brothers who are cops. I grew up in Dublin, California. Everyone called it “Scrublin” until we invested there and saw success.

What was your ideological change growing up in a Republican household of cops, essentially, to becoming a Democratic poster boy?

That's only because I've gone after Donald Trump. I ran against the most liberal member of Congress, Pete Stark. I've been a pretty independent vote in Congress.

I root for entrepreneurial and business success and want to connect that success to the people who work hard at those businesses, so everyone does well.

If we're perceived as rooting against success overall and vilifying people who are successful, then no one can be successful if that's the case.

Did you agree with Biden's framing, as he was leaving, about this tech oligarchy?

It's only an oligarchy if working-class folks don't benefit from it. If that's what it becomes, then that's a problem.

What I want to see—and what I think you all are rooting for—is that anyone who works hard should do better for themselves and dream bigger for their kids. We have an opportunity to do that.

The president-elect has an opportunity to make that happen, and where he tries to do that, he'll find a partner in me.

Do we have a branding issue?

Yes.

What is the branding issue? Is it wokeness, judgmentalism, sanctimony, pandering, or the perception that you have to be perfect and pure?

Nobody is perfect.

We're all riddled with errors. Of course we're not perfect and pure, but I think the perception is that to be a Democrat, you have to check all these purity boxes and then you can be part of the party.

The Republican Party seems to be the exact opposite: If you like Donald Trump, come to the party. Even if you don't like Trump, can we get you on these 3 policies and still bring you to the party?

I have never been more courted by a political party than Trump's, and I've never felt more hated by the Democratic Party.

That's wrong. It shouldn't make people feel that way.

Jason feels that way. I think he was a major donor.

You guys are talking about having a Joe Rogan equivalent. You had Joe Rogan. He was a Democrat. If you watched his shows, he had Bernie Sanders on. He wanted to have Hillary Clinton on. You fumbled it.

You had Elon Musk. You fumbled it.

The party fumbled it, maybe.

You represent the party. Let's talk about rebuilding.

We have an opportunity to rebuild. On the Department of Government Efficiency, for example, we should root for government to be more efficient and try to enable that.

But if that effort goes into cutting Social Security or Medicare, you'll see us be guardians against that.

Most small businesses think it's pretty hard to start a business. Even once you do, you don't have the resources that bigger businesses have, and they see regulations as what gets in the way. We should try to knock down those barriers.

What's happening in the party? What are you doing? Is it headless as an organization?

Who runs the Democratic Party?

In the House right now, Hakeem Jeffries has been effective at uniting us. In the last Congress, you saw something you've never seen before in any Congress in our country or any parliament in the world: The minority party delivered the majority of votes on every vote of consequence.

Keeping the government open, lifting the debt ceiling—which the incoming president now supports, and we welcome that; we'd love to get rid of it—and funding Israel all moved forward because Democrats were unified.

Hakeem has shown himself to be a practical negotiator who can work with Mike Johnson. The fair commentary is that he's young and inexperienced.

What I mean by leadership is, who is the elder statesman who can help push, cajole, and influence the Democratic Party to find more solid ground?

One of our best thought leaders is Mark Cuban. He's very influential, has relationships with my colleagues and with me, and has business experience. But he also hasn't lost touch with what regular people care about.

I thought he was an effective surrogate for Kamala Harris on the trail. I go to Mark on a lot of things, and I think he understands where most people are.

How did Kamala get selected?

She was vice president, and the runway was about 100 days. We can go through the different scenarios, but I don't think any of them were good.

If your premise is that President Biden should not have run for reelection, making that decision so close to the election was difficult. I don't know if any candidate would have been set up to fail.

Should there have been a speed-run primary?

We could go through 100 scenarios. There were a bunch of great candidates, but I still think all of them probably would have been set up to fail.

In your interactions with the president, did you say to yourself, “What's going on here?”

I didn't. My colleagues and I didn't interact with him that often.

We started his presidency during COVID, and the Joe Biden I knew when I was a junior member of Congress in 2013 was very engaged. He loved meeting with Congress, and meetings would go an hour over the allotted time. It was like the Bill Clinton charm offensive he could put on.

During the first 2 years, with the COVID restrictions, we didn't see that. We had remote meetings with the White House.

They hid him.

I don't know. I know where we are now, and the reports are that he was declining.

Let's focus on the future. Let's talk about the Department of Government Efficiency.

Before we do that, you were on the House Intelligence Committee. Let's talk about TikTok.

All right.

What might happen tomorrow? What might not happen? You're in the room when these things happen. There are classified intelligence briefings.

This was a 9–0 Supreme Court decision and an overwhelming majority in Congress. Can you help us understand how something like that happens? Congress can't seem to agree on anything, and the Supreme Court tends to be 5–4 on every issue. How does something get a unanimous decision and a supermajority in Congress?

The Supreme Court was not saying whether we should ban TikTok. It was saying that Congress voted, the president signed the law, and there was no way around the ban. I think the Court was just following the law.

I voted against the ban. I think China is the place where you ban things. The problems I have with TikTok as a father of 3 little kids are the same problems I have with Meta.

You don't view it as a security risk for the United States?

