Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) pulled no punches on Wednesday, declaring that President Donald Trump would fire his Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick if the president listened to Lutnick’s answers on Epstein.

Lutnick, who has been under fire for contradictory statements regarding his ties to Epstein, appeared before the House Oversight Committee for a closed-door deposition about Epstein.

Khanna spoke to reporters about the deposition, immediately after leaving the room. “We know why that interview was not videotaped. If Donald Trump had seen the video transcript, he would have fired Howard Lutnick,” Khanna fumed, adding:

It was really embarrassing. He was asked very straightforward questions about whether he regretted misleading the American people. I mean, he said that he would never see Epstein again in 2005. And everyone knows that he took his wife and kids to see Epstein in 2012. And yet it was just contortions and lies and no acknowledgement that he misled the American public.

And if you saw the exchanges that my colleagues had with him, you would see he made a farce of the English language. I mean, he was trying to define “I” as if saying that what he really meant is that he would not see Epstein alone, but was totally fine with having his wife and kids see Epstein.

It made no sense. And then he’s raised even more serious concerns about the investigation. He originally had said that Epstein engaged in blackmail and recorded videotapes. And now he’s saying, “Well, he was wrong. He was just speculating, and Epstein actually didn’t engage in blackmailing.” This raises the question of what the cover-up is.

Did someone tell him to say that? I’ve not heard that Epstein never engaged in blackmail. Why is Howard Lutnick changing his testimony, changing his story? He’s lost all credibility, and really it’s a shame that the American people don’t get to see what he did there. A total lack of truth and lack of honesty.

Lutnick told The New York Post in an October 2025 podcast that after meeting Epstein with his wife in Epstein’s home, “I was never in the room with him socially, for business, or even philanthropy” again. Lutnick called Epstein a “disgusting person” and said he and his wife vowed never to see him again following their meeting, despite being next-door neighbors.

Subsequent document releases quickly debunked those claims and revealed not only did Lutnick and Epstein stay in touch, both socially and for business, but Lutnick went to Epstein’s infamous island with his family after Epstein’s 2008 conviction in Florida of soliciting prostitution from a minor.

Watch the clip above.

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