NBC 5 Investigates first revealed the details of this mysterious structure in this story, which we reported on nearly a decade ago.

The road back out of the wilderness begins with messengers and messages that meet the moment.

David Axelrod Floats RAHM EMANUEL For DNC Chair After Harris Defeat

Democratic strategist David Axelrod is pushing for U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel to become the new chair of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). “If they said, ‘Well, what should we do?…

The former Chicago mayor is already on the hustings, finding new ways to attack Trumpism from the center.

The former Chicago mayor is already on the hustings, finding new ways to attack Trumpism from the center.

Podcast Episode · The New Yorker Radio Hour · July 17 · 36m

Rahm Emanuel is all over the op-ed pages, on podcasts and speaking engagements, warning of the dangerous influence of liberals on the Democratic Party. _The Wall Street Journal_ has given him a quasi-regular column to tout his platform. His pitch is a blend of anodyne criticisms of Trump, improbable technical gimmicks that won’t change America’s warped distribution of power, and potshots at liberals. His latest _Wall Street Journal_ column is titled, “Trump’s Research Cuts Play into China’s Hands.” Well, yes. A signature Emanuel proposal is a mandatory retirement age of 75 for presidents, cabinet officials, members of Congress, and federal judges (which would achieve what exactly?). And good luck getting it done. Incidentally, Emanuel is 66 today and would be 69 on Inauguration Day 2029, which means his proposal would limit him to one term. A favorite one-liner is the supposed obsession of liberals with transgender bathrooms. “I am done with the discussion of bathrooms—and we better start having a conversation about the classroom,” he likes to say. At a fundraiser in Birmingham, Michigan, he declared, “We weren’t very good in this last election at the kitchen table … The only room we occupied in the house was the bathroom—and it’s the smallest room in the house.” This tactic, aping Republican talking points, allows Emanuel to duck where he stands on more urgent economic issues where regular working people are being crushed by the power of Emanuel’s Wall Street allies, which won’t be fixed by such Emanuel proposals as better targeting of the investment tax credit. In March, Politico’s Adam Wren followed Emanuel around on a factory tour in Michigan and wrote a puff piece titled, “Democrats have a Rahm Emanuel Problem.” The smitten Wren declared, “His campaign is likely to be a rolling Sister Souljah moment for the Democratic Party’s left-leaning orthodoxy, particularly on social issues. His pugilism and his critique of the party’s leftward lurch will create a gauntlet his would-be rivals will have to navigate.” Except that Emanuel, for all of his self-promotion, doesn’t even register on presidential preference polls. His is a candidacy for president of the _Wall Street Journal_ editorial page—and nowhere else. Emanuel has been cagey and disingenuous about whether he is running, telling a questioner at the annual Milken conference last week, “If I were running for president, I wouldn’t announce it here.” On June 5, he will begin a bicycle tour of New Hampshire (of all places), cycling 113 miles from Portsmouth to Hanover and talking to voters along the way. “I just feel like this gives me the chance to see New Hampshire up close before all the craziness (of the presidential primary) starts,” Emanuel told Yahoo News, adding that New Hampshire is lovely in June. Sure. But Emanuel’s timing is terrible. As primaries keep demonstrating, the corporate wing of the Democratic Party keeps getting its clock cleaned. PACs associated with crypto and AI and Israel keep finding that money can’t buy you love. This dynamic will only increase as more and more rank-and-file Democrats get engaged in electoral battles. #### Today On TAP This story first appeared in our free _Today On TAP_ newsletter, a weekday email featuring commentary on the daily news from Robert Kuttner and Harold Meyerson. Sign up Despite all the money that corporate Democrats spend to take over the nominal party of the people, they are losing altitude while authentic leaders like Zohran Mamdani and Graham Platner combine personal charisma with a compelling narrative and policy ideas that would make a real difference. Emanuel epitomizes everything that’s wrong with corporate Democrats. And it’s worth recalling his own rise. He began as a White House fundraiser and staffer for Bill Clinton, where he was a champion of Clinton’s balanced budget agenda. In late 1998, Emanuel’s White House contacts helped him get a lucrative job in the Chicago office of the investment banking firm Wasserstein Perella & Company, where he would make more than $18 million in just two and a half years, and even more Wall Street contacts, before running for a seat in Congress in 2002. By 2006, after serving just two terms, he became head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, where his strategy was to recruit corporate Democrats to run for Congress and raise lots of corporate money. He made sure that they would take seats on the House Financial Services Committee, the better to raise even more corporate money. He then became Barack Obama’s chief of staff, where he was on the wrong side of the fiscal and regulatory issues that led Obama to be a far more centrist president than he might have been, paving the road to Trump. When Barney Frank, as the Financial Services committee chair, was working to pass what became the Dodd-Frank bill in 2010, Emanuel had larded up the committee with so many corporate Democrats that Frank had lost control of his own committee, resulting in watered-down reform legislation. The leader of the corporate Democrats on the committee was Emanuel’s close ally Melissa Bean of Illinois, who will be returning to Congress, one of the few corporate Democrats this year to win a primary, in a fractured field. Emanuel went on to be elected mayor of Chicago, where he had a badly blemished two terms, and then was appointed by Joe Biden as ambassador to Japan. I can’t prove it, but since there was no love lost between Biden and Emanuel, the appointment had all the hallmarks of a phone call to Biden from one Barack Obama. Emanuel, as a prospective corporate Democrat presidential nominee, is bad news. The good news is that he is likely to be trounced. ## READ MORE ### Rahm Emanuel’s Suspiciously Timed Stock Trades Multiple transactions seem tied to specific activity undertaken while the possible DNC chair candidate was U.S. ambassador to Japan. by Daniel Boguslaw November 19, 2024 ### Biden Admin Hypes Growing Asian Market for American Gas Biden officials are hawking an Alaska pipeline and gas export complex long seen as uninvestable. They promise skeptical investors sustained market access to Asia. by Lee Harris May 24, 2023 ### Rahm Emanuel’s Gas Pipeline The Biden administration is promoting a new liquefied natural gas complex on the Pacific Coast, with expanded subsidies from the bipartisan infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act. by Lee Harris May 17, 2023 ### Before you go. I hope that you found this article interesting and thought-provoking. The reason we’re able to publish stories like this — free of programmatic ads and never behind a paywall — is because readers like you step up to support our work. The _Prospect_ doesn't answer to advertisers or billionaire owners. We answer to you and to our commitment to pursuing the truth, wherever that leads us. Independent, reader-supported journalism is critical at a time when the free press is under assault. If you believe this kind of reporting should exist and remain free to read, we hope you'll consider chipping in. Every contribution, however modest, makes a real difference. Donate Now **David Dayen** Executive Editor