I look to Jim Himes, the senior Democrat on the Intelligence Committee and the ranking member. He's in what's called the Gang of 8 and has the most exquisite access to intelligence. Jim voted against the ban.

If this guy isn't seeing anything at the national-security level, I thought there might not be a national-security risk.

There was a confidential briefing to the House Intelligence Committee. Are you saying nothing meaningful was disclosed about TikTok?

Nothing that I had seen.

Is TikTok owned by the Chinese government?

Absolutely.

If the Chinese government owns a company with access to more than 100 million American phones, their location data, microphones, and cameras, how is that not a security risk?

Most of what we buy—what's in our basket at Walmart—has a Chinese component.

What's in our basket doesn't have a microphone or GPS.

A lot of it does. Chinese-made drones, for example. There's a website now that breaks down modern consumer electronics from China that have tracking devices built into them.

You can buy a USB charger for $8 on Amazon, and inside it has an IP address. It finds Wi-Fi, connects to it, and transmits information. That's incredibly dangerous.

I bought a cheap drone as a Christmas gift for one of my nephews. It was $149. I looked it up online, and it had a camera, connected to Wi-Fi, and asked for access to the phone. I wasn't doing that.

I tweeted about this a few months ago. I don't think TikTok is the issue. USB-C charging cables have been hacked.

These examples are more reason to be skeptical. But I don't think TikTok is the issue.

You want to ban everything made in China?

No.

If you ban everything made in China, you'll destroy the economy.

TikTok has more than 100 million users, and the algorithm can influence people's perception. It can change how Americans, especially young Americans, perceive the world.

Even if they're not doing it currently, do you not see how obvious it is that they could use it?

That's a censorship point of view.

I guess I'm the only one of the 4 of us who doesn't want to ban speech.

No, I'm with you. I either want reciprocity, where we can put our apps in China, or I want TikTok gone.

You're making a different case. First you said it's a security risk. Then you said it's about controlling our point of view. Now you're saying reciprocity. Those aren't the same thing.

Security risk likely lies everywhere. I think you have to separate 3 things in TikTok.

There's the content and the content creators. Then there's the network effect. Then there's the vessel, which is the app and the code.

My specific point of view is that the content creators and the network effect can easily be replicated elsewhere. The vessel itself is corrupt, and if you can't technically see that, it's probably because you're not steeped enough in the technology.

The Intelligence Committee doesn't technically see that, so clearly they don't agree.

They've been caught tracking people.

Tell that to the guy on the Intelligence Committee.

They've been caught.

I also looked at the small-business owners who use TikTok as a platform. You can't just erase the buckets of people who depend on it.

The content and network effect can move to another platform.

I was telling the White House that more people watched President Biden's State of the Union address on TikTok than anywhere else. President Biden had just gone on TikTok.

That's the content and the network. Across Meta or X, you can replicate that network effect and create a mechanism for the content creators already on those platforms to shift.

The vessel itself is easily rooted. I told President Trump when we were sitting down that the microphone on an iPhone can be turned on remotely. You can choose which state actor does it, but I would bet you 2 doughnuts that it is inconceivable to me that the NSA did not find that capability.

The reason isn't that TikTok is good or bad. All these apps are hackable. The only difference is that most of the other apps are controlled by American citizens, which gives us a control mechanism. This app is not.

I think Donald Trump is going to allow TikTok. He got a $50 million donation from Jeff Yass's super PAC.

I think it's $50 million.

I think he also recognizes that a lot of his followers are on TikTok. For whatever reason, they haven't chosen you.

Another popular export from China is fentanyl. We should probably ban that, too. Popularity should not be the reason we do something.

That's why I think you're framing it wrong.

You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube. You're going to take away a platform that Americans have chosen to use, and I don't think we ban things in America.

This is the Chinese Communist Party.

If your business depended on TikTok, and you're not wealthy or among the most powerful people, how would you feel?

You have to assume that if the Chinese Communist Party uses the Chinese version of TikTok to surveil its own people, then, for a few extra units of resources, it would spy on the most powerful nation in the world. That seems logical.

They would do it. Separately, it's not to say that President Trump is using TikTok or that important people are using it. But when enough people use an app, those people come into contact with other people.

Look at what happens today. How do you exchange contact information with an iPhone? You touch one another. That's NFC capability.

Don't make the naïve assumption that technology is deterministic. There are people paid to find every edge and push it because the stakes are high.

I'm cautious when it comes to bans.

That's fair. But this is where it goes: You don't want to import Korean cars because their electronics are connected to the internet, and now Koreans can spy on where we are.

You can quickly see how this opens a floodgate of banning. Foreign adversaries could take advantage of us, including banning chip imports and router imports. You could very quickly make this happen with routers.

We're going down an intelligence route, which is now giving access to the personal information of the sons and daughters of representatives and military experts to the Chinese Communist Party.

There is a reason Huawei is banned in America. Security vulnerabilities were found.

Do you think China gave up and said, “Okay, let's go watch the dance videos now”?

It's great. Let the Americans dance.

By the way, does the U.S. government receive revenue from TikTok or ByteDance? If it wasn't important to the Chinese government, they would have divested.

I think the U.S. ownership is 30% or 40%.

Let's move on to the border.

