In this interview, Khanna calls for a “reorientation” of antitrust decision making to look at a much broader set of concerns, including the effect that a merger could have on jobs, wages, innovation, and small businesses. Whether he can get traction for this idea might be a bellwether for how well the populist wave in U.S. politics can translate into policy reprioritization.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Alexis Madrigal: Over the last few days, you’ve said that you’re “deeply worried” about the Amazon-Whole Foods deal. What’s drawn your attention to it?

Ro Khanna: I’m very concerned about it, especially the impact that it’s going to have on local grocers. The Walmarts and Targets already are putting pressure on grocers. And that is something in my district: For example, you have Felipe’s Produce in Sunnyvale and Cupertino. These local groceries have already faced so much pressure, and that’s gonna aggravate that situation. As you know, for many immigrant families, grocers are the route into the middle class and the path to wealth creation.

The second challenge to the merger is wages. Whole Foods has a record of paying people really well. One of their founders had a rule that the CEO shouldn’t be paid more than 20 times the average worker. Amazon has not had the same record. You could have downward pressure on wages. And Amazon is a large conglomerate and can leverage suppliers to lower prices, which creates downward pressure on suppliers’ workers wages, too.

If the only metric is “Is this gonna lower prices?”—if that’s the only criteria, that’s debatable. But we also need to consider the impact on local communities and the impact on innovation.

If you look across the economy, if you have multiple players in an industry, you have more customization, more innovation, greater choice for consumers. The more you have consolidation, the less likely you are to invest in innovation. It becomes all about driving down cost and mass production. And that’s not good for innovation in an industry.

Madrigal: The obvious counterargument that people have been making is that Whole Foods controls a teensy tiny fraction of the overall grocery market—1.2 percent, according to research firm GlobalData.

Khanna: Well, the question is more, what is the potential for it to become? If you look at the past history in Amazon, they were willing to have losses for years to grow their position with the industry. The concern is there could be predatory pricing where they are able to absorb huge losses, which threatens other grocers.

And this has to be viewed not just in its implications for the grocery vertical, but is this amplifying Amazon’s online dominance into the physical retail space? It shouldn’t just be viewed as limited to groceries, but should be viewed in the broader context and Amazon playing into brick and mortar retail.