California Rep. Ro Khanna argued on Sunday to voters that the “next generation” of Democrats is better equipped to lead the party in navigating the current political environment than the “old guard.”
His remarks — made at a town hall in a congressional district represented by a Republican in California — were in response to frustrated questions from voters asking why the Democratic Party isn’t doing more to meet the moment, including several questions directly referencing Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s handling of the recently passed government funding bill. Schumer voted to advance the legislation in a procedural vote and has faced backlash for it for more than a week.
“The old guard needs to go,” Khanna said to cheers from attendees. “I will assure you that there are a lot of next-generation Democrats who are going to stand up to Donald Trump and [Elon] Musk and believe we [shouldn’t] cooperate with them while they’re engaged in unconstitutional action.”
Khanna, a high-profile progressive member who The New York Times reported has had conversations about potentially running for president in 2028, stopped short of calling for Schumer to step aside as some of his colleagues have done. But he added that Schumer made a “huge mistake.”
“He should have never voted for that bill without any concessions,” Khanna said. (Schumer did not vote for final passage of the legislation.)
Schumer defended his vote to advance the funding bill on network television over the weekend. He emphasized that a government shutdown would’ve made it easier for Musk to enact more Department of Government Efficiency cuts with little to no oversight.
“Look, I’m not stepping down. I knew when I cast my vote against the government shutdown that there would be a lot of controversy,” Schumer said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.
“Sometimes when you’re a leader, you have to do things to avoid a real danger that might come down the curve,” Schumer added. “I did it out of pure conviction as to what a leader should do and what the right thing for America and my party was. People disagree.”
Not all of the anger within the Democratic Party is focused on Schumer. One attendee at Khanna’s town hall wondered why other Democrats hadn’t walked out during Trump’s joint address when Rep. Al Green was booted out for protesting. Khanna said he was disappointed with the Democrats who supported Republican efforts to censure Green.
Though many of Khanna’s remarks were critical of his peers, he also called for unity within the Democratic Party. “I have huge disappointment in Chuck Schumer. I have called for a new generation of leadership,” Khanna said. “But this is not the time for us to just be fighting amongst ourselves. We’ve got a far bigger challenge.”
Questions around Democratic Party leadership also came up in other town halls held by lawmakers over the course of recess week, including at a Minneapolis town hall hosted by Rep. Ilhan Omar, where she told the crowd that she was “disgusted that several Senate Democrats gave up our first point of leverage,” referring to the split over the government funding bill.
When an an attendee asked how she plans to hold Democratic leaders like Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries accountable, Omar avoided referencing anyone in particular by name in her response, instead calling for “a come-to-Jesus moment for Democrats,” who she said are too often focused on “trying to figure out the perfect three sentences to appeal to people.”
“We have people who want to bring a knife to a gunfight and are not rising up to the moment,” Omar said. “We have been obsessed with figuring out the perfect message and not doing the perfect thing on behalf of working people.”
Other progressives who held events in the last week tried to keep much of the focus on Trump and other Republicans.
Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also spoke more broadly about the need for Democrats to be unified, without criticizing other Democrats by name, as they toured on Sanders’ “Stop Oligarchy” tour.
Still, Sanders was frank about trying to mend what he sees as the party’s disconnect with working-class voters. He told the New York Times the purpose of the tour is in part to mobilize grassroots leaders into running “as independents outside the Democratic Party” — a strategy that Sanders, the longest-serving independent lawmaker in history, is no stranger to.
At his town hall, Khanna also made a point of spending the bulk of his remarks focused on Republicans. In particular he criticized Musk’s DOGE cuts and also took aim at Trump’s inability to lower inflation “on Day 1” — a promise Trump touted on the campaign trail.
He also mocked Republicans for opting out of hosting in-person town halls in a bid to avoid criticism of their actions in Washington.
“My appeal to Ken Calvert is: Show up in your district next weekend, talk to folks,” he said, referencing the lawmaker whose district he was in. “You got 1,000 people, almost, here. If 1,000 people were in my district upset about something, I’d want to know what they were upset about.”
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Tinashe Chingarande and Emily Kennard are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.