11/5/26: Laura Loomer Questions God's Existence, Ro Khanna Pressed On Hakeem Jeffries

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So in addition to the cost of living crisis and the Iran war and the ICE insanity, one of the biggest issues, if not the biggest issue, top of mind for voters in this election was the mass amount of corruption in your face brazenly from this administration all the way up to the president every single day. Isaac Saul, founder of Tangle News, has sacrificed his mind and body to cover every detail of the Trump adjacent and Trump direct corruption for Tangle News. Actually, let's go ahead and put his article as the third element in this block, guys, up on the screen. The headline here is the corruption is still the story. This was from just shortly before Election Day. You say I spent five months tracking every

Trump corruption story.

Here's what I found. And Isaac Saul joins us now.

Welcome. Great to have you.

Thanks for having me.

Always glad to be here.

Yeah, of course.

So let's put these polling numbers up on the screen here. You know, when voters were asked what their top issues were in this election and how crucial they were to their vote, government corruption came in at 90 percent as being crucial or major as a factor informing their vote. Why do you think that this broke through in this way?

Because I can tell you, you know, as people who try to cover the ins and outs of this administration every single day, Sometimes it was hard to keep track because there was so much going on in the land of corruption. And sometimes it felt like maybe voters aren't even going to really care about this. Maybe this isn't sinking in. But it ended up being quite the contrary here, Isaac.

Yeah, it's interesting.

I mean, first of all, it's worth noting we got some signals about this before the election. I mean, I in that piece that you guys had up on the screen, I cited a Fox News poll showing that government corruption was the number one most potent issue for the American public. It was the thing that they were saying they were more concerned about. than any other issue when asked by Fox News pollsters, which I thought was remarkable going into the election, given how little coverage it's gotten in terms of the threat to the GOP Senate majority and the Trump administration power. And as you said, now we have these exit polls, 80,000 Americans, 90% of them saying government corruption had something to do with their vote. I mean,

it's very clearly hitting home for people. And I think there's two things. One, it's the brazenness, like you said. I mean, Trump had more stock trades in a single day before announcing his tariffs than Nancy Pelosi had in the last 15 years she was in Congress.

Like, well. It is crazy.

It is a, it is like compared to the stuff that we worried about two years ago, the Pelosi, you know, stock trading trackers, the Hunter Biden paintings or deal with Burisma or whatever. We have the Trump children getting deals with the Pentagon through companies that they're invested in now. I mean, we've never really seen anything like this. So I think the brazenness and then two is just the cost of living stuff. I honestly think is tied to it.

Like It hits a little differently when you're struggling and you're reading stories about the president's net worth quadrupling in two years. That story, you know, if you're making a bunch of money hand over fist and you're having an easy time getting a job and your salary is going up and your wages are outpacing inflation, maybe seeing some administration officials getting wealthy too doesn't piss you off quite as much. But I think in this environment, it's particularly salient.

Oh, obviously.

I mean, we've learned that from many authoritarian regimes over the years. If everybody else is doing fine, you can pilfer the state. But when we start needing some bread and you're eating, you know, like 10 course dinners like Herbert Hoover did in the White House, it's a little bit differently. Let's put C2 up here on the screen.

This is from the incoming oversight chairman, Robert Garcia. He says, lawyer up. That is his one statement. He says, following his win, he will become the chairman. He has vowed to take on the Trump crime family.

I love that.

Biden crime family is now the Trump crime family. Corporate corruption, DHS and ICE abuses, the cover-up of the Epstein files.

Lawyer up was his single message.

So because you have looked systematically at all of these, which do you think are the top targets for the Democrats and which do you think will be some of the most, you know, rife for investigation and potential criminal charges?

Yeah, look, I mean, I think the there's some sacrificial lambs who I suspect we're going to see before Congress pretty soon. People like Kristi Noem or Kimberly Guilfoyle, who have already been kind of forced out of the administration and And we have reporting from places like The Wall Street Journal and even Fox News that's just basically rock solid on what they're doing. I mean, text messages obtained where they're asking people to eliminate paper trails and send them $ 100, 000 so they can help them shed an IRS investigation.

I mean, it's about as clear cut as it gets. So I suspect Democrats want to put those people before the American public. ASAP and really hammer that home. But I think there's going to be a lot of questions for folks like Jared Kushner, who, you know, isn't doing something that we necessarily right now can pin down with hard paper trail evidence. But everything he's doing has the kind of appearance of corruption. You foreign wars and settlements in foreign wars with countries while he's also negotiating investments in his firms with those same countries across the Middle East.

And I think Kushner will be a particularly helpful face for this for Democrats because the Iran war is so unpopular and the cost of living is such a big issue right now. And a lot of people peg that to gas prices, which people know and understand the Iran war is in part responsible for. So bringing someone forward like him to ask him questions about, you know, why does somebody from the Saudi Arabian government have this massive stake in this investment company that you have? And how are you navigating that stake while you're negotiating an end to a war that the Saudis want to continue? I mean, that's going to show up, I think, on people's televisions and it's going to land for a lot of Americans.

