Dem rising star eyes Vance as key long-term threat: ‘Needs to be defeated’

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – Rep. Ro Khanna, the California Democrat who likely harbors national ambitions in 2028, is turning up the volume in his broadsides against Vice President JD Vance, the heir apparent to President Donald Trump.

In two high-profile speeches this week – in the vice president’s home state of Ohio on Monday and Tuesday at Yale Law School, where both politicians earned their legal degrees – Khanna trained his verbal fire on Vance.

Khanna accused Vance of working to ‘win public adulation by stoking anger and treating legal limits as nuisances to be ignored.’ 

While Vance has not called on Trump to ignore Supreme Court rulings, the vice president, in a closely watched social media post two months ago, criticized moves by federal judges to block the Trump administration’s controversial efforts to dramatically downsize the federal workforce. Vance argued that the judges were trying to ‘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 argued in his Tuesday speech.

Khanna – spotlighting the controversial case of a Salvadoran citizen (who the Trump administration alleges was an MS-13 gang member) who had lived in Maryland for about 15 years that the Justice Department said was deported to El Salvador due to an ‘administrative error’ – highlighted Vance’s response.

‘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,’ Khanna charged. ‘Your affiliation with this law school is now a stain on the degree of every Yale graduate.’

Vance’s political team did not appear to be too concerned about Khanna’s repeated verbal attacks.

‘Yawn,’ a top political adviser to Vance told Fox News when asked about Khanna’s comments. The adviser described Khanna as an ‘ankle biter,’ which is slang for a relatively minor or irritating person or problem.

Khanna’s speech in New Haven was followed by a day an economic address at the City Club of Cleveland, where the congressman contrasted his vision for America’s ‘new economic patriotism’ with the future of the GOP with Vance at the helm. 

Responding to the visit, Ohio Republican Party Chairman Alex Triantafilou told Fox News Digital that ‘Khanna is a far-left socialist from one of the wealthiest and wokest congressional districts in America. He served as an official surrogate for both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. This speech is nothing but another desperate plea for attention from another elitist politician wholly out-of-touch with Middle Class voters like those in Ohio.’

Plenty of Democratic Party leaders have turned up the volume in their pushback against Trump’s sweeping and controversial actions to upend the federal government and policy. Also in the Democrats’ crosshairs is the president’s most visible White House adviser – billionaire Elon Musk – who, through his role steering the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has taken a sledgehammer to the federal work.

However, Khanna is taking the lead among Democrats in shaping Vance – who at this extremely early stage in the 2028 race is viewed as the GOP nomination front-runner – as the Republican bogeyman.

When asked if he was trolling Vance, Khanna said in a Fox News Digital interview ahead of his speech at Yale that the vice president is ‘trolling all of us. He’s the one who has made the argument that the court should not be listened to,’ before adding a litany of other examples. Additionally, Khanna pointed to what he described as Vance’s ‘dangerous attacks on universities, the Supreme Court and the rule of law.’

Noting rising economic uncertainties and the recent massive stock market sell-off triggered by the initial implementation of Trump’s tariffs on nations across the globe, Khanna suggested that Vance may not have the 2028 Republican nomination to himself.

‘Well, after the markets and the economy and the tariffs, I’m not sure he’s going to get the nomination. I think that others may emerge,’ Khanna predicted.

He stressed that the vice president ‘is the one person who is trying to give most argument to MAGA philosophy. He’s the one who’s called the university’s the enemy. He’s the only one who said the Supreme Court should be defied. He’s the one who’s been defending this high tariff policy. And so we need to take on his arguments and offer a counter to defeat them.’

However, when asked if his attacks on Vance were an early 2028 positioning move, Khanna responded that ‘what I’m doing is providing an intellectual foundation for the Democratic Party.’

Khanna emphasized that ‘we have to have a whole rebrand of the Democratic Party with a coherent platform and a future-oriented platform, and many leaders need to do that. New leaders, not the old guard. And I hope to be part of that.’

Khanna has been crisscrossing the country the past couple of months, taking a lead in amplifying the Democrats’ message in resisting Trump.

When asked if Democratic Party leaders need to be more vocal, Khanna quickly said yes.

‘We need more from our leadership. And you know, if you’re not willing to speak up about someone being snatched away from their home and deported without due process, you probably shouldn’t be in elective office as a Democrat right now,’ he said. ‘We need Democrats speaking out, not just on the economy. We need them speaking out on civil liberties, on the rights of immigrants and on the rights of universities.’

Khanna also praised the recent record-breaking marathon Senate floor speech by Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, and the large rallies across the country being co-headlined by Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.

Looking ahead to next year’s midterm elections, when House Democrats aim to topple the GOP’s razor-thin majority in the chamber, Khanna said he will continue his brisk pace on the campaign trail.

‘I’m already going out to more red districts. We did three red districts in California. I’m headed out to Pennsylvania. Was invited to go out to Nebraska, to Nevada, down south to South Carolina,’ he said. ‘So we will be campaigning in red districts. 1000s of people are showing up. I’m very, very confident that we’re going to succeed.’

In Khanna’s home state of California, Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom is term-limited, and former Vice President Kamala Harris is mulling a 2026 gubernatorial run. 

‘I think she would do well in California. She was attorney general. She was a district attorney. A lot of people care about public safety in California, we have to tackle building housing,’ Khanna said of Harris. ‘So she would have a lot of support if she does it. Of course, it’s her decision.’

Fox News’ Deirdre Heavey and Emma Woodhead contributed to this report