Rahm Emanuel, onetime chief of staff to former President Barack Obama, derided the Democratic Party brand as “weak and woke” as well as “toxic,” The Wall Street Journal reported Monday.
Emanuel, also a former congressman and two-term mayor of Chicago, made the comments amid reports that he’s considering a run for president in 2028. Emanuel will be the headliner at a fish fry in Iowa in September that typically kicks off the party’s nomination process, the Journal reported.
Emanuel also took a jab at the coronation of former Vice President Kamala Harris as his party’s nominee last year while looking ahead to what is expected to be a crowded field in 2028, according to the report.
“Voters will be lucky,” Emanuel told the Journal. “They’ll have a real debate, one we didn’t have in 2024.”
Emanuel has been coy about his plans; he might also run for Illinois governor if Gov. JB Pritzker, a friend of his, opts against seeking reelection to launch his own White House bid.
“I’m not sure what he’s running for, but he’s running for something,” former Rep. Luis Gutiérrez, D-Ill., told the Journal about Emanuel.
Regardless, Emanuel said he’s distressed with the direction of Democrats who are “gunning it at 90 miles an hour for a cliff,” he told the Journal.
“If you want the country to give you the keys to the car, somebody’s got to be articulating an agenda that’s fighting for America, not just fighting [President Donald] Trump,” he told the Journal. “The American dream has become unaffordable. It’s inaccessible. And that has to be unacceptable to us.”
He added: “The public’s not wrong. They figured it out. The system’s rigged. It’s corrupt.”
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