So I suspect that'll be the direction we see Democrats go. And then you know, we're already hearing rumors of Pete Hegstaff getting impeached. So I think he's the kind of guy who they're going to want to drag before the American public too.

Isaac, how about Elon?

No one has thrown in as hard with the Trump administration as Elon Musk. In this election, he basically set half a billion dollars on fire in backing candidates that almost across the board all ended up losing. Of course, he was given this extraordinary, extraordinary perch to take over vast swaths of the federal government in the early days of the Trump administration. There's still been very little accounting of what was done during that time period. You know, do you think that's someone that the Democrats are likely to want to look into?

Yeah, definitely.

And I mean, God, nobody's had a worse week than that guy. I mean, spending that amount of money to watch statewide races in Texas basically get swept. I suspect that the Doge stuff will be the center.

You know, I know I spend a lot.

Of time on Twitter like the rest of us and social media, and I know a lot of people have given a lot of attention to what happened with Starlink and turning off the power, the service for Ukrainian soldiers. And there's been a lot of questions about Elon's role in thumbing the scale for Republicans in the election through social media algorithms and all this stuff. The Doge stuff is where it's going to go because Democrats... whatever you think of them, they care about the government functioning and they at least attempt to pursue good governance. And they obviously often want big government and they have seen their employees across federal agencies get furloughed, get fired by these 22 year old tech programmers who didn't know anything about

government and swooped in. And that was only a year or two ago. Some of those people still don't have jobs. Like they haven't forgotten and they have direct lines to democratic offices. and people on committees in Congress who have the power now to subpoena somebody like Elon Musk. So, you know, Doge was a total shit show and a lot of things went wrong and they did not actually save us much money. And I think there's a lot of people who are still really pissed off about that, even if the American public has moved on. So, yeah, I suspect Elon will at least get subpoenaed. The question is what he does, A, and B, you know, you got to be a little careful if you're the Democrats.

We've seen them overreach before. We've seen them open the door for Trump to victimize himself and play the I'm a victim game and I'm being persecuted game. And in some cases, he had a really good point. So somebody like Elon still has a lot of purchase with the American public. And he has this image as a capitalist businessman.

He's creating all these jobs. He's got Tesla. He's got Starlink. They just have to tread carefully. And if they want to bring him before Congress, I think they better have the goods, basically, is my advice.

Yeah.

I will disagree with that, even as I see your point, Isaac. I think part of the centrality, one of the key messages in this election was a class war message, was a pushback on the tech oligarch billionaires. And he's literally the richest man on the planet. So I think one of the things people want to see is for someone like Elon Musk and the other AI oligarchs to be subpoenaed and dragged before Congress and held to account. I actually think that is part of, and you can see it in the numbers around, you know, data centers and that also being an important part of the pushback here.

Trump surrounded himself with these guys and handed over important parts of economic policy to them. And so, yeah, I think actually, if you're focusing on real issues, this is exactly the sort of thing that the American public wants to see.

Yeah, I mean, one interesting element of this election, if you really take a step back, you watch candidates like Gina Hinojosa winning in Texas, or even James Tallarico, Amy Acton in Ohio. If you go listen to the way those politicians are talking, they sound a lot like Trump did in 2016 or 2018.

They sound like Bernie.

That's who they sound like. They sound like Bernie in 2016.

They are winning on an affordability, you know, populist message. And it's one that Trump used to be able to speak the language of. And it's definitely one that Bernie has always spoken the language of. And I agree. I mean, I think that that is an advantage for Democrats. I just think the risk is you drag him before Congress.

He has a huge megaphone through X. He has a lot on his side in terms of the jobs he creates and the company he's running and the capital he adds to the United States. And, you know, he's got a lot of resources. So he's going to be able to fight back. And I think they just need to have a coherent and consistent and simple message if they want to win that from a purely political perspective. And, you know, Elon is no pushover. He's he's not going to just come before them and bend the knee and they need to be ready for that.

I think I see what you're saying, Isaac, which is that don't do it on petty stuff. It's like you have to have the goods.

I agree with you.

But I do– I side.

More with Crystal here just based on I think people are really going to want to see this be done. And I mean the point I assume you're trying to make is you can't do– who was that idiot who confused the restaurant or something?

He like said– Eric Schmidt, is that right?

Like he confused a NBA team that some prosecutor had walked.

The Hawks with the Hawkeyes. With the Hawks.

With Jack Smith.

Yeah.

Yeah. We just can't be seeing that, I guess, is more the point that I think you're trying to make. All right, Isaac, any other big corruption stories that you detailed that you think will be very eye-opening or that you would tug on more? That perhaps people are not aware of.