Wait. We were going to do the Department of Government Efficiency.

Let's do that. Tell us your point of view on Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy coming in—what they're going to do, what's good about it, and what you don't think is good about it.

I think it's funny that a committee about efficiency has 2 people running it. It cut itself in half when Vivek Ramaswamy started running for governor.

That's their first success.

They have recruited a lot of people.

They said, “Knock yourself out.”

If they want to make it easier for small businesses to start, save money by having federal employees show up to the office, or improve government, I'm open to it.

My staff shows up. We benefit from people being in the office. We show flexibility for people with family issues on a case-by-case basis, and people with disabilities have more access to work. But generally, I see the benefits of having everybody in the office.

We were 1 of the first offices to return to the Hill during COVID because I saw the benefit of it. If they can draw a straight line between benefiting constituents and having people in the office, I'm open-minded.

Tell us how you think the reconciliation bill and budget process will go.

It's going to be a knockout, drag-out process. We're going to hit the debt ceiling tomorrow, so you are going to be back to work immediately.

What I'll be asking my constituents is, if tax cuts are proposed and regulations are potentially cut, what did you get out of this and what did you lose?

If it's just a bureaucracy that benefits and you don't benefit, I won't support it. But if you can draw a line and say that a particular business getting a benefit or a lower corporate tax rate means you're going to do better and dream bigger, I can support that. That's what I'm going to be looking at.

Do you generally think governments should have fewer tax receipts and be forced to spend less, so they're more ingenious and less reliant on overpowering things with money?

Yes. Frankly, a lot of that starts with the Department of Defense. Look at where the cost drivers are in government.

That means you need alliances in the world. If you're going to reduce what you spend on defense, you better strengthen your partnerships.

Some people on the Republican side say that's why energy is so important. When we're resource-independent, it allows us to forge relationships abroad that create a very different security envelope.

I chair the Rare Earths and Critical Minerals Caucus for this reason. It probably surprises people that a Bay Area Democrat wants to get the United States back into mining, but we're getting our ass kicked by China—not just on mining, but on processing and magnetizing.

We have allies who have these resources, so we can do it in the United States. There's Mountain Pass, where they're doing it with almost 100% recycled water, so you don't have the acid-pond issue.

I helped fund the company that got that project off the ground. I've been out there. It's incredible.

Even he will tell you that doing these projects in America today is almost impossible.

The reason he was able to do it is that the project had already largely been built.

If he had tried to get it permitted from scratch—

That's right.

It's a question of less money for the government and less regulation. Sometimes it seems like if Republicans say yes, Democrats say no, and if Democrats say yes, Republicans say no.

But if you ask everybody privately, they agree that government should be smaller and businesses should have more latitude to work, then be held accountable.

To your point, businesspeople should have more latitude to work and then be held accountable.

If wealth is only concentrated at the top, we need to make sure we can point to people at every part of the economic spectrum.

That's a reasonable thing to say.

I hope that's how we govern in the next Congress.

It doesn't come out that way.

What you lead with, talk about, and make a priority becomes people's perception of your focus.

The perception I have, as somebody who voted Democratic 2 out of 3 elections, is that you're focused on things like DEI and trans kids getting surgery. No parent agrees with this. It's being banned around the world, and yet you lead with it.

That shows a lack of prioritization that is palpable to the voting public. What they want is effective leadership.

Look at what happened in Southern California. It's the height of arrogance to work on things like DEI and say that's important when reservoirs aren't full and brush isn't cleared. You have to make trade-offs, and you don't seem able to communicate that.

We need a better story. I don't think we should lead the story with concerns about DEI.

Stop focusing on those weird things. Don't lead the story with concerns about DEI.

No parent wants trans kids to get surgery. You can't have trees on the ground around homes in a fire. You can say you care about nature and trees, but you can't have trees on the ground around homes.

We need minerals. We cannot depend on foreign adversaries for important weapons systems or electric vehicles, and you're concerned about cranes and trans kids getting surgery that nobody wants.

That's the problem with the party.

I don't think we should lead the story with concerns about DEI.

I would argue that the new DEI is Donald, Eric, and Ivanka.

People probably won't like that approach, either.

We need a better story.

I look forward to being part of the workshop.

You're going to have to workshop that one.

There's a long tradition in both parties of political families being grifters. Hunter Biden got in on it, and everybody is getting in on it.

Let's close on the border.

Before we do, should the United States spend $200 billion to acquire Greenland from Denmark?

I don't give a damn if he tries to acquire Greenland. I just want the cost of eggs to go down.

Eggs are expensive. How are you going to do that? If you can tell me that spending $200 billion to acquire Greenland will help lower the cost of eggs, great. But I think people want to see costs come down.

The security aspect is obvious.

There are benefits there, but I want to know how you're going to lower the cost of eggs.

One more question. Are there any of President Trump's nominees who really give you an idea—or inspire you? Give us 1 that inspires you and 1 that concerns you.

I think Marco Rubio is going to do a great job as Secretary of State. He has the gravitas and experience to do it, and I want to see that happen.

Kash Patel is the one I think could destroy the president's agenda.

Can you say more?

I may be biased because he wrote a book listing 100 enemies. I'm not in the 100; I'm in the preamble. He starts it with, “Adam Schiff and Eric Swalwell are the most dangerous people.”

