Rahm Emanuel on Trump, the left, and what’s right for America

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On a sunny afternoon in Chicago, along the Riverwalk he helped expand, former Mayor Rahm Emanuel was beaming about the city he led for eight years. “All along this Riverwalk, one mile, you have people from all parts of this city, and guess what, all parts of the country and all parts of the world.”

So, what is it about Chicago that informs us about Emanuel? “Oh, well, its grit, its toughness, it’s no-nonsense,” he said. “I am tough – when I believe something’s right, you’re gonna get it done.”

That toughness extends to interviews, where Emanuel is known for pushing back – on reporters, and on the left, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Democratic Socialist.

This year, Sanders and his allies have been factors in primary after primary – and progressives feel they have been pushing aside centrists like Emanuel and his allies inside the Democratic Party. On “Face the Nation” July 26, Sanders said, “People are sick and tired of the Rahm Emanuels and the Democratic establishment and the Republican establishment.”

This week, Emanuel penned a Wall Street Journal op-ed (titled “How to Lose Friends and Alienate Allies”), in which he wrote that “‘Bernie bros’ could spoil the midterms.”

“Well, here’s what I would say to you … I’m about flipping red districts to blue; I’m not about taking blue districts and making them midnight blue,” Emanuel said. “You want to see a raise in the minimum wage? Winning over Democratic districts is not the way to get it there.”

A lot of voters drawn to progressive candidates feel that members of the Democratic establishment, and long-time Democratic leaders, don’t get the economic pain they are in. Asked how he would show the passion and commitment to address these voters’ grievances with the economy, Emanuel laughed, “You don’t think I bring any passion to what I do?”

And Emanuel is passionate about keeping the left at bay.

Asked what he would say to a Democrat Socialist who called him for help winning over centrist voters, Emanuel replied, “First of all, it’s a hypothetical. And let me break the news to you – the calls haven’t come in. And everybody knows the number! So, I don’t see that happening. Look, there’s fundamental differences. And I’m comfortable with that.”

And when it comes to progressives using the Democratic Party as a vehicle, Emanuel said, “I don’t think they should, because I think they’re a separate party; that’s one. Two, I don’t believe in defunding police. I don’t believe in open borders.”

Over a long career — as mayor, congressman, ambassador, and top aide for two presidents, including chief of staff in the Obama White House — Emanuel has been a key (and combative) moderate in showdowns over health care and the economy. These days, he wants Democrats to focus less on taking on capitalism, and more on matters like lowering costs — and on President Donald Trump.

On the matter of impeaching Mr. Trump should Democrats take control of Congress, Emanuel has accused the president and his administration of dirty business deals and corruption, which he said was “worse that Castro.” “He’d make an alderman in Chicago blush for the kind of corruption he’s doing,” he laughed. “They’re just out there taking money left and right. The president of the United States is $4 billion richer, and you’re $4 trillion poorer. And I think that this is a travesty of his Constitutional responsibilities, let alone the responsibilities of what he’s done. He wants a ballroom, you’re gonna get the bill. He wants his $450 million Qatari plane, you get $4.50 a gallon. He’s building an arch, and your family can’t afford a meal at the Golden Arches. So that, to me, is the indictment to make.”

Emanuel is also offering Democrats his own path on an issue roiling them: Israel. Speaking in Tel Aviv last month, he was sharply critical of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and called for a peace deal that features “Palestinian dignity” and “Israeli security.” “You cannot fight indefinitely against a world that has stopped believing you have a right to fight,” he said. “You must instead find a new sustainable path to peace, security and prosperity.”

As Emanuel, who is Jewish, engages in this fierce debate, he is deeply troubled by the antisemitism that has emerged alongside it.

“You don’t have to agree with the Israeli government to be concerned with the rise of antisemitism in America, and more than the antisemitism which always existed, the way it’s being manifested with violence and killing,” Emanuel said.  “And for all of us, regardless of our positions, whether it’s expressions of anti-Muslim attitudes, as some members of Congress have done, or whether it’s encouraging or creating an environment that’s conducive to antisemitism, or not calling out antisemitism when you should call it out so that in fact it doesn’t become violent.”

• Rahm Emanuel weighs in on the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship (“Face the Nation”)

For Emanuel, this moment rouses memories of relatives who perished in Russian pogroms and the Holocaust. He said, “In our family room there was a wall. In the center of the wall was my grandmother’s little pushka, the little purse, framed. And above it in the frame was Grandma, and Auntie Ida, and Auntie Gitti’s passports. That’s what brought them to this country in 1914.

“And on either side of that was a picture of relatives of Mom and Dad, who never made it to America. And it was my parents’ reminder to us daily that, ‘You are the fortunate few. You’re not to be frivolous with this. And you have a responsibility to make other people’s lives better.’

“My faith is important to me,” he said. “It’s a moral guiding principle for me. And I think the bigger challenge isn’t my faith. Again, if it’s a problem for you, you need to work on that, not me. The faith we need to work on is the fact that Americans have lost faith in America. That’s our joint mission. If you’re an American, that’s what we have to work on together.”

Working through a presidential campaign might be next; earlier this summer, he was in New Hampshire on a bike tour that was decidedly low-key. “Yeah, that’s okay. You meet people where they are,” he said.

At 66, Rahm Emanuel says his fight — now and in the future — is bigger than him, and his party.

But offered a chance to announce his presidential campaign on “Sunday Morning,” he laughed: “We could do it right here on ‘Sunday Morning,’ but it ain’t gonna happen, okay?

“I’m at a point in my life where I’m gonna leave it all on the field,” Emanuel said. “I think this is a great country. I am the son and the grandson of an immigrant. I think being an American is winning the lottery ticket of life. And I look at a country that I know, that I love, and the passion, that has lost its nerve, has basically raised the white flag. And I’m not about that. And so, given that this is a great country, given everything that I have, sure, could I hang up the jersey? That’s not what I’m about.”

     
Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Steven Tyler.