Well, look, you know, Sagar, this one you'll appreciate. There's a lot of people who have been clearly making a lot of money on these platforms like Polymarket and Kalshi with huge bets and huge movement right before these big announcements from the Trump administration. And I think it's a jump ball on where the American public is going to go on the question of these gambling websites and apps.

And I think Democrats have a really clear, obvious message that these platforms are not just the kind of places where middle class Americans are going to ruin their lives and destroy their finances. but also the kind of places that politicians and people with power are going to make a buck off the American public. And they could do something about that. I mean, there are a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of really, really weird big whales coming in two minutes before tariffs are off and then on again, or the war in Iran's over and then on again or whatever else. And I'd like to know some answers about what happened and who's making those bets behind the scenes. And Congress has the power to

subpoena those companies online. or subpoena Trump administration officials and ask those questions. And I think they should.

Agreed. Totally agree. All right, Isaac, thanks for your time, man. Appreciate it.

Yeah.

Thanks for having me guys.

Thanks, Isaac.

Republicans predictably really going through it this week after a historic landslide level sweep for Democrats. Ron DeSantis, before the polls even closed, was out trying to position himself as a critic of the way that the Trump administration has conducted itself. Let's go ahead and take a listen to Ron DeSantis laying out his view of what happened in this election.

I just look at how are they campaigning, right? And they were running, I mean, these congressmen, you know, I'm like watching these, I'm watching the World Series, I see the ad, you know, so-and-so voted against releasing the Epstein files.

And I'm like, you know, that's a bad vote.

We ran as Republicans on saying we need to do that. And then you actually have people in the Congress voting against release when the Attorney General said she had all this horrific stuff on her desk and that people are going to be held accountable.

It's untenable.

When you have people going in, trading stock, How is it that so, you know, look, I have credibility on this. I've never traded a stock since I've been in elected office and I'm.

Poor for it.

I was actually pretty good at it, you know, in my spare time before I got into this. But my view was, how do you have no investment acumen and then all of a sudden get elected to Congress and then you're outperforming Warren Buffett?

How does that work?

He also made some interesting comments about the culture war, basically saying all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars spent on anti-trans ads was fighting outdated battles.

Let's take a listen to that.

And I knew Republicans were in trouble when I was reading an overview about, you know, what were they running ads on? And they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars across the country on, you know, on transgender ads. And look, I fought Disney on gender ideology. We did the boys protected the girls from the boys going in sports years ago.

You know, we've made sure that schools, all this stuff, the surgeries on minors, we outlawed. So we have taken that issue the way I think we should have and handled with good public policy. But that was not the issue motivating voters. And it was kind of like an attempt to just scare Republicans to vote. But I think, and I think they ran some in Florida, but like, Our voters, they know we took care of that, right?

So that wasn't speaking to their concerns. It was effective four years ago. Voters were glad that we were standing up against some of the insanity that was happening. You know, I see this guy in Michigan that got elected. They asked him about, well, why should a boy be in a girl's locker room? He's like, oh, well, you know, they're going to see this on the internet anyway, so what's the difference? Oh, yeah, I think parents think there's a big difference for that. But that was the view, and people didn't want that, and we were able to go.

But the ground shifts... And the emphasis then is on different things.

The ground shift. Sagar, what do you think of DeSantis' sort of naked 2028 positioning there? I mean, it's.

So annoying because I'm like, I agree with every word. But it's like, bro, I can't stomach it coming from you because this guy was a neocon. This is a guy who, all of his supporters were the neocons, literally. If you go online and you look at the most vociferous pro-DeSantis people, I'm talking about like, Josh Hammer and Dave Reboy and Dave Rubin and Will Chamberlain, these were all DeSantis 2024 people. They literally either worked on his campaign or they worked for the administration or they were his outside boosters, right? And so the people who he surrounded himself with, are the most pro-Iran war so-called MAGA people on earth, part of what's been so annoying. And yet DeSantis, at the end of the day, he's a

political opportunist like all of them.

And he goes, oh yeah, you know, it's Iran war, you're lying to people.

I mean, you know, even on the culture front, ultimately DeSantis, this is, I mean, honestly, you can't really say there was a more effective governor in terms of going against all of this. Part of the whole, like why you should move to Florida, positioning from him. So coming from him, he has actually credibility on the matter. You know, another thing you may not have noticed in a very subtle shot at Trump is yesterday he said not only should they do the stock ban, he goes, yeah, it should also apply to the executive.

Right.

So I did say that to talk about.

Corruption, he's saying, in the clip, you know, he even says, I've never traded a single stock as a public official. All of these are very subtle, not subtle, honestly. They're unsubtle, like I'm running. I'm the only governor whose state held on to Republicans. And all of these kind of critiques that he's been dropping. Oh, you know, another thing. Interesting of our is AI. Remember, he fought the Trump administration who were trying to preempt state AI. He also did not sign the settlement with Meta over harm to children's the state AG in Florida has.

Been going after.

