The News
GOFFSTOWN, N.H. — Rahm Emanuel took the stage at his first New Hampshire town hall, and the land acknowledgement began.
“We also want to acknowledge that this land is part of the ancestral homeland of the Abenaki people and the Wabanaki Confederacy, whose connection to this place continues today,” said a member of the St. Anselm College Young Democrats.
After his remarks, Semafor asked Emanuel whether that introduction amounted to the sort of “woke” affectation that he was telling Democrats to abandon. He responded that he hadn’t noticed.
“I’m happy they did it,” he said. “That’s their choice. I don’t think I have a vote on it. It doesn’t matter to me.”
Emanuel, 66, has talked his way into 2028 presidential speculation by challenging his party’s college-town liberalism and pitching paid-for ideas. This has thrilled skeptics of post-Biden Democrats, who wonder why no other potential candidate will say, as Emanuel did to Megyn Kelly, that a man cannot become a woman — and then defend that opinion to NPR.
He doesn’t swing at everything. Emanuel’s cultural criticism of the party is usually a wind-up to his economic and foreign policy ideas. When some Democrats denounced Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, warning that his embrace of Cuban communism and criticism of Israel would rub off on their party, Emanuel told Politico that he would go on Piker’s show, and later told Semafor that only reporters were asking.
“I think I stand with the people of America,” Emanuel said. “It’s not front and center. They don’t care, and I don’t care.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
The View From RAHM EMANUEL
David Weigel: If you were a Democratic member of Congress right now, what would you do with an Iran War funding bill?
Rahm Emanuel: Well, the [Pentagon] has asked for $200 billion. That’s a global number. Are we replacing what we lost? Are we building somewhere? Are we building our munitions? At 10% of that cost, I can give back health care to everybody he cut off. The [Affordable Care Act subsidy cut] was $24 billion. You’ve asked for $200 billion for a mistaken war. I can’t tell you how I’m going to vote on it as a stand-alone, but I wouldn’t support it unless we took care of the home front. Ten percent of this request? You eliminate it and spend it on people’s health care.
On funding for Israel: You told Vox that in the future, if they want military funding, they can pay for weapons like anybody else.
Okay, so, let’s be clear: That’s not what I said. What I said was, they’ll no longer get US taxpayer support. They’ll get the same restrictions like any other country that buys any of our weapons. There’ll be a country among countries. I worked for President Obama when he signed the largest military aid package for Israel and the early funding for Iron Dome. It’s a different game now, and you will not get the United States taxpayers to foot the bill for you. Not happening.
Does that limit include funding for Iron Dome?
Look, nobody else has the Iron Dome. There’s a lot of other countries that want it! Now, what you can say about Iron Dome is that it was jointly developed, so that’s something we have to think through. But what I’m saying is, you won’t get taxpayer support anymore. You’re going to pay full price. You don’t have special status.
You’ve spoken out on gender identity and Democrats’ policy there. Trump’s day one executive order, which reversed Biden’s orders, says: The United States recognizes “two sexes, male and female. These sexes are not changeable.” Do you agree with that?
My position is, we’re focusing on the wrong things. We got ourselves wrapped around a set of discussions that are not primary to what we have to do. Just think about this. You spent three years, or four, arguing about transgender players and women in sports. The Olympics just made that decision. I’m not arguing about things that are not relevant to how we move this country forward and getting us all sidetracked in a cultural war that is not core to the mission of this country of education or growing the economy.
Did you agree with that Olympics decision?
Yeah. Not only do I agree with the Olympics: I don’t think men should be playing women’s sports. We’re the party that advocated the push for Title IX. I’m not undermining Title IX, which is the reason the United States women’s team is winning hockey, soccer, worldwide.
I ask because I wonder if the gender EO will be like the Mexico City policy: A Democrat comes in, he switches it, a Republican comes in, he switches it back.
The first thing I’m going to do, if I’m going to do anything, is make sure that we don’t have a culture of corruption. Okay? That’s my priority.
What did you take away from your time, as mayor, working with Elon Musk to build a Chicago hyperloop? In retrospect, do you think: That could have worked?
We have different politics, different views on fundamental things – politics and the country. But he had an innovative technology that I thought could add to Chicago’s competitiveness. So we worked with each other to get something that was beneficial to the city of Chicago, and would have put thousands of people to work and given it an economic competitive edge. And I thought it was an innovation. To his credit, he came up with something nobody else has.
It was also at the same time that we were modernizing the airports, runways, and terminals. We would be the only city with a global terminal. Now, they still haven’t broken ground on the new terminal, and they didn’t do the high-speed. I don’t think that’s good for the city’s economic future.
You’ve called for Democrats to raise the minimum wage. In 2021, when the Senate couldn’t pass a $15 minimum wage, you suggested a $15 minimum wage but with carve-outs so some states could set it lower. Is that still your position?
I’m for more. Now, let’s go through the record, right? One: I raised the minimum wage in the city of Chicago, which had never been done, and I indexed it so it kept going up. Two: In 2021, people were saying, oh, what you need in New York is not what you need in — I’ll pick a state — Utah. Yes, okay. My principle today is: Raise it beyond that rate. The markets are already taking it past $15, and I would raise it again.