Rahm Emanuel, an Obama-era White House chief of staff and former Chicago mayor, is seriously considering a bid for president in 2028.
Emanuel returned from serving as U.S. ambassador to Japan in January, spending the past two months aggressively increasing his public profile with high-profile media appearances, speeches for liberal organizations like Democracy Forward and a regular column in The Washington Post, according to a Politico article published Wednesday. Despite not holding elected office since leaving the Chicago mayor’s office in 2019, Emanuel’s re-entry into domestic politics has fueled speculation about his presidential ambitions.
“I’ve only been back two months, and I have no idea what I’m doing,” Emanuel told Politico. “I’m not done with public service and I’m hoping public service is not done with me.”
Since returning to the U.S. in January, Emanuel has appeared on major political podcasts, television networks and speaking engagements nationwide. In recent events, he has tested campaign-style messaging around education, criticizing Democrats from becoming sidetracked by lofty social debates and urging a renewed focus on educational standards.
“I don’t want to hear another word about the locker room. I don’t want to hear another word about the bathroom. You better start focusing on the classroom … In seventh grade, if I had known I could’ve said the word ‘they’ and gotten in the girls’ bathroom, I would’ve done it,” Emanuel told Bill Maher on Feb. 28. “We are literally a superpower, we’re facing off against China with 1.4 billion people and two-thirds of our children can’t read eighth grade level.”
Emanuel’s potential candidacy is already drawing polarized reactions within Democratic circles. Some longtime party operatives view Emanuel, known for his blunt style and pragmatic centrism, as precisely the type of candidate who could challenge Republicans effectively. This pragmatism is exemplified by his 2008 remark at a Wall Street Journal conference: “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.”
David Axelrod, also a former Democratic White House official, argued that Emanuel’s combative style and extensive government experience make him uniquely suited to run.
“Who has more relevant experience?” Axelrod told Politico. “He understands how to win and speaks bluntly in an idiom that most folks understand.”
Emanuel also faces substantial obstacles over his past records. His tenure as Chicago mayor was marred with persistent allegations of cozy relationships with figures linked to organized crime, with critics repeatedly pointing to Emanuel’s fundraising ties and city contracts awarded to businesses associated with alleged mob affiliates — fueling accusations of corruption and machine politics that could haunt a national campaign.
“20 years ago it would have been an article in The Onion,” Doug Sosnik, another former White House official, told Politico.
Additionally, he faced backlash for using private email accounts to conduct official city business during his tenure as mayor, further fueling allegations that Emanuel deliberately circumvented transparency laws to conceal questionable dealings from public view.
As U.S. ambassador to Japan, Emanuel frequently used social media to mock Chinese leadership, drawing attention to high-profile disappearances of government officials.
Emanuel, a centrist Democrat, would likely encounter fierce resistance from the party’s progressive wing given his reluctance to champion its more frontier social issues, as well as his reportedly “dismissive” remarks about the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) closure at a Democracy Forward event in February, according to Politico.
“Nobody looks at a presidential campaign and does it to say, ‘Well, we’ll see what this feels like,’” Emmanuel told the outlet.
Emanuel severed part of his middle finger as a high school student while cleaning a meat slicer at an Arby’s restaurant, he told CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2010.
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