He hates a lot of the AI, you know, anti-humanity stuff. That the Trump administration has been boosting on data centers there. So, I mean, this guy is clearly he is positioning as the outsider. And honestly, as much as I do not like him, I'm like, you know, he's got a much better case than anybody who works in the White House right now.

Yeah.

No, I mean, but then I just go back to the logic for Ron DeSantis was there last time around. You know, he had this, like, resume that appealed to– it was, like, all there on paper, but then people just looked.

At the guy and were like, eh, not you.

You know?

And I think it's kind of the same deal now. And to your point, he's another shapeshifter that you can tell. He's good at reading a poll. He's good at sort of, like– moving to where the ball is, but it's a little too naked how he's repositioned himself. Again, this guy was a big cheerleader for Trump up in, and he did alligator Alcatraz, and it's very convenient that now when you see this massive political landslide then all of a sudden you come out oh this was terrible well where were you saying any of this Up until this point when now Trump has been really sort of like laid low by all of this. So anyway, I think he will remain challenged in the political arena in terms of really asserting himself nationally because people just don't seem to really

connect with him in the way that he wants them to. Let's go and put this up on the screen from Laura Loomer because I'm just enjoying. She's having one of probably the most epic crash outs of everyone. Lisa Booth tweeted this. to try to comfort the afflicted in the Republican Party right now. The good news is that God is in charge, to which Laura Loomer replies, if God is in charge, why did he let our country get taken over by Muslims and communists? Something for people to think about. So I guess the loss was so deep that it's causing her, it's shaking her faith. She's going through an existential crisis now. And certainly if you look at her Twitter feed, I mean, just post after post after post after post, Ackman-level posts, lengthy diatribes, just utter

and complete unadulterated mental breakdown happening on the Laura Loomer timeline. I also, Sagar, enjoyed this from Alex Jones, whose new theory is that Trump is actually a secret Democrat plant who was sent to destroy the Republican Party.

Let's take a listen to this theory.

I think he's a Democrat. I'm going to say it right now.

I have tried to salvage Trump. I've not been sure. I invested so much. Maybe I was blind to it. I think he's the ultimate Democrat sleeper cell and he works for them. And he was a Democrat before. I'm going to say it right now. I'm 100 percent at war with Trump. I've already been pissed at him, but I don't ever say something. He's not that retarded. He did this on purpose. That's what I believe. Richard Barris, go ahead.

What do you think, Sager? Secret Democrat? Is that what's really going on here?

I mean, Trump was a Democrat. It wasn't all that secret.

He was a Democrat up until like 2010 before he became the Republican standard bearer. Look, I mean, my favorite response to Laura was God works in mysterious ways, bitch. In terms of that, for a more serious one, we see here, Megan Kelly, who reacted to the election results.

Let's take a listen. This morning.

The Republican Party is in ruins.

And maybe it needed to be.

The choice now for Republicans is to reflect, rebuild, and reinvent in the image of no man. They're going to have to do it on their own. They're going to have to learn how to win without daddy on the ballot and to find their ethical center not just be puppets of Trump's, not to have their entire political world revolve around Donald Trump. That is one of the things that the voters told them last night. We're sick of the fact that you don't act like an independent branch of government. You happen to be the first branch. And we expect you to act as one of the separate powers as the founders envisioned. This was one of the things they said in the exit polling. that they did not believe Congress was doing an adequate job acting as

a check on presidential power. The whole system is designed to have three different branches, each of whom can check the other in their own way. The electorate that turned out, whether you were young or old, black or white, Hispanic, Asian, male or female, Republican or Democrat or independent, told the Republicans they were disgusted with them. They were disgusted. It wasn't like you're mildly annoying. We're not really in your camp anymore. It was fuck off. You have betrayed us.

So all bets are off now. Trump sent out a post this morning reminding us that he is still our president.

In name, he is.

And Let's not kid ourselves. There's a lot he can do on the foreign policy front from that position. Domestically, his agenda is now over. That piece of his presidency, the domestic piece of it, is effectively over. He has absolutely no one who is going to work with him in the U.S. Congress unless he becomes a Democrat, unless he starts legislating like a Democrat. The Democrats who were elected last night, many of them are DSA types.

Who are more radical than the previous Democrats.

I don't know how much of an appetite there's going to be to work with Donald Trump. He will either bend to their will or there will be no legislation that goes forward. They're not going to bend to his. They actually did just win in a mandate, in a landslide election. So Donald Trump has been hobbled by the events that happened last night. And the Republican Party has as well. And they did deserve it.

Yeah, I mean, correct. All true.

This is where I just am like, I don't... I did Derek Thompson's podcast before the election. And I said, I don't know if a Republican can rebuild while Trump is alive. Because the presumption that when he's out of the White House, that he's going to stop tweeting and stop being... force and stop the rallies and stop being who he is, which is a attention seeker, egomaniac, and number one character, just.

Seems laughable to me.

