Rahm Emanuel is Not NOT Running for President

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I asked him about whether he's running for president. You'll hear his answer. It's a little noncommittal, but the vibe suggests he is. We had a ranging conversation. We talked about why he thinks the Democratic Party lost in 2024, how we can fix our brand and put forward a platform that actually wins back the voters we lost to Donald Trump. We also geeked out on some foreign policy. We talked about how Democrats should adjust their policy towards Israel in the wake of the war in Gaza, whether it was right for the Trump administration to bomb Iran. We talked about China. We talked about Rahm's time as ambassador to Japan, and then how, with the benefit of hindsight, he views some of the more controversial kind of Obama-era counterterrorism policies like drones. It was fun to talk to Rahm. It was fun to mix it up. We had to agree to disagree at a bunch of different points, but I think you will find it interesting, and he certainly has a vision and view for where the party should go, and he is hitting the road to make that known, and I think you'll enjoy it. So, without further ado, here's Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel, great to see you. Nice to see you. First question is- You haven't aged a bit. I'm trying. Is me interviewing you as weird for you as it is for me? It's a little out-of-body experience that I have to be nice at this point. Yeah. Yeah. I'm used to staffing you, maybe scurrying away, hiding in the back of a meeting. Let's just say this. To prepare for this, I had to do about two hours of meditation. Good. Good. I hope it was mindful. All right, so the Atlantic recently ran a big profile of you by a great reporter, Ashley Parker. The headline was Rahm Emanuel, dot, dot, dot, for president, question mark. That's a question a lot of people are asking. Are you running for president? I haven't decided. I'm out talking to people, hearing what they have to say, giving some of my ideas on, take a couple subjects, as like I recently announced, that I think we should follow Australia and ban social media apps for kids 16 and younger. And I think it's, you know, you're either, when it comes to adolescence, going to have an adult raise a child, or you're going to have an algorithm. And right now the algorithms are winning and parents feel hopeless, helpless in this case. And that has struck a nerve. I have talked about, which is something I care about, and you know this from when I ran for mayor, the reason is we have two thirds of our kids, or 50% of our kids are not reading and doing math at grade level, lowest in 30 years. You know more about the president's position on windmills than you know what he wants to do to fix that. And you haven't heard from any governor about calling an emergency meeting. I've laid out a case of what K through eight should be, get back to the fundamentals on reading and math, an hour and 15 minutes on the topics, it's a type of support, but fundamentally reform high school. We in Chicago did, you get a B average, first city, free community college. You earn it with a B average. Second, bring college classes into high school, so kids through dual credit, dual enrollment, advanced placement, international baccalaureate, 50% of the kids in Chicago are graduating with college credit. And then third, you can't earn your high school degree without showing a letter of acceptance on college, community college, or branch of the armed forces, or a vocational ed. Every child will not just walk, but they'll tell you where they're walking to. And we fund, and we got 98% compliance in Chicago, but we have to fundamentally change our education, both reading and math, and what high school is about, so we can give everybody a shot at the future. And then the most important is making the American dream more affordable and accessible. And as I talk about this, if people react the way I think they're reacting to date, and everybody's nice right now, but the rubber hasn't really met the road, then I'll do it. If I have something to say, in a way to say it, that I think strikes a chord, that I think not only with the public, but I think addresses what I think are the challenges, and I want to talk about later on, having been away from the United States for three years, I learned a lot about seeing America from a distance that I couldn't see right here in the arena, I'll do it. So I can't- The 2006 Obama kind of book tour, vibe check campaign swing that I think ultimately got him. Some of us were winning the house back, but yes, that. You were very busy. Some of us didn't have time to read that book. Pushing around stories about Jack Abramoff and Mark Foley, deep cuts for the nerds out there. Okay, speaking of presidential campaigns, the DNC has been working on this autopsy report about what happened in 2024. Apparently they're going to spike that thing and never release it. Curious what you think about that, but more importantly, why do you think we lost in 2024? First to the first part, I'm kind of like the middle child. So I'll give a, there's kind of two camps here. Let me give you a two and a half camp here. I wouldn't release it now because right now you have the Republicans on the run on healthcare and I wouldn't divert that. We kicked their butts down in Miami. It was a mayor's race. I was there and the Republicans are flipped out. I wouldn't change the story. I do think the report has to be public because I think the only way to get right in 2028 is to understand what went wrong in 2024. Those of us like you and I who are addicts about this and want to know the information, and I think it's important, put it out, kind of in a slow area, end of the year. Those of us who care will read it and digest it. But right now the Republicans are scurrying out of Washington hoping nobody noticed that in a period of the fact that people are worried about healthcare costs, theirs are going to jack up 20%. Why would you want to change that narrative? So you're saying like punt it a little bit, but don't kill it. I wouldn't even punt it. I would like do an onsite kick, but I would move it. New Year's Day release. Yeah, and you and I and others will read it and understand it and we'll grapple with it. But right now I don't want to take the spotlight off the Republicans. So I'm kind of of, it's not an either or choice, it's a when choice. That's kind of where I'm at. And my thing is with the Republicans running in the dark of night out of Washington, nail them and don't change it. Make sure that by the time they come home and do a couple of town halls, all they get is healthcare. Okay, now number two. In 2024, this is where I'm hoping the meditation kicks in so I calm down. We'll evaluate whether I really did my Zen, okay? So I have kind of three things that I think you have to evaluate. And I do think contrary to CW, that 2024 was winnable. Even with a 70% countries on the wrong track, not a good candidate, not a good campaign and clearly not a good message. You could- Pre or post Biden? I'm talking about, well, post. Okay. Kamala Harris gets the nomination. Biden-Harris is down eight. Within a week, because she is change, she goes plus three. And she runs on change and focused on, and her best testing ad is about housing and affordability, et cetera. All the way through, call it the debate. All the high points, convention, debate, she wins. And also kind of getting the baton and making it her own. Somewhere afterwards, they go from the economy and change as she is different than Biden and Trump with a campaign based on democracy as on the ballot, et cetera to being Biden's continuity in his message. And she goes from plus three to minus one and a half. Unbelievably, when I find the person that decided it wasn't the economy and change and wanted to go with continuity and Biden, I'm going to kill him. Wasn't it Joe Biden? I mean, he apparently was like calling her saying, no daylight, kid. Yeah, but here's my view. You're your own person. Right. And you pay for all this, you spent $3 billion. He didn't tell you to run on his message. Number two, that's one. Two, I think in a core message, and I think this for the party. Now, you and I worked together, obviously with President Obama. I worked also with President Clinton. Okay. All three, and this is some of the party has to learn for 2028. The three most successful electoral Democrats had to cross a cultural land to get heard on economics. They had to ground themselves in what I call middle-class values. We shortchange it for President Clinton on sister soldier. President Obama talks about parenting and fatherhood and then deals with his own pastor, right? President Kennedy goes down to Texas and says, I will not be a Catholic president. I will be and take direction from the Pope, but I'll be a president who is Catholic. Okay. Everyone, one side note, President Clinton, the number one topic, 40% of his