Are Democrats Out of Ideas? with Rahm Emanuel

Peter Hamby (0:06)

Welcome, everybody, to my brand new show for Puck about the 2028 campaign, The Making of a President. Thank you so much for joining me. And since this is the first episode before getting into my feisty interview today with Rahm Emanuel, I wanted to put on the table what this show is and what it is not. We are in a midterm election right now, I know, but the presidential campaign jockeying is already under way behind the scenes, and it will kick off for real immediately after the midterms conclude in November. I want this show to be about how politics and campaigns really work. As much as I'm a political junkie, and this will be my sixth presidential campaign, it's long been a gripe of mine that political journalism is kind of a cocoon. A bunch of operatives and journalists talking to each other without pausing to explain to viewers and voters what exactly they're talking about. Our conversations on this podcast are going to be smart and elevated, but we're going to focus on the business of presidential campaigns and the gears that move them from the inside. How messages and memes get pushed out, how the money works, how do you win a specific primary state? Why does that state matter more than another state? Does polling even work anymore?

This won't be a show reacting to every micro news cycle or Trump headline. There are too many options out there on that front. We'll obviously talk about the news and issues and big names. Those things define the rhythms of any campaign. But we won't live and die by the news cycle. Instead, I want to bring you conversations with the players who call the shots, people who can explain trends in media and technology and demographics, and the campaign operatives who are grappling with the fact that the rules of modern campaigning we all thought we knew are being broken and rewritten in real time. The 2028 campaign will be the most unpredictable, unmediated and wide open presidential race we've ever seen. We're going to talk to Republicans and Democrats, and while we have a likely 2028 contender on the show today, we won't always interview candidates and politicians. The decision-makers and hustlers behind the scenes are just as interesting. I know way too many of them at this point in my career, and I want to do my best as we like to do at Puck to make those private conversations public and help all of us make sense of the carnival ride we're about to go on. If you're into all that, make sure you subscribe.

My guest today is Rahm Emanuel. If you know politics, you know who Rahm is. He's been in Democratic politics for more than three decades, working at every imaginable level. Infamously profane and combative, Emanuel once mailed a dead fish to a pollster he didn't like. The guy has opinions. A Chicago native, Rahm came up as a Democratic fundraiser for Bill Clinton, went on to work in his White House, and then served on the board at Freddie Mac. He went on to win three terms in Congress, running from a district on the north side of Chicago. In 2006, Emanuel ran the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, helping Democrats take back the House majority that year with a focus on electability and winning in red states instead of ideology.

Emanuel went on to serve as Barack Obama's first White House chief of staff. He left there to go run for mayor of Chicago, winning two terms. And finally, he was Joe Biden's ambassador to Japan.

But the story might not end there because Emanuel is thinking about running for president in 2028 And I wanted to talk to him not just because he's worked at every level of politics, but because he's got something to say right now about ideas. Namely, that the Democratic Party is out of them, and socialism is not the way forward for Democrats if they want to win in the midterms this year and in 2028 Let's get into it.

Rahm, good to see you. Thank you for joining me.

Rahm Emanuel (4:05)

Nice to see you. How are you?

Peter Hamby (4:07)

I'm good. Hey, if you run for president, what are you thinking about?

A whole new generation of people are going to rediscover these funny little bio points that used to sprinkle profiles of you, like the dead fish thing, Rambo, your nickname, the undersecretary for go-fuck-yourself sign that you had in the White House and the Obama administration for a minute. I had forgotten you did ballet at a very serious level, and got a ballet scholarship after high school.

Rahm Emanuel (4:32)