I just cannot imagine this world where Trump is under attack and, you know, silently will allow distance between whoever this future Republican is.

It just seems ridiculous.

I think he will Force every party leader, no matter who it is, to fly to Mar-a-Lago and to seek his counsel. Again, the analogy I've given many times on the show is Ronald Reagan was the most popular Republican in like modern history. And yet he did what you're supposed to do is he was like, look, I'm moving to California and I'm going to clean leaves out of my pool or whatever. I'll let George H.W. Bush do whatever he wants to do. But Trump's not like that.

He's not just going to, you know, sail off into the sunset. He's just always going to have an opinion. And because he's so controversial, he'll be under investigation. I mean, who knows, right, in terms of where things are going to go. The axis, it just always revolves around Trump. And so this presumption of rebuilding, I just don't know how it's possible. I really don't. Even for Ron DeSantis, what's he going to say? His voters love Trump, or at least his Republican voters love Trump.

How are they going to move on?

True.

All true.

And because the other thing is, what we see from Trump is he's now deeply invested in his legacy. I think in a lot of ways, that's the reason that he decided to start the Iran war. He thought he could be the guy that would change everything in the Middle East and this regime that opposes America and Iran.

He'll be the one that will finally deal with it. And that was intoxicating to him. It's the same reason for all of these building projects in D.C. and putting his name all over everything like, you know, he's pissing on the ground and marking his territory. Again, he wants this physical embodiment of his legacy. Do we really imagine he's just going to sit by at Mar-a-Lago and let Ron DeSantis and Ted Cruz or whoever emerged, Marco Rubio or J.D. Vance for that matter, take shots at him and undercut him on what his presidency was really all about?

There's not a chance.

And while, yes, his popularity has fallen off, he doesn't have the same hold on the base that he did before. He's still very popular with the Republican Party. He still has a lot of sway and influence, not to mention money and power. So it is going to be an impossible situation. And Megan does point to something really central, too, which is that, you know, the Republican Party, it used to be cohesive in terms of the ideology. It was an ideology that I and apparently most Americans found repellent, which was just like, basically low taxes for the rich and wars overseas.

And, but it was, it was like consistent. You knew what it was in.

Let's pretend like we're going to balance the budget, but spend a ton on the military. Actually, like there was a consistent, you could say what the Republican party is about free trade right now.

It's incoherent. There is nothing that you could point to that.

You're like, that's what it means to be a Republican because it's just been all about, well, what is Trump into if Trump's into, Hey, we're going to take a government stake in, in a gigantic corporation and be a little socialist-y, then they'll all run out to defend it. If Trump says, oh, okay, we're against immigrants, then they're against immigrants. Oh, actually, we want the H-1B immigrants. Okay, now we're going to be for that. It's just whatever Trump wants on any given day, that's what they've all contorted themselves into. So the party outside of him is also a complete mess of contradictions. And even before this electoral wipeout, They were already ripping each other to shreds.

You know, already some of these contradictions and divides have come to the forefront, you know, predominantly around Israel and Iran. But that is only going to be more and more of the case.

So.

2028 is coming up very fast they've they're gonna have to figure something out really quick and it's hard to imagine while trump is still in the white house and then even afterwards when he's you know on his way out the door how they're going to be able to figure all of that out. There was an interesting moment on Fox News that I wanted to play as well, where you can see these sort of like passive aggressive battles playing out between the various hosts. Ainsley wants to come out and reassure everyone. Oh, this is just normal.

No big deal.

We're just moving along.

Nothing to see here. Typical midterm backlash. OK, back to the regular scheduled programming. And Lawrence Jones is like, I think it's a little bit more than that.

Let's take a listen.

Don't be discouraged because this is normal. This is what happens usually in a midterm. Donald Trump has dominated the political conversation for 11 years. And he even talked about that last night. And the more dominant the personality, the bigger the backlash. And so what we're seeing here is exactly what happened to Ronald Reagan. He lost eight Senate seats.

He lost the midterm. But then he came back after that and he won 49 out of 50 states. Clinton, as you mentioned, Obama, same thing happened to them. So you can think Donald Trump's policies are good. You can think he's done a good job for the first half of this administration of the second.

Term for him.

This is a midterm report card. And we still have to see what Donald Trump does over the next two years. If the war ends, maybe the gas prices will go down. Maybe the prices at the grocery store will go down. But I think what's happening is people saw images of ICE. They got tired of that. I think they also go to the grocery store. That's what we heard the most.

You go to the grocery store and things are expensive. And so they want prices to go down. And so they're thinking, if that's not happening right now, let's go a different direction.

I do think that Republicans have to look in the mirror, though. You got to get connections with your voters. I know people want to blame candidate quality, like Ken Paxton. But when you lose Texas, when the governor, longest-serving governor— He's been great. Voters are trying to tell you something. And I'm sorry, it's more than gas prices and the war.

