Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) called for President Donald Trump to abide by the International Criminal Court and arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Russian President Vladimir Putin, stating on Friday, “You can’t just kill women and children.”
Khanna made the comments during an interview with Meidas Touch reporter Pablo Manriquez after New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who vowed last year to have Netanyahu arrested, acknowledged Tuesday that he doesn’t have the authority to do so.
“He doesn’t have the authority, but let me be clear,” Khanna said Friday. “The American president should arrest Netanyahu or Putin in accordance with international law. Full stop. America needs to cooperate with the [International Criminal Court] … It’s a matter of human rights, and it’s a matter of a rules-based international order.”
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin in 2023 for war crimes due to his alleged involvement in abductions of children from Ukraine. It issued a warrant for Netanyahu in 2024 for crimes against humanity in connection with the Gaza war.
Israel’s military operations in Palestine have been decried as a genocide by numerous human rights organizations and scholars, with the Gaza Health Ministry stating last month that the death toll has surpassed 73,000 people since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack in 2023.
Mamdani told The New York Times last week that he was in active discussions with his office’s legal department about what the law would allow him to do regarding an arrest of Netanyahu, who could visit New York City in the fall to attend the U.N. General Assembly.
Trump vowed shortly after Mamdani’s comments that Netanyahu would not be arrested in “any way, shape, or form.” Khanna was reminded Friday that the president is not exactly “a law-and-order president,” but nonetheless urged him to act.
“He’s not a law-and-order president, and he doesn’t really care about human rights or international law,” said Khanna. “But It’s embarrassing to the United States and to the world community. I mean, here you have the ICC — it’s not just Netanyahu, it’s also Putin.”
He continued, “If the ICC has an arrest warrant for someone, they should be arrested by America if they come into American jurisdiction. It’s simple international law.”
Alex Brandon, File/Associated Press
Manriquez suggested that Netanyahu’s potential New York City visit would be “a golden opportunity” for Trump to arrest Netanyahu, and echoed widespread suspicion that the Israeli leader “duped” Trump into the ongoing quagmire of a war on Iran.
Khanna agreed that there would be at least “some accountability” if Trump acted, and said, “I mean, Netanyahu’s defying him. Netanyahu is continuing to bomb in Lebanon even though Trump is saying, ‘Stop it so I can end the war.’ But this is about accountability.”
He explained, “You can’t just kill women and children, have an ICC arrest warrant, and then walk into the United States of America and think nothing is going to happen to you. If you come to our jurisdiction, America is a country that’s going to enforce international law.”