Vice President JD Vance is the obvious successor to President Donald Trump, and Rep. Ro Khanna, a Democrat from California who probably has national ambitions in 2028, is ramping up his attacks against Vance.
While visiting the vice president’s home state of Ohio on Monday and Yale Law School, where both lawmakers received their degrees, on Tuesday, Khanna took aim at Vance in two prominent speeches this week.
Khanna said that Vance was trying to “win public adulation by stoking anger and treating legal limits as nuisances to be ignored.”
Although Vance has not explicitly asked Trump to disregard Supreme Court decisions, he did attack federal judges’ actions two months ago in a highly-viewed social media post that sought to halt the contentious Trump administration’s attempts to drastically reduce the federal workforce. What the courts were attempting to do, according to Vance, was “control the executive’s legitimate power.”
“Vance says the president, elected by the people, should tell the court what the Constitution means, and if the court disagrees, let them try to enforce their ruling — that the president, as a co-equal, may simply ignore the court’s judgment of the law,” Khanna said in his address on Tuesday.
Khanna brought attention to Vance’s reaction while highlighting the contentious case of a Salvadoran national (whom the Trump administration claims was an MS-13 gang member) who had resided in Maryland for approximately fifteen years and whose deportation to El Salvador was attributed to a “administrative error” by the Justice Department.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can: JD Vance, your cold indifference to the lives of vulnerable immigrants betrays every principle that this law school was built to uphold,” said Khanna. “Your affiliation with this law school is now a stain on the degree of every Yale graduate.”
Despite Khanna’s frequent verbal attacks, Vance’s political staff showed no worry.
An advisor to Vance’s political campaign told AWN, “Yawn,” in response to a question on Khanna’s remarks. An “ankle biter,” as the advisor put it, was someone or something that was relatively little or bothersome.
In his economic speech at the City Club of Cleveland, the congressman compared and contrasted his plans for America’s “new economic patriotism” with Vance’s GOP future, which came after Khanna’s speech in New Haven.
“Khanna is a far-left socialist from one of the wealthiest and wokest congressional districts in America,” Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou told AWN Digital in response to the visit. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris both officially designated him as their surrogate. If this speech is any indication, it is just another attempt by an elitist politician to garner media attention at the expense of middle-class citizens like those in Ohio.
The resistance to Trump’s controversial and far-reaching attempts to dismantle the federal government and its policies has been amplified by some prominent Democrats. Elon Musk, the president’s most prominent White House advisor and the billionaire who has slammed federal work as head of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, is also in the sights of the Democrats.
But among Democrats, Khanna is spearheading the effort to cast Vance—the GOP front-runner for the nomination in 2028 at this very early stage—as the party’s enemy.
Before giving his address at Yale, Khanna was interviewed by AWN Digital. When asked whether he was trolling Vance, he responded that the vice president is “trolling all of us. He has already argued that the court should not be believed, and he goes on to enumerate a plethora of additional instances. Also, Khanna brought up what he called Vance’s “dangerous attacks on universities, the Supreme Court and the rule of law.”
Khanna raised the possibility that Vance would have competition for the Republican candidacy in 2028, pointing to growing economic uncertainty and the recent huge stock market sell-off caused by the initial deployment of Trump’s tariffs on nations throughout the globe.
I don’t think he’ll earn the nomination after all that happened with the markets, the economy, and the tariffs. The emergence of others is something that Khanna foresaw.
To him, the VP “is the one person who is trying to give most argument to MAGA philosophy,” he noted. The university has been branded as an adversary by him. Only he advocated going against the Supreme Court. It is he who has been advocating for this strategy of high tariffs. Consequently, we should respond to his arguments by providing a rebuttal.
To the question of whether Khanna was trying to position himself for early 2028 by attacking Vance, the candidate said, “what I’m doing is providing an intellectual foundation for the Democratic Party.”
Khanna stressed the importance of several party leaders undergoing a complete rebranding of the Democratic Party with a consistent and future-focused agenda. Rising stars, not the seasoned pros. My goal is to contribute to that.
Over the last several months, Khanna has been making extensive travels around the nation to spearhead the Democratic Party’s resistance to Trump.
Khanna said with conviction when asked if the leaders of the Democratic Party should raise their voices more.
Our leadership has to do more. At this point in time, he argued, Democrats shouldn’t be running for office if they aren’t prepared to speak out against the unjust deportation of citizens who have been forcibly removed from their homes without due process. Not only on economic issues, but we need Democrats to speak up. They must speak up for immigrant rights, university rights, and civil freedoms.
New Jersey Senator Cory Booker’s record-breaking lengthy Senate floor address and the massive demonstrations around the nation co-hosted by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were also lauded by Khanna.
As the House Democrats prepare to challenge the Republican Party’s tenuous control in the chamber in the next midterm elections, Khanna has stated that he would maintain his vigorous campaigning pace.
I’m already visiting more districts that lean red. Three California red districts were completed by us. My journey will take me to Pennsylvania. He mentioned that he had been invited to travel to South Carolina, Nevada, and Nebraska. Accordingly, we will be running our campaign in traditionally Republican seats. There are thousands of people there. We will triumph, I am quite certain of it.
Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom is serving out his time in office in Khanna’s home state of California, while former Vice President Kamala Harris is considering running for governor in 2026.
I believe California would be a good fit for her. Meanwhile, she held the position of attorney general. The position she held was that of district attorney. According to Khanna, Harris should take on the task of developing homes since many Californians are concerned about public safety. I think she would be very well-supported if she goes ahead and does it. Obviously, she gets to decide.