You were part of the House Russia investigation.

I believe that if the president focuses on going after his enemies, he'll lose the ability to bring order to the border, get the most violent undocumented immigrants out of the country, and make people feel safe in communities where they don't feel safe.

What do you think about the comment that we should systematically deport 15 million illegal immigrants?

I think you should focus on violent offenders and sexual offenders.

Let's say you get that done in 6 months. What do you do after that?

You also need order at the border. I support surging resources to achieve that.

Forty percent of my constituents were born outside the United States. We're the eighth-wealthiest district in the country, no thanks to me. There is a straight line between those immigrants and that wealth.

If we can find a way to address shortages in the workforce—in agriculture, hospitality, food and beverage, biotech, and technology—I think we can have the best workforce in the world.

Recruitment, as opposed to immigration, is a better framework.

A foreign minister in Asia said to me this past year, “The population of the United States is 3 billion people.”

I looked at him and said, “No, you mean 300 million.” I thought he had misspoken.

He said, “No. There are 3 billion people in the world who would give up everything to come to the United States. If you get it right, you can pick the best.”

Go back, please. You mentioned that the House Russia investigation created a lot of talking points on both sides that are still lingering.

In the spirit of putting it to bed, do you have any regrets about that whole process? Was there anything substantive that came out of it, or was it the beginning of this more politically directed action-and-reaction cycle that now has people worried about what will happen?

Russia had a preferred candidate and did a lot to try to get him to win. I think he could have won. I think he may regret that, in a lot of his trolling, he made himself look guiltier when he probably could have shown us that the concerns we had weren't there.

I'm not going to dwell on the fact that he was impeached twice or sent a mob that could have killed many of the people in the Capitol with me on January 6. I'm going to focus on whether he wants to bring order to the border, make our communities safer, raise wages, and lower costs. I'm going to work with him on that.

I meant more about whether you and Adam Schiff simply followed the facts, or whether you worked backward from a desired outcome.

I was an Alameda County prosecutor in the same office where Earl Warren worked. We were trained that it's not about wins and losses; it's about doing justice.

I approached it by trying to follow the facts.

When you watched what happened afterward in New York and elsewhere, what did you think, as a prosecutor, about the legal basis of the cases against Trump leading into the election?

A lot of people around him went to jail. It felt like, if Michael Cohen went to jail for being part of that hush-money settlement, why wasn't Trump being held to account?

As a blue-collar kid, I resent people who think their position entitles them to be treated better than ordinary people. I wanted everyone to be treated the same.

That's how I was raised. My father lost his job as a police officer when he refused to be bribed—when he wouldn't allow a mayor's bribe to influence him.

That's amazing.

That was my experience in a small town in Iowa. He was the police chief. The mayor publicly tried to corrupt him, and he refused. My earliest memory is that he was willing to lose his job to do the right thing.

You're saying something important: Everybody should be treated the same.

If 1 of your kids were charged with a misdemeanor, would you hope it were prosecuted as a misdemeanor? Or do you think people who don't like Eric Swalwell should find a way to make it a felony?

The former.

I'm going into this new year open-minded and focused on what we can do to make the country succeed.

On the border, I think that's where you could find some consensus and clarity. It seems to be creating an underlying tension in the country about what's going to happen.

You can't do anything on workforce issues until the public believes you've secured the border. Whether that's rational or not, it's the reality.

How much of that is why you think Kamala lost? Was it because she didn't take ownership of the border?

I think she was attached to an incumbent party. Incumbent parties worldwide are getting pounded. There wasn't much that was going to change where this thing was going.

What's happening in California? Give us a grade. Which Republican will be the next governor of California?

The Republicans don't have it together, either.

I was in the Palisades on Monday. I have 10 friends who lost everything. I was with a woman who stood on top of a pile of ashes that had been her house, looking for any memento for her family.

It's awful. I'll be open-minded about what we could have done to prevent it, why resources that should have been there weren't, and what accountability should follow.

But fires are still burning, and families are living with friends and relatives. I don't want to be the meme where last week I was a hostage expert and this week I'm a wildfire expert.

That's our function.

My job is to look at what we could have done and who should be held accountable. But with a fire still burning, I don't want to give a hot take yet.

Fair enough. We appreciate your candidness, and good luck rebuilding the party.

Thanks.

Ro Khanna, what's going on with the Democratic Party? You got shellacked. The candidate you put up didn't go through a primary, and the previous candidate seemed to be in cognitive decline.

It feels like a mess. What is going to happen to the Democratic Party? Is there a voice saying, “This is the plan,” or is it a Game of Thrones situation?

It feels like the Democrats went dark. Is that a strategy—to let Trump have his moment and then come back and be adversarial—or are you going to state a new platform? What's going on inside the party?

Crises are times for reform and renewal. This was a huge blow to the establishment of the party.

People wanted a more competitive process, new voices, and a new generation of leadership. That's going to emerge now. You're seeing it in California, with Daniel Lurie winning in San Francisco and Matt Mahan winning in San Jose. You're seeing new people emerge in Congress and new governors emerge.

