Rahm Emanuel Wants to Save the ‘Weak’ and ‘Woke’ Democratic Party Brand

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

Government, Politics, News

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 8 June 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rahm Emanuel has had just about every job in politics under the sun: congressman, White House chief of staff, U.S. ambassador, Chicago mayor, and more. “I’m pretty pragmatic about politics and almost cold to a point in my analysis,” he tells White House bureau chief Dasha Burns. Emanuel, who is widely believed to be considering a run for President in 2028, tells Burns that Democrats should “stop talking about bathrooms and locker rooms and start talking about the classroom.” As the first Jewish mayor of Chicago, he also talks about the recent anti-Semitic attacks and whether America is ready for a Jewish president. Plus, Burns is joined by Politico Magazine editor Elizabeth Ralph to talk about the magazine’s recent Q&A with Miles Taylor in the wake of Trump’s executive order targeting him, and the rise of jawline surgery among DC’s male population. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hi, this is Ava from Vanta. In today's digital world, compliance regulations are changing constantly,
0:07.1	and earning customer trust has never mattered more. Vanta helps companies get compliant fast and stay
0:12.9	secure, with the most advanced AI automation and continuous monitoring out there. So whether
0:17.8	you're a startup going for your first SOC 2 or ISO-27,001, or a growing
0:22.1	enterprise managing vendor risk, Banta makes it quick, easy, and scalable, and I'm not to
0:27.1	saying that because I work here. Get started today at banta.com. Yeah, I am tough because guess what?
0:34.8	The interest groups are pretty powerful, and they do need sometimes somebody that's willing to take a two-by-four and smack them upside the head. And I make no bones about that.
0:44.3	Welcome to The Conversation. I'm Dasha Burns. Every week on this show, I invite one of the most compelling and sometimes unexpected power players in Washington and beyond in for a
0:55.8	check to find out how they're navigating and shaping this incredible era of American politics.
1:02.4	Today, I'm joined by Rahm Emanuel. He was Chicago mayor. He was White House Chief of Staff to
1:08.4	President Obama. He was U.S. ambassador to Japan. He's had just
1:12.0	about every job in politics under the sun, except one. And in recent weeks, Ram has been vocal
1:17.9	about his ideas for how the Democratic Party needs to move forward, fueling speculation that
1:24.1	he'll run for president himself. I wanted to ask Rahm about that, but also get him to
1:29.0	diagnose some of the issues he sees in the Democratic Party and where it needs to go from here.
1:34.3	Here's our interview with Rahm Emanuel. Right now, there is a battle going on within the Democratic
1:42.9	Party. It's generational. It's ideological, it's a divide over
1:46.5	tactics, and right now it's boiling over within the DNC itself. David Hogg, who may or may not
1:53.7	keep his position as vice chair, depending on what happens with this vote coming up next week,
1:58.9	he's really been stirring the pot. And I know you've said that
2:02.2	Hogg's plan to primary, older incumbent candidates in primarily blue safe seats. He decided it's a waste
2:08.6	of resources. But that doesn't really address the heart of his bigger complaint, which is that there's a
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from POLITICO, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of POLITICO and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.