Name: Ro Khanna says ‘Americans are not safer today’ after Iran’s Khamenei is killed: Full interview
Uploaded: 2026-03-01T23:04:05.000Z
Duration: 7 min 54 s
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And joining me now is Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna of California.

Congressman Khanna, welcome back to Meet the Press.

Let me start off with this critical question.

You heard what Senator Lindsey Graham had to say.

The world is, in fact, safer now that the Supreme Leader is gone.

You heard Senator Kelly agree with that part of his assessment.

Senator Graham now has become the face of Republican foreign policy.

He's been consistent, but he's been consistently wrong.

Khamenei was a brutal dictator, but Americans are not safer today.

Look, Senator Graham cheerlead us into the Iraq war.

He cheerled us into the effort with Libya.

He said regime change, wars are absolute, absolute failures.

And now you have a situation in Iran where the IRGC is still in power.

The assembly of experts are going to pick the new leader.

By the way, they were picking the new leader before we killed Ayatollah.

And the question is, is the country going to descend in civil war?

Are billions of our dollars going to be spent there?

And Senator Graham arguing that the IRGC is at war with the US Democratic leaders.

Obviously, you are co sponsoring a bill with Congressman Massie to force a vote on the War Powers Resolution.

Congressman, do you think you have enough votes for this to pass?

It's going to be very close, but I believe we will have every Democrat.

I can't believe there's going to be a Democrat who wants to vote for another war in the Middle East.

And then you have not just Congressman Massie, you have Congressman Davidson, Congressman Biggs.

There are a number of people on the Republican side who agree with Marjorie Taylor Greene.

You know, Donald Trump said that the Iraq war was a disaster.

He ran because a big part of the MAGA base did not want another war in the Middle East.

And yet here we have Lindsey Graham being the face of Republican foreign policy, as is evidenced by the fact that he was your lead guest.

I mean, I believe this is a betrayal of a decent chunk of the MAGA base.

But you believe that you ultimately can eke out enough votes for the War Powers Resolution, which would require the White House to go to Congress for more military action in Iran.

It depends if we can keep several Democrats in line.

Josh gottheimer, Congressman and Congressman Markowitz.

But I believe that this is a disastrous vote for any Democrat to vote for Donald Trump's war in the Middle East.

And then like I said, there are a few Republicans who share Marjorie Taylor Greene and Tucker Carlson and others Rand Paul's view.

Right now I'd say it's 40, 60 to pass, but

Some House Democrats, as you know, have actually already come out against this resolution in the aftermath of the strikes.

Here's what Democratic Congressman, you just mentioned him, Greg Landsman, said, I don't support the resolution which would require us to completely abandon our allies.

The strikes are an attempt to prevent further war, not start one.

I mean, even Lindsey Graham said we're at war.

We have over 100 of our fighter jets bombing them.

The point of this resolution is to say we do not want another war in the Middle east or at least Congress should opine on that, should vote on that.

And if you're not voting for this War Powers Resolution, you basically have Lindsey Graham's view, which is that the President gets to decide wars.

He believes the President has authority to go into war.

He is chair led for the war in Iraq, for the war in Libya, for 20 years in Afghanistan.

And he's basically, that's his viewpoint.

So either you are on the side of no more Middle east wars or you're on the side of Lindsey Graham.

Congressman, what would a War Powers Resolution do at this point to limit the administration given that they've already launched this military offensive?

Well, that's exactly when the War Powers Resolution is supposed to kick in.

If we, if the President launches an attack, the Congress can say, no, you need to stop unless you have Congress's authority.

Now, it would have been a harder vote if the President hadn't taken action because people could say he's just bluffing, he's building up support so that we could get a deal.

But now that he's taken action, this is exactly when you need the War Powers Resolution.

If we pass it in the House and the Senate.

It would be an enormous message to the president.

And of course, if it passes and he signs it, it would restrict his action.

Let me talk to you about one of the big headlines before the strikes against Iran this week, the fallout over the Epstein files.

As you well know, former President Bill Clinton testified before the House Oversight Committee behind closed doors, saying, quote, he had no idea of the crimes that Epstein was committing.

Do you have any outstanding questions for President Bill Clinton about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, Congressman?

When the transcript comes out, I think people will see that he answered every question.

I actually think they'll see that some of the Democrats asked him tougher questions than even the Republicans.

And the American people will be able to decide on what they believe.

The point, though, is that President Clinton has set a precedent, a new Clinton rule that means that Donald Trump should do the same.

to subpoena Howard Lutnick next week, and I believe he will come before the committee.

And every person who went to that island or who corresponded with Epstein about going to his mansion should be called under oath to tell us what they knew.

So you're going to subpoena Howard Lutnick.

Do you plan to subpoena President Trump and do you believe you have the votes to subpoena President Trump to testify before the committee?

I don't believe we have the votes right now to subpoena President Trump because the Republicans control the House, and

I don't think they would vote with us on that.

But when Robert Garcia is chair of the Oversight Committee, we will have those votes.