There is going to be a lot of reflection. I've said that Democrats need to spend as much time understanding why many Americans voted for Donald Trump as we spend criticizing Donald Trump. I think you're starting to see that happen.

What do you think the new platform will be? If you were in charge, what would you remove and what would you prioritize?

There are people who feel there are more important issues than the ones the Democratic Party focused on during the last election cycle. Give us 2 or 3 ideas you'd add to the agenda and 2 or 3 things you would say are no longer priorities for Americans.

The entire thing has to be about prioritizing the economy and the economic independence of Americans. How are we going to have economic renewal and economic growth in a stagnant working and middle class?

Then let's argue over our different visions. Donald Trump says the way he's going to turn around Johnstown, Youngstown, and Downriver Michigan is through large tax cuts and deregulation.

Our view has to be that it involves technology leaders, business leaders, and strategic government investments to build new industries, credential new workers, and build a workforce. We have to offer a compelling economic vision.

That economic vision should mean people aren't dependent on the denials of private health insurance and have access to child care. Whoever wins the argument about how to lead America in the 21st-century economy is going to win.

You're saying government investment in building new businesses and industries is necessary to achieve that vision. What are the historical examples where government programs and policies supporting new investments and businesses worked successfully and better than free markets?

The Republican argument is that the free market is more efficient. Let capital and capitalists find where capital is best applied, and it will be more efficiently used. Government decisions about where capital should go typically have lower or negative returns and don't create scalable economic growth.

Ask me about government investment that is market-sustainable. You look at Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. That is what built America.

That's infrastructure.

It's infrastructure, but it's also manufacturing. I have a bill to build new steel plants in Johnstown, Ohio. You need the private sector, Cleveland-Cliffs, and a private steel company. But if we're going to finance the scaling of that, the federal government has to have some role.

What we ended up having in free-market economics is China running a $1 trillion trade surplus while we have almost a $1 trillion trade deficit.

That's financed with a capital-account surplus. All that money is coming into Wall Street. Wall Street is doing really well, and the finance sector is doing really well, but it has hollowed out our manufacturing and industrial bases.

That's free-market economics gone too far. That's globalization.

Some of the non-neoconservative Republicans would say that global trade is the problem. Their counter-policy argument is to cut off some global trade and create a tariff program with China to reignite manufacturing.

It's a different point of view using a different set of data.

I agree with some strategic tariffs. I just don't think that's going to be enough to bring chip factories, steel factories, and aluminum factories here, revitalize these areas, and make the investments we need.

Do you think we need government programs?

I think we need government partnering with the private sector.

On the Department of Government Efficiency, do you feel there should be no deregulatory effort in the United States to unleash economic investment and growth?

This whole point feels wrong to me. Shouldn't government efficiency always be something we're pursuing—cutting back bureaucracy and red tape we've created to unleash investment? Even Gavin Newsom is making this argument in California with respect to rebuilding.

You need effective government. Execution matters.

There are fair criticisms that the execution of the CHIPS and Science Act, which I helped write, and the Inflation Reduction Act was not sufficient. The money didn't get out fast enough, and the permitting bureaucracy was slow.

If there are ways to make government procurement more competitive, that's good. Why is it that 5 prime contractors dominate defense procurement?

Michael Bloomberg had a plan that seems reasonable: Set aside 15% of Department of Defense spending for startups and innovative technology instead of going only to the 5 prime contractors. That's regulatory reform.

We also have to look at the fundamental issue. Why isn't Intel succeeding? We asked Pat Gelsinger, who was asked to leave Intel, and I said, “Was it permitting reform?”

He said no. The capital expenditures required to meet Wall Street's numbers were too high, and there wasn't enough procurement.

Apple—

Everything is too expensive in this country. It goes back to nuclear energy. It's too expensive to build a gigawatt of nuclear power here, and it takes too long.

China can do it for about a tenth of the price, and it is scaling up at 3 times the rate in terms of new energy production. It can do it in half the time and at a tenth of the cost.

There's a regulatory path for Generation IV reactors going up in China, while there isn't one here.

I'm for nuclear energy and smart modular nuclear energy. I'm for looking at how we build nuclear energy safely in the United States, but in a way that works.

Our party has largely been opposed to that.

This is important because what happens is that Republicans or Democrats come forward with a general policy statement: We need deregulation to unleash economic prosperity or nuclear energy.

Then the other party says it has to attack that policy to diminish its strength, even if it might be good for America. We end up unable to align on things that are good for America.

As an American looking at how the parties attack each other, I wonder why 1 party can't say, “You're absolutely right. We all agree. Let's move forward.”

Can you give the win on government efficiency? Isn't that a consensus issue?

I've been criticized because I put out an innocent tweet saying that if Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy have a good idea, I want to look at it.

Musk disrupted the entire Pentagon with SpaceX. He worked with Ash Carter to do that. The track record is there.

If he is going to look at the defense department—and you have progressives like me saying that the defense budget is bloated and that 56% of spending needs to be examined—then we need to look at the waste.

Spending $150,000 on soap dispensers and $1,000 on breast pumps is outrageous.

Now, because Musk is saying, “Let's look at the defense department,” you don't want to do it, even though you've been saying to do that for the past 5 or 6 years?

That's the stuff that drives people crazy.

