In a talk at Dartmouth, U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., called President Donald Trump's weekend attack on Iran "an illegal, unconstitutional war" and vowed to push for a vote on a bipartisan war resolution this week in Congress.
Khanna, a progressive Democrat from California's Silicon Valley, also talked about his success in working with some Republicans across the aisle, and the importance of such dialogue.
The Feb. 28 talk was part of the Rockefeller Center and Dartmouth Dialogues series Law and Democracy: The United States at 250. Professor of Government Brendan Nyhan moderated the one-hour discussion in Filene Auditorium.
The United States and Israel launched aerial attacks Saturday on multiple sites in Iran, including a compound where the Middle East nation's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other top officials were killed.
Trump said Saturday the "objective is to defend the American people by eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime," including threats to U.S. troops overseas and our allies.
Khanna rejected that as rationale for bombing Iran.
"The reality is that there were many other ways to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear bomb," he said. "We could have been working with our European allies. We could have been engaged in sanctions" or pursued an Iran nuclear deal stronger than the one Trump withdrew the U.S. from during his first term.
He noted that Trump claimed to have "obliterated" Iran's nuclear facility several months ago.
"The reason he's doing this is regime change. But the history of regime change has not worked," Khanna said. "We're only going to inflame the nationalism in Iran with this approach."
Khanna said he and U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., have called for a vote on a bipartisan Iran war resolution.
The Constitution gives Congress the sole power to declare war, while the 1973 War Powers Resolution allows a president to take military action under certain conditions, such as an imminent threat, which Trump claimed.
Approval of the Khanna-Massie resolution would require authorization from Congress for Trump to continue using military force against Iran.
Khanna added that the president has "betrayed his fundamental promise to the American people."
"Trump has just launched an illegal, unconstitutional war in Iran," Khanna said. "His promise was that we weren't going to get into more of these overseas wars, that he was going to help focus on building manufacturing here, building jobs here, supporting the needs of health care and child care and education of the American people."
U.S. Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., talks with students after his speech in the Law and Democracy series. (Photo By Eli Burakian '00)
Khanna discussed the release of the Jefferey Epstein files that he and Massie successfully pushed through Congress.
Nyhan asked how he was able to achieve an "absolutely overwhelming" vote in the House that included Republicans—an extremely rare feat in such a polarized environment.
"Because of the survivors, because people met with these incredibly courageous women who came to the Capitol," Khanna said. Those meetings included members of Congress from widely diverse political persuasions.
The Justice Department has released around half of the millions of Epstein documents requested by Congress, he said, noting that Democrats and Republicans, including U.S. Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., are calling for the release of all the files as the law requires.
"The public pressure is going to continue, and this is about restoring trust in our democracy," Khanna said. "If we have elite impunity in this country, we're not going to build the trust that's necessary to have a strong democratic project. So, I'm committed to seeing justice. Thomas Massie is committing to seeing justice, and I believe we will get there."
Khanna also talked about his work across the aisle with Massie, then-U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green, R-Ga., and others he disagrees with on most policy issues.
"I will never cede my ground on what I believe, but I try not to be gratuitously insulting on social media or on the floor of other people's character and motives," he said.
He added that Massie sent him a Christmas card with his family holding machine guns in front of a Christmas tree. "We don't agree," Khanna said. "I'm for an assault weapons ban, he is the biggest proponent of the Second Amendment, but we came together on issues of war and peace."
And during the Q&A, Maya Dombroskie '29, who said she's from a conservative part of rural Pennsylvania, asked Khanna how he balances working with people who do not share his progressive views on human rights, equality, and other issues.
"You know, it's hard. It's not easy," Khanna responded. "And I've had to balance that my whole life, growing up a son of immigrants, growing up Indian American, growing up of a minority faith in a community that was at the time in the 1980s, 99% white, and I was one of the only Indian kids in high school."
"And what I found is that if you stand firm in your convictions, but you engage with people with curiosity and respect, that the American people are pretty decent and generous and understanding."
Khanna also addressed the issue of ethics and artificial intelligence. Anthropic, the maker of the Claude AI app, lost a contract with the Defense Department Friday because the Pentagon did not guarantee Anthropic's technology would not be used for mass surveillance or autonomous lethal weapons.
Khanna, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Cyber, Innovative Technologies and Information Systems, supports Anthropic's decision and said it's time for other tech companies—many of which are in his district—to stand up to the Trump administration.
He rejects the argument that the Constitution already protects against such surveillance.
"The Fourth Amendment protects against someone going to your house and taking your things. But the Fourth Amendment, as the courts have seen it, does not protect, right now, against building social media profiles and collecting data on Americans," he said.
Regarding AI and lethal weapons, he added: "You really want AI deciding whether we should strike some site in Iran without any human judgment in that process?"
On the Supreme Court's Feb. 20 ruling against tariffs Trump imposed in a series of executive orders, Khanna said he believes the court rejected the president's tariffs in part because of a GOP fracture sparked by the bipartisan support of the Epstein Transparency Act he co-authored.
"Don't tell me Supreme Court justices don't look at the poll numbers. I mean, they do. They know that the president is weaker today, and I am glad they finally found the courage to stand up for the rule of law."
About 200 people attended the 60-minute discussion, with more than 500 watching the livestream. It was co-sponsored by the Office of the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Associate Dean for the Social Sciences.
The next speaker in the Law and Democracy series will be Jeb Bradley, a former New Hampshire Republican congressman and state senator, and the 2025-26 Perkins Bass Distinguished Visitor at Dartmouth, on March 5.