Directly Current Episode 15: Rep. Ro Khanna on Industrial Policy, EVs Under Trump
Ro Khanna is the Democratic House representative of CA-17, better known as Silicon Valley. He’s a popular progressive candidate, serving his fourth term, but he’s also pro-business. He wrote a book on American entrepreneurship and manufacturing, taught at Stanford, and was once close with tech titans like Elon Musk.
Representative Khanna played a key role in crafting and passing the CHIPS Act, which helped re-establish American industrial policy. He’s also advocated for building EV batteries, the most important and expensive part of EVs, domestically. Khanna’s role in the politically-doomed Green New Deal wasn’t fruitless—much of it went into the infrastructure laws passed under Biden’s White House.
While Khanna is justifiable ebullient about some of the policy progress made over the last few years, he recognizes Democrats, and the Biden administration, failed to message on their successes. How can Democrats can seize the moment, and message the future of American manufacturing to weary Americans? In the wake of Trump’s major political comeback and populist chants like “Drill, Baby Drill!” that may seem like a hard sell, but Khanna sees it more optimistically. Listen to the full episode!