Rahm Emanuel makes his 2028 pitch over pizza in Chicago | On The Road

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Rahm Emanuel** (0:30)
My Wikipedia page is full. I'm not doing this because I'm missing something in my Wikipedia page. If I do this, it's because I got something I think I can bring that can make this country get right versus where I think it is.

**Jonathan Martin** (0:47)
If you want to understand where American politics is headed, it helps to talk with somebody who shaped it for the last few decades. Today, we're in a classic neighborhood join in Chicago, on the North Side with the former congressman here, a fellow you may have heard of, Rahm Emanuel. Few people have witnessed the evolution of the Democratic Party and really American politics like Rahm Emanuel. He had the house seat on the North Side for a few terms in the 2000s before going to work for another son of Chicago, who you also may have heard of, Barack Obama. Well, now Rahm Emanuel is looking himself at the presidency. And today, I sat down with him over, no, not deep dish, but tavern-style pizza, the real Chicago pizza. Over that pie, we talked about his party, the country, and is he really running for president, or is he just trying to land one final big job in government?
This is Jonathan Martin, On The Road, in the Windy City.

**Rahm Emanuel** (1:54)
Ready to order, brother. What's happening?
We're going to do your special, except for one thing. No green pepper.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:00)
More tavern-style, though.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:02)
Tavern-style. Yeah, thank you. Left one?

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:06)
Have you looked at him?

**Jonathan Martin** (2:07)
Of course a lot.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:08)
Why are you going negative on me already? He's already going negative. This is outrageous.

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:12)
This is our fifth meal together. I know everything about you when it comes to eating.

**SPEAKER_1** (2:15)
Today.

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:15)
Yeah. You got to have...

**Jonathan Martin** (2:17)
Look at that.

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:18)
You got to have some salt and red pepper.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:23)
So, this is classic neighborhood Chicago. We're on the North Side, Uptown.
It's a city of neighborhoods. And we're in your old house seat here, right?

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:32)
Correct.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:33)
Yeah. You were in the house for three terms?

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:36)
Well, elected four, served three.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:38)
Right.

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:39)
Because right after I got elected to the fourth, I became Obama's Chief of Staff.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:42)
And you grew up on the North Side, too, right? How far?

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:45)
Well, we were at Winona and Broadway, in the UNA., not far from here.

**Jonathan Martin** (2:49)
The Emanuel Ancestral Home.

**Rahm Emanuel** (2:51)
Well, that would be a stretch of ancestral on the term. Yeah. But we basically, you take that, but we actually used to, I don't think it was the same 36 CTA bus, but that's what we would take from Winona and Broadway down to our Ancien Jewish Day School where Ezekiel and I went to school.

**Jonathan Martin** (3:09)
Were you a free-range kid? Like by the time you were nine or 10, you could just walk around the city?

**Rahm Emanuel** (3:13)
A parent today would be called to the Department of Children and Family Services if they followed what my mother and father allowed us to do.

**Jonathan Martin** (3:20)
They just let you go free?

**Rahm Emanuel** (3:21)
Yeah. I mean, we had the same rules. We were allowed to go free and et cetera and run around. We were a block from the lakefront, et cetera. But we had those old rules.
Street lights went on. That was your curfew queue. Got you. Okay. There was no curfew from the city. There was a Marsha and Ben Emanuel curfew. Lights went on, you hauled your butt, ran as fast as your legs could move, or your bike could pedal and you got hauled.

**Jonathan Martin** (3:46)
You weren't worried about you and your brothers going to the lake and drowning or anything like that. You're like, what, two blocks from the lake?

**Rahm Emanuel** (3:51)
If they were worried, they never showed any parental capacity to care. No, my parents were very big about, they would, I know it today, I mean, back when my dad was around, they would totally disagree with helicopter slash drone parenting.