LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — Congressman Ro Khanna, D-Calif., has seen both sides of the American coin.
He grew up middle class in Bucks County, Penn., and now lives in and represents Silicon Valley in California, home to some extremely wealthy tech companies and their executives.
So it might come as a surprise that he's a strong advocate of taxing those billionaires in order to make sure life is fair for the people where he spent his youth.
Khanna backs 'economic patriotism' as key to 2028
"How do we make sure all the wealth in this country isn't just in my [congressional] district, that struggling communities, communities that have been hurting, that they have good jobs, that we have a new, modern economy, and wealth in places that have been left out?" he asks. "And I have a road map for how we do that."
Khanna says people need to afford basic necessities such as health care, child care, housing and good jobs with a higher minimum wage. He backs job and vocational training that allows people to participate in the new economy, one driven by technology and artificial intelligence.
Khanna spoke with Channel 13 on Friday before a town hall with Open AI at the College of Southern Nevada's North Las Vegas campus, alongside fellow Congressman Steven Horsford, D-Nev., and Chris Lehane, chief global affairs officer of Open AI.
In the interview, he noted the growing wealth disparity in the country.
"We've got 19 billionaires in this country who have 12% of the economy, $3 trillion of wealth. It's three times the concentration of the Gilded Age," he said. "And then you've got folks who can't afford groceries, can't afford food, can't afford a house, can't afford child care. Why? At a time when we're producing more wealth than ever before. So what I'm saying to them is, 'be a patriot. Be on Team America,'"
Added Khanna: "You're going to pay a little bit more so everyone can have health care, child care, education. I'll celebrate you."
Khanna says the economic divisions undergird the political divisions currently roiling national politics. "You can't have an America with islands of prosperity and seas of despair," he said. "Lincoln said you can't have a nation half slave and half free. Well, you can't have a nation with 1% of wealth and 99% struggling. And that's what we have."
But Democrats, Khanna said, inadvertently became the party of the status quo as they opposed President Donald Trump, who promised to shake up the system. That has to change now, if the party has any hope of capturing the Congress this year and the White House in 2028.
"We can't be the preservers of the status quo. We need to be the candidates of change," he said. "Trump said they shafted you. The system shafted you. And you know what? The system has. We offshore jobs with China and the World Trade Organization. We screwed people with NAFTA. We watched all the money pile up in the hands of the few."
Democrats should embrace helping the working class, opposing wars and leveling the economic playing field, creating jobs and improving access to health care and child care, Khanna said.
One of those policies? Stopping Wall Street from buying up single family homes, something that's happening here in Nevada. Khanna has a bill in Congress to prevent that, similar to legislation rejected by Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, who cited concerns over its constitutionality.
"Housing has to be part of this economic bill of rights," he said.
Khanna is known for crossing the aisle to work with Republicans when possible, even getting a bipartisan bill to release the Jeffrey Epstein files signed into law by Trump. When Republicans avoided town halls because of voter anger, Khanna traveled to their districts to do town halls in their stead.
But he's no moderate; Khanna chaired Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's 2020 presidential campaign, and identifies himself as a progressive. He frequently invokes FDR, author of the New Deal who signed Social Security into law. FDR was also the president who advocated a second bill of rights that embraced economic security.
"I have the ability to build coalitions," he said. "I don't go in with fancy TikToks. I don't insult people on Twitter. I try to listen and build coalitions. And that's what this country needs to have a real, substantive plan for people's economic success."
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