I want to do it. I also floated the idea that Bob Iger would be a good person to run for mayor of Los Angeles. He's considering it.

He told you that when you were talking?

I don't want to talk about what we discussed privately. I just think it would be a public service for him.

You are getting attacked for supporting an oligarch.

You look at Disney. I said I want someone who is going to rebuild the city.

I want popcorn and lemonade stands on every corner in Los Angeles.

Franklin Roosevelt was wealthy. So was John F. Kennedy. There has to be common sense.

How do we actually help people? That has to be the metric.

That's the metric. We have to be willing to work across the aisle on those things.

It does seem, in the wake of what happened in Southern California—in Pacific Palisades and all the other affected regions—that many affluent voters and people active in politics are saying enough is enough.

Progressivism went too far left. We need qualified people in office. What do you think is going to happen in California? What impact will the destruction of 12,000 or 14,000 homes and the tragic deaths of at least 25 people have? Is it a turning point?

It is. First of all, it's horrific. I'm sure you know people who lost their homes. They're alive, and that's what is important, but they lost everything.

It's devastating, and I think it's the culmination of something that's been creeping up in California: Governance matters, execution matters, keeping places safe matters, and being pragmatic matters.

That's why you saw Daniel Lurie win. That's why you saw Matt Mahan win. That's why you've seen reasonable people elected as district attorneys. You're going to see that in Los Angeles, and I think you're going to see it in the governor's race.

California is saying that, regardless of your ideology, we need to govern well.

You have the economy and safety on the short list. What else should the party in California say to voters to win them back and show them you're focused on something other than DEI?

Maybe it's environmental overreach. I can't believe I'm saying that, but people don't understand why clearing forests around homes is being opposed on environmental grounds.

You don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that wildfires have been occurring for a long time. If you want to live near a forest in a fire zone, you have to clean up the detritus on the forest floor.

It feels like the leadership in California has completely lost the script.

I think it's reasonable to ask why the brush wasn't cleared outside Los Angeles. I got in trouble for asking that, but these are legitimate questions. That's not going after people.

I supported Karen Bass against Rick Caruso, for full disclosure, and I was proud to do it. But if Caruso asks reasonable questions, the point of governance is to say, “The guy had a good point.”

Are you disappointed in her performance?

I think it's fair to say people are disappointed in what is happening.

Knowing what you know now, would you have endorsed Caruso?

I don't know if I would have endorsed him.

Would you endorse someone like Bob Iger?

I certainly think there needs to be a new mayor.

Was there any reason for Karen Bass to be in Ghana?

She said she went to the inauguration of the president.

She was in a palace having cocktails.

If there were actual warnings before the fires, she should explain why she went. But if there weren't warnings, I don't think it's a major issue.

Going forward, the question is what it will take to govern better. Los Angeles is hosting the Olympics, and she was also going to Paris because of that.

Should she even have gone to Ghana as the mayor of a city with no economic benefit from the trip?

It's common for a president of either party to ask mayors and governors to represent them at a foreign inauguration. I haven't been asked as a congressman yet, but it is common.

It comes down to whether it was her first priority. If there were warnings, she should explain why she didn't go.

I like her. I think she's a good person. The question is what it will take going forward.

One thing we need to do differently, beyond the economy, is to go around the country and say that my party is not going to look down on people with whom we have different cultural or social viewpoints.

There was a sense of condescension—that if you disagreed with someone, our party was morally superior. That has to stop.

Do you think California has a chance of electing a Republican governor in 2026? Is that chance now greater than 50% after the wildfires?

I still think I will most likely support a Democrat. There are a lot of good Democrats who can run.

Could a Republican who is pro-choice and takes some of the social issues off the table be competitive?

The Democratic Party would be naïve to take that for granted. We need thoughtful, strong people on our side who understand that people care about public safety, effective government, and reform.

People like Matt Mahan, who have had a couple of years and have been effective, are the type of Democrats who can win statewide.

What are your thoughts on TikTok going dark in the last 24 hours?

It's terrible. I've been vocal about it. We had 1.3 million people sign a petition to keep TikTok. I had never seen a petition of that magnitude. People like the product, or they make a living from it.

There was a content creator whose husband cheated on her. She was in an abusive marriage, left with 4 children, including 2 toddlers and 2 children around 5 years old. She was broke, staying in a hotel and then in her best friend's living room for 4 months.

She started telling her story, and now she's making $60,000 to $70,000 as a content creator. I could tell you 50 stories like this of people who rely on TikTok for their livelihoods. Some people use it to make rent.

Then there is the free-speech issue and the ability to express yourself. People should be able to do that.

What about China? Why not pass a broader law saying that any interference by a foreign government in algorithms is illegal and criminal?

India banned these apps.

We're not India. These things are an attack vector. You can remotely control these phones. TikTok was caught spying on journalists, and the platform could shape public policy.

China has had years to divest. It seems to me that the Chinese government sees TikTok as a strategic military asset. Do you disagree?

I do.

The United States has a much more robust tradition of free speech than India, so our considerations are different. We also have far more capability to protect our data and prevent foreign interference in algorithms.

President Trump has floated the idea of 50% U.S. ownership. My understanding is that 60% of the investors are already U.S. investors.

