CNN "CNN Newsroom" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Ro Khanna
Interview
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CABRERA: President Trump going where no sitting U.S. president has ever gone before. He crossed from the demilitarized zone into North Korea for his meet-up with dictator Kim Jong-un. It's a stunning visual and it is sparking fierce debate today.
Democratic congressman Ro Khanna of California joins us now. Congressman, your on the Armed Service Committee, do you think the president should be meeting with Kim on Kim's turf? What kind of message does that send?
REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I support his initiative. I had met with President Carter a couple of weeks ago and with Chung-in Moon, a senior adviser to South Korean President Moon.
[17:20:03] And they both believe there's a framework for a deal. First, we need to have a peace agreement and move beyond the 1953 armistice and have a nonaggression pact. Second, they think then Kim Jong-un will denuclearize. And after 90 percent denuclearization, we can look at flexibility in sanctions. I think a framework is there. I'm glad President Trump is exploring it.
CABRERA: I want to move on to the border funding bill this week, $4.6 billion to provide more humanitarian resources for the border. Here's Senator Amy Klobuchar this morning.
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SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, I would have much preferred the House version in continuing to negotiate. I think it is unfortunate it happened at the end. There were some really important requirements in that House version.
But it is important to get the aid right now to the border and to these kids. I don't think you can go in there and deny that money for the border when you've seen what I have seen.
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CABRERA: Congressman, the money is specifically for safe shelter, medical care and food for these children in federal custody. It does not include any funding for the border wall. It passed the Senate, 84- 8, but you were one of the 95 Democrats in the House who voted against this bill. Do you stand by your vote?
KHANNA: I do. We voted for a bill to give the funding earlier, but it would have had basic restrictions that would have said that the health standards include giving kids diapers, giving them toothbrushes, having sanitary conditions.
Ana, here's the thing. The administration had $40 million more in 2019. Congress gave them $40 million more than they requested. And yet they were still treating these kids horribly. That money had not run out yet. The money is going to run out soon, but it had not run out. So the issue is not funding. The issue is a lack of definable standards. The Senate stripped all of those standards from the bill.
CABRERA: However, the Democrat who helped to negotiate that bill through his committee, which it passed with 31 votes, said this. "We got kids down there who are suffering and we're going to sit up here and say we get only 90 percent of what we wanted so that those kids will get zero percent?" Does he have a point?
KHANNA: He's making a false choice. The money was there. The appropriations had already been done. The money was going to run out. Congress could have easily done our job and given the money and had the restrictions. Let's be very clear why this didn't pass.
There was a problem-solvers caucus of moderate Democrats. Some of them in the caucus who didn't want to look weak on the security and so they forced the speaker's hand. But many of us were saying, no. Human rights come before politics and we need to stand up for the rights of those kids.
CABRERA: OK. Let's move on. You've endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders for 2020. He champions this idea of Medicare for all and would get rid of private insurance, yet he can't seem to come up with a clear description on his plan and how to get there. Here he is at the debate.
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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (D-VT), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I will tell you how we'll do it. We'll do it the way real change has always taken place, whether it was the labor movement, the civil rights movement or the women's movement.
We will have Medicare for all, where tens of millions of people are prepared to stand up and tell the insurance companies and the drug companies that their day is gone, that health care is a human right, not something to make huge profits off of.
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CABRERA: Congressman, there's a lot of activist language, lots of emotion, but where is the plan? He doesn't explain how you get from point "A" to point "B" when currently more than 150 million Americans have private insurance.
KHANNA: Well, Ana, the plan is very simple and there's a bill in Congress. And what this says is every American will get the access to Medicare with dental coverage, with vision, with access to long-term care.
And instead of paying the thousands and thousands of dollars to private insurance, now you are going to get that coverage from the government like we have in Medicare. Now, how are you going to finance that? There are different ways you could finance that. You could have the employers that are currently paying to the
insurance companies pay that money to the government and that would cover Medicare for all. You can also have a small fee where families would have to pay a small fee, but that would be much less than the premiums that they're currently paying.
So, a lot of economists have looked at this. The one point I do want to make, Taiwan, which is one of the free market, most free market economies in the world has single payer healthcare and it's working.
CABRERA: As you know, though, the number of people in Taiwan is significantly less than the number of people here in the U.S.
KHANNA: Sure.
CABRERA: I know the senator likes to point out some of the other places that have a universal health care system of sorts, but even in some of these places, including places like Canada, it's not to the extent that the senator wants to take America's health care system.
[17:25:03] Congressman Ro Khanna, there's obviously so much more we could discuss when it comes to Medicare for all and many other issues that you're part of in Congress. Thank you for taking the time today.
KHANNA: Thank you very much, Ana.
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