Rahm Emanuel on 2026 Midterms and Politics in the Trump Era
Up First from NPR
NPR
4.6 • 59K Ratings
🗓️ 22 January 2026
⏱️ 53 minutes
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Democrat Rom Emanuel has seen many elections and has advice for this year's. |
| 0:06.7 | This is a referendum election. Keep it focused on the rubber stamp of Republican Congress to President Trump. |
| 0:12.5 | What does he think Democrats are doing right and wrong? It's a special edition of Up First from NPR News. |
| 0:20.8 | Emmanuel is a Democratic Party insider with a critique of the Democratic Party. |
| 0:25.3 | Republicans have walked away from public education, abandoned it. And Democrats have abandoned |
| 0:30.4 | accountability and standards. What did he learn about education from a Republican-dominated |
| 0:34.7 | state? Also, how did Democrats lose corporate America, |
| 0:38.4 | even though many executives worried about Trump? |
| 0:40.5 | You're watching from the sideline, |
| 0:42.3 | a nation being destroyed and walking away from the rule of law. |
| 0:45.5 | Stay with us for a talk with Rahm Emanuel. |
| 0:54.0 | Rom Emanuel has been involved at every level of government. |
| 0:57.8 | He was a Democratic leader in Congress, President Obama's chief of staff, mayor of Chicago, |
| 1:03.1 | and President Biden's ambassador to Japan. |
| 1:05.8 | Now he's thinking about a run for president, which gives him a platform to promote a particular idea of the Democratic Party. |
| 1:13.5 | We sat down to talk to him about everything. |
| 1:16.3 | Welcome to our studios. Thanks for coming by. |
| 1:18.2 | Thank you. |
| 1:19.2 | I want to begin with the Prime Minister of Canada. |
| 1:22.7 | Good. |
| 1:23.2 | Which is a sentence that has never been said at the beginning of an interesting podcast before. |
| 1:26.7 | That's where the Prime Minister wants to begin. |
... |
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