I will work with him and Mike Waltz, whom I know well—we were co-chairs of the India Caucus in Congress—to figure out how to keep this app operational.

If the Chinese government spies on its own people, why wouldn't it spy on its adversary, the American people?

Of course it would. The question is whether we can protect Americans from that happening on this app.

We can, as long as we have 2 clear laws. First, the data has to stay here. A lot of data going to the Chinese Communist Party goes through data brokers. There is no law against that.

Pass a law saying that all data of Americans cannot go into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party. There are U.S. companies selling that data and U.S. companies buying that data. Any third party can access that data if they want to buy it in one of the markets where that stuff exists.

The irony is that, in the same week China announces a $1 trillion trade surplus, it is building more drones, ships, and steel than we are. We're talking about banning TikTok.

I think we got the politics wrong.

Donald Trump comes in and says, “The Chinese took your jobs, steel jobs, and auto jobs. We're going to have tariffs.” Then he says, “This TikTok thing is a popular app for young people, so we're going to keep it.”

What do we do? We run ads saying we don't want tariffs, telling people in the Midwest that we're opposed to policies that could save some of their jobs. Then we're telling young people that we want to ban TikTok.

They didn't take the jobs. We gave them the jobs.

One thing the Democrats need to do is stop listening to the foreign-policy blob and Beltway pundits with fancy titles and think tanks.

Every time we get these letters from 500 groups or 200 groups, I ask, “Who are these groups?” They're 200 groups with 130 people. Every person is in 3 groups, and we're listening to them instead of to the public.

I just created 5 groups while we were speaking.

Americans want the border secured. The statistics show it. Eighty percent of Americans want it shut down and orderly and legal—maybe more.

But this idea that we're going to drag 15 million people out of the country—

You keep using the word “drag.”

I'm quoting Steve Bannon and Stephen Miller, who worked in the first administration and is the most powerful person inside this administration. They say 15 million are going on day 1.

Do you think that's going to happen? Do you think it should happen?

It shouldn't happen. Whether it's going to happen or whether they're going to try, I don't know.

What do you think should happen?

First, we need a secure border. We need to encourage people to come here through the legal process, as my parents did.

You say “encourage” or “require”?

Require. But to do that, we have to reform the system and make the legal process possible. Right now, it's very difficult.

For those who are criminals here and have been convicted of crimes, deport them. We all agree on that. But we also need a legal process and a secure border.

Those things seem logical and obvious. Let me tell you about someone in my district without naming her. She's undocumented. She came to see me with a group of people. She's a dental hygienist, and her daughter is in medical school.

Do you consider yourself to be her representative? She's not a U.S. citizen. She has no legal right to vote. Are you representing that undocumented, non-American person?

I'm supposed to represent everyone who lives in my district, regardless of citizenship. We don't ask about citizenship when somebody comes to us with an issue.

Do you believe you should represent non-Americans who happen to be illegally present in your district?

I don't think I need to represent their political views. But if they are being abused in the process in some way and they come to us within the law, we would figure out how to get them due process.

So you would have empathy and sympathy for someone living in your district even if they weren't legal?

That's a more eloquent way of putting it.

Let me tell you about this person. Her daughter is in medical school in Southern California. She drives down once a month and drives back because she can't afford a hotel.

The reason she can't afford a hotel is that she has been underpaid as a dental hygienist for 20 years. Do you really think we need to deport her? What would that do to her daughter? Can we find a path?

She sounds like a great potential American.

Let me play devil's advocate. Someone would say there is another American qualified to be a dental hygienist who can't get a job and would be paid more because they are a citizen, legal, and documented.

This person is undercharging the employer and taking a job away from an American. That's the counterargument.

There are 2 things. If someone is undocumented or even on an H-1B visa and is being underpaid, that's wrong. We need reform so people are paid appropriately and employers aren't abusing the process to drive down market wages.

But the argument that immigrants are taking American jobs misses a central point. When you have an immigrant worker, you're increasing the labor supply. If you increase supply, that drives down prices or wages.

But you're also increasing demand because immigrants spend money on goods and services. I've always viewed that as the more important part of the equation for growing the U.S. population and economic growth.

Let's put a number on this. You clearly don't believe these people should be dragged out of the country.

I don't.

We agree on that. Some people are not MAGA 1.0. Do you believe they should be dragged out?

It's not that simple, and I'm hung over today, so I'm not going to be super articulate.

What about that dental hygienist who has been here for 20 years? Would you give her amnesty?

I would. She seems like a great American—working hard and being empathetic. That person should not lose her job or her life. That's a very difficult circumstance.

At the same time, there are Americans who feel underpaid and believe they don't have jobs. There is empathy on the other side of that equation, too.

Whenever we talk about immigration, we never put a number on it or a point system. It devolves into the conversation we're having right now: “They stole our jobs and wages are down,” even though unemployment is at 4%, the lowest of our lifetime.

There are 7 million or 8 million jobs available—2 jobs for every unemployed person. Of course, there are disparities in skills and geography, but we have 340 million Americans.

Wouldn't an easy solution be to say we will import people based on the country's needs? If unemployment is under 10%, we'll allow 3 million people to come a year, or 2 million people a year.