They're sending a message. It's almost as if they're saying you didn't act fast enough. You didn't pay attention to my concerns enough. And I think it does us no good to sugarcoat that. You lick your wounds, you go back to the battlefield. But if you change nothing, expect this to grow.

You think Ainsley got those talking points from Sean?

I was going to say a little pillow talk between Ainsley and Sean Hannity. My personal favorite Republican postmortem is Ann Coulter, who writes Netanyahu grabbed Trump by the pussy. Oh, look, you know, there's going to be a lot of recriminations that are coming out. But I, you know, all of this, like I've said, because Trump is the sun, the moon, the stars. of the Republican Party, you can't talk about it without talking about him, which he can't tolerate.

And J.D.

's going to try his best. You know, I'm sure he called Trump and said that he was going to put that out there. But Trump is still going to have to defend the Iran war. And if you really say about the Iran war what we all think about the Iran war, including the American people, that it was a disaster from the beginning, you think Trump is going to sit there and countenance that?

It's just not possible. It's a complete political impossibility. I mean, you almost need another.

Oh, go ahead.

You almost need another like Trump-like figure. You know how he came in out of nowhere and like. it was able to tell the truth about the Iraq war and the like, it didn't like put Jeb Bush in his place and all of that. But remember it took eight years of, you know, Obama to before the Republicans were ready to hear that. And so even if you had that force come in, in 2028 from the outside, I don't think Republicans are going to be fully ready to hear that after how much time and energy they've invested in the Trump era.

Yeah, I totally agree. I made that exact case when I was talking to Derek. I was like, somebody has to trump Trump. Somebody has to literally come out of nowhere and be like, you were a disaster. But the important part of that story, like you said, is it took eight years for Republicans to be in a place where like, yeah, we probably shouldn't have done that when it comes to the Iraq war.

And even then, I mean, you remember because you were there. As was I.

When Trump said that about Iraq, it was shocking because no Republican political, no Republican politician still in 2016 had the wherewithal to be like, yeah, no, the war was a disaster. Marco Rubio defended it. I remember I literally was at a conference where he defended it.

I couldn't believe it.

Jeb Bush, obviously, all of the front runners, so-called front runners, media darlings at the time, even Ted Cruz, none of them were able to just come out and be like, this was a full blown disaster. Someone has to come out and say that about Trump. But I don't think Republicans are anywhere even close to being able to admit that, which is just their structural problem going into 2028. Okay, we have Ro Khanna standing by to talk about what are the Democrats going to do now they have power.

Let's get to it.

All right, we are very fortunate to be joined this morning by Congressman Ro Khanna, representative from Silicon Valley, great to see you, sir.

Good to see you, sir.

Great to see you. Great week for America. You know, I'm used to coming and having all of this anxiety and complaints.

But wow, these past two days have been pretty amazing.

Well, I still have certain anxieties that I'll talk to you about in a moment. But let me just start with that question of what do you think is the message that was sent by voters? And what role do you think progressives played in these victories?

First, it was a total repudiation of Donald Trump. It was a repudiation of his war in Iran. It was a repudiation of his blanket check of aid and integration with Israel. It was a repudiation of his corruption emblemized by the Epstein class.

Now, this is not just me saying this. This is J.D. Vance saying this is why we lost.

I also believe that if you look at the candidates who won, they are largely outsiders. There are largely people who question the establishment. Many of them are younger and a new generation saying it's time to move beyond.

The status quo.

So those are the two things that I think are the underlying themes of the election.

Congressman, you responded to the vice president saying it was the war why we lost.

Let's put your tweet up here on the screen. You said, here's what I propose.

Support a continuing resolution prohibiting the financing of any combat activities.

Of the U.S.

Military in Iran. End the Iran war like we did for Vietnam. Support the zeroing out of all aid to Israel. Support Massey and my Epstein 2.0 Act to allow state attorney generals to prosecute pedophiles who abused and trafficked young girls. We'll get to Epstein in a second here, but I really want to stand on this question of defunding the war.

We remember very well how Democrats won in 2006 on the back of anti-Iraq war sentiment. They did not defund the Iraq war and, in fact, enabled George W. Bush to pursue the surge. Do you think this time will be different? How predominant is your view inside the incoming Democratic caucus?

About 2006 was a mistake.

It led to more American debts, more wasted treasure as we basically sat by in Congress. I mean, I wasn't in Congress then, but Democrats sat by and allowed him to have that search.

First of all, J.D. Vance is not some passive. observer here. He's not a commentator.

His tweet reads like, well, you know, we lost because of the war in Iran, and that's what's causing food and gas and.

Diesel prices to go up.

Well, here's the sitting vice president who is responsible with Donald Trump for this war. So if you're serious about that, then why don't you come out and support my call for a zeroing out of any funding for Iran military combat operations? in the continuing resolution. We could end this war before the end of the year and bring down gas, diesel, food prices before Christmas. I mean, we literally could do that.

The voters said we want prices to come down. This is the way to bring prices down.

That's not rhetoric.

It's just logical. The question is, are Democrats going to do that? The other side says, well, you want to defund the military.

No, we don't.

They didn't defund the military in Vietnam. They specifically defunded operations in Vietnam and the surrounding areas. And we can have a almost exact similar language for this continuing resolution. So I am going to fight for it. I'm sure the progressives will fight for it. We'll see if we can get the Democratic Party unified around it and then see if we can get Republicans on it.

Congressman, let's talk a little bit more about that, because I do think that's going to be a central fight. And, you know, Chris Murphy, before he had a stroke, and we hope he's recovering and, you know, we'll make a full recovery from the hospital. But in any case, he indicated that he wanted to push this fight off until the new year that the CR wasn't the place to mount this battle. You know, what would be your response to him? And what is your sense of how much of the Democratic caucus is going to really plant their flag on, we have to defund this war, we have to do it as soon as possible.

Because I think you're right.

I think that would be one way for Democrats in particular to show that they are going to deliver cost of living improvement for the American people.

Well, first of all, Chris Murphy is in my thoughts for a full and speedy recovery. He has done a lot in showing leadership on foreign policy. And I hope he gets better very soon and back to work. I believe that Chris Murphy may have a different view. I haven't talked to him now after seeing the results of the election, because that election was a mandate to end this war. And, you know, I talked to one colleague who said, yeah, but, bro, Trump will just veto it. No, he can't veto it if we just refuse to appropriate money.

That is Congress's prerogative. Congress can say we are not going to appropriate money.

For this activity.

Second, we need to make sure that we're willing to take on the fight with Donald Trump. Why push it out till next year? Everyone is suffering right now. Gas prices are up. Food prices are up. People are going into Thanksgiving with great anxiety. You know, one of the smartest commentary on the election was Andy Kim. He said, yeah, Democrats are in a celebratory mood, but this is really the pain and anger and anguish of the American people.

They're saying this isn't working for us.

And we need to respond to that.

So I don't understand why we'd say, OK, just pay more prices through Christmas and we'll try to get get to it in January.

Who knows also, by the way, how many.

More people die and how unconstrained Donald Trump could be in doing something very dangerous. I mean, he's floated the possibility of nuclear strikes in the past. Right. I believe it is a dangerous, volatile time. We put aside the politics. We need to end this war and we need to listen to what people are telling us.

Let's put E2 up here on the screen.

Congressman Hakeem Jeffries has officially announced, I believe, I'm sure you were a recipient of this letter of his dear colleague letter, his intention to be speaker of the House of Representatives. Is that a bid that you're going to support? Are there going to be alternative candidates? Do you guys have conditions for your votes here?

Well, we need to have a conversation with him. We need to talk about ending this war in Iran. That is going to be issue number one for me. Two, we can't be to the right of Donald Trump when it comes to funding Israel. I mean, look, you just had Donald Trump and J.D. Vance basically say in the last two days that one of the reasons we lost was Israel. Donald Trump, of all the things he can talk about on Election Day, says, well, I'm going to zero out the aid to Israel. J.D. Vance the next day follows up with a tweet, we shouldn't be that close to Israel. So I'm going to talk to Hakeem with the Progressive Caucus on that. We're going to say we've got to get a vote on Medicare for All.

Even if you may disagree with that, let's have hearings. Let's have a caucus-wide vote. Let's know where we are. Those, for me, are the three big issues. And I'm talking to Greg Kassar and Pramila and others about having a meeting with him with key progressive leaders so we can get those commitments.

And just to be clear, is the idea that if you don't get those commitments, then you're not voting for him for speaker?

Well, I think we're going to get those commitments, Chris. I believe that there are so many new members coming in.

You're dodging my question here, bro.

He may have the numbers to be speaker without some of the incoming class, but he's going to want a unified caucus. And I do believe we're going to get the commitments on Medicare for all. I believe we're going to get the commitments on a vote on zeroing out Israel aid and on the war.

And if you don't? I'm sorry?

Yeah, come on, sir.

And if you don't, you're dodging me here.

We're going to push very, very hard to get the commitments.

All right, we'll see.

Have you considered running for Speaker of the House? Because I'm sure you see the online commentary. I mean, you're one of the few Democrats that while you were in the minority, still figured out how to get things done. And I mean, your partnership with Thomas Massey and others to get a partial release of the Epstein files and put incredible pressure on Trump. I mean, that really is where this sense of betrayal among the MAGA base, that's where it begins. So you're one of the few that's known what to do with power, with even the limited power that you guys had.

Is that something that you would consider?

The problem I see with all that online commentary is they have me in this beard, and I don't know if my marriage would survive that.

So that's the first step.

But the Look, you know, it's a vote of the Democratic caucus. That's a very different vote than a vote of the electorate. I have upset a lot of people in that caucus. I mean, I endorsed against incumbents in my my own party. I endorsed against two incumbents in my own party in California, three incumbents in my own party.

Two of them won. Eric Jones and Angela Gonzalez. Tories won one. But I've endorsed Justice Democrats.

I've been good.

They'll back you.

I mean, you've got a lot of allies coming in too now, Roe.

I just don't think that's a realistic prospect. There may be other progressives who haven't been as kind of bold and daring and worked also across the aisle. I upset people when I initially did that in my own caucus. Why is he going and doing this with Marjorie Taylor Greene?

Why is he doing this with Thomas Bessie? Now they've come around.

But I don't think that I don't think I have the temperament to be a speaker and then still be endorsing against colleagues and having the independence I did. I mean, I'm just being blunt and honest.

As we appreciate, a rare aspect in a politician. Let's put E4 up here on the screen. As of this morning, Ro Khanna allies have drafted a draft campaign for the 2028 election. presidential race. So you said you don't have the temperament to be speaker. Do you have the temperament to be president?

I didn't even see that.

It's 530 in the morning here in California. I got up, I took a shower, I got out to the zoo. But look, I have to read the article because I haven't seen the article. I will say this, that it's no secret that I've been considering a bid. My view is that whoever runs needs to first have absolute clarity on not being a unit party on war. I voted against Pentagon budgets. I stood up against the Yemen war.

Thomas Massey and I had the war powers resolution that would have prevented this war in Iran. Second, we need to have crystal clarity on Israel. It is a genocide, not like the ICC determined some process.

Why does that matter?

Because if you're not willing to say genocide now, I guarantee you, if you're president, you're not going to take on the forces that tell you just let the status quo prevail. We need to zero out that funding. We need to stop the military sales. We need to stop protecting Israel and the United Nations. We need to declare a Palestinian state, put an embassy in East Jerusalem and Ramallah, which a president can do, just like Truman recognized Israel. Three, we need to tax the billionaires in my district. And four, we need Medicare for all. I have called for America's next New Deal. Now, I'll continue to talk to family, go around the country, see if we have have the support.

But it's something I am seriously considering and we'll have to see who's drafting us.

All right.

Roe, do Democrats, I'm just going to ask this bluntly, do Democrats know what to do now that they've caught the car? You know, you've got, it looks like, what, 56 seats in the Senate. It's going to be like 260 seats in the House. Is there a plan? Is there an agenda? Is there an order of operations? What are the investigations? What are the legislative priorities. Trump's now saying, oh, maybe I'll work with Democrats. Like, is there a plan?

What's going to happen? What should Democrats do now that they are going to have some measure of power in.

D.C.? Well, in the investigations, I actually think we have two very good people, Jamie Raskin and Robert Garcia.

They're tough. They're assertive.

They're going to have accountability for the pay-to-play corruption, for the crypto corruption, for the Epstein class. for the illegal war in the Caribbean and Iran. On an affirmative agenda, we need to build that. I mean, I believe we should have America's next new deal. We've got to have Medicare for all. We need to have free childcare. We should be fighting for free college. We should be fighting for a tax on billionaires that Bernie and I have proposed that would raise $ 4 trillion. We should be fighting to cut the Pentagon budget. We should be fighting to zero out aid to Israel and have a totally new foreign policy to regain our moral standing in the world.

Do I think that the Democrats are going to do all of that? No, because because we haven't had a standard barrier yet. I mean, there will be a brawl. There should be a brawl in 2028 about the direction of this party. And we shouldn't have recency bias. Remember, in 2024, if people thought that Donald Trump had majorities for the next decade, if you had said after Donald Trump won that we were going to be winning potentially Mississippi in the Senate, people would have thought you were crazy.

And so just because we won on a no vote on Donald Trump doesn't mean that, you know, two years from now, we're going to win the presidency and the House and the Senate and that we should just take that for granted. We need to articulate a real agenda and deliver. And even if people don't agree with everything that I have said, you could at least get the living wage up. I believe it should be $ 25. But why not get Donald Trump to sign that? Why not get him to sign something on child care? Like get progress while we're arguing over what the agenda should be.

All right. Sir, we always appreciate your time stopping by. We're going to keep pressing you on whether you're going to secure commitments or not on a vote.

So you should say that you should press everyone.

And, you know, the the issue here is that the country has been betrayed and they feel such a anger at Donald Trump. We can't betray them, not not just because the Democratic Party, because we've got to have people believe in politics. They've given us a chance. They have not given us a a mandate. And we've seen this electorate will reject you very quickly. So I believe it's very important that we fight for the issues that people made very clear that they care about. Yeah.

Thank you, sir. Appreciate your time.

Thank you.

Thank you guys so much for watching. We appreciate it.

Historic week here on Breaking Points, Friday's show for everyone tomorrow.

See you then.

11/5/26: Laura Loomer Questions God's Existence, Ro Khanna Pressed On Hakeem Jeffries

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