Put a number on it, and let Americans and their representatives debate that number. Why don't you do that?

My view is that we lost jobs and experienced stagnation because of offshoring and the hollowing out of towns and communities. We watched wealth pile up in districts like ours—not because people in our district stole wealth from Youngstown or Downriver, but because wealth piled up while industry was offshored and there was indifference toward it.

If we want real solutions, we need economic revitalization instead of blaming the dental hygienist in my district. She isn't why Johnstown or Warren, Ohio, are suffering.

We have a number for green cards and legal immigrants: about 1.4 million a year. We should decide which categories to increase, why, and how to get people out of statuses where they're being underpaid.

The abuse of the H-1B visa program is something people don't understand. The visas are transferable, but you have 30 days to find a new job. When I was in the IT business, it was explained to me that these workers are essentially indentured servants.

They don't have a choice. There's a constant threat that if you don't do what your employer says or accept the salary, you'll be out of the country and have to take your family with you.

Would it be easier to charge 10% of the salary as a tax into a pool so employers can't abuse the program, require a minimum salary, and give people perhaps a year to find another job?

That type of solution is reasonable. People need to be paid well.

You could put a wage floor in place or prioritize the highest wages because that reflects the talent coming in. You don't want the current situation, where someone is on an H-1B for 3 years, gets an extension while applying for a green card, and then has the visa extended again while the application is pending.

People are here for 10 or 12 years, and the abuse of the system hurts American workers.

I think the American people are decent and fair. I grew up in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It was 95% to 98% white. There were a few Indian-American families.

I grew up believing that you could do anything in America. Look at you. The country trusted me to represent a district with $1 trillion of value, perhaps the most economically prosperous place in the history of humanity.

Perhaps.

That is America. People are upset at the extremes and the abuses, and at the fact that there wasn't a process at the border. But deep down, this country has always embraced immigration, and most immigrants tend to be patriotic.

When you hear Stephen Miller say, “America is for Americans and Americans only,” do you think that flies in the face of the spirit of this country?

I would ask what he means by “Americans.” I would love to have lunch with him.

Maybe we should have him on All-In.

I'd love to. Instead of reading every tweet, we should listen to a long-form conversation. I hear that if you sit down with him, you get more than what the short-form media clips suggest.

I watch his entire speeches. The way he speaks seems incredibly xenophobic and a bit racist.

I would ask him about Lincoln's speech in 1858 on Independence Day.

The challenge for Lincoln was explaining how a German-American or French-American could be American. Back then, to be American, you literally had to trace one great-grandparent who fought in the Revolutionary War.

Lincoln had this brilliant formulation: You are flesh of the flesh and blood of the blood of the founders if you believe in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

I'd ask Stephen Miller whether he still believes that. How does he define an American?

If we are pulling up the ladder now and saying we're not a land of immigrants, that's a different discussion.

I'm an immigrant, and I think immigrants are the most patriotic.

You should. You've done great things. Look at what you're going to do here.

I came from South Africa when I was 6 years old. Now I'm in Washington, D.C., hanging out with a congressman. I've met the president and vice president, and I've created thousands of jobs.

You're going to create billions of extra calories with those amazing Oishii strawberries.

Oishii is the name.

Your company might actually be in my district. You cover Santa Cruz County.

No, that's Jimmy Panetta.

I see.

Let me ask you a question. Do you think the United States should spend $200 billion to acquire Greenland from Denmark?

I believe we need to respect the self-determination of other countries. That's what makes us different from Britain and Rome.

Even though we intervene in foreign elections and use military force to overturn foreign governments?

Nobody's perfect.

There you go. I like this guy.

You know, America might—

If you ever need a hype man or campaign manager for your run for governor, let me know.

Let's talk about Greenland. Why? What interest does Greenland have? It has critical minerals and important resources, and it wants to partner economically with us. It is letting us invest and develop there.

What do we gain by making it a territory?

You're saying we could achieve our objective without making it a territory?

What about Puerto Rico? Here's my cautionary tale.

Every time Bernie Sanders ran, you know what he talked about? The politics of Denmark. You only want Greenland as a state so we can get 2 Democratic senators.

They call it “getting to Denmark.”

Those 2 senators would be Democratic senators.

Watch the interviews that have come out from people who live in Greenland. They're sick of the socialist overseers. They want a different way of governing.

I don't know. I'm going to have more kids if I get 2 years of paternity leave. That sounds pretty amazing.

But Puerto Rico is an important question. Does the United States need territorial dominion to achieve its strategic objectives?

What about Puerto Rico?

Every Democrat says we want Puerto Rico because we would get 2 Democratic senators. My view is that it should be a Puerto Rican self-determination referendum.

If 80% or 90% want to do it, would you support it?

If they want to join the United States, yes. That's a different matter. We took it as a territory; now let's see what they want to do.

Are you running for governor of California?

No. I love being in Congress and representing Silicon Valley. I've focused on bringing innovation and technology together with communities for economic revitalization.

If asked by your party and the citizens of California, would you consider it?

I consider anything.

There you go.

You can consider me as your campaign manager.

He's had his moments.

That's a wrap.

That's a wrap from the 47th inauguration of the United States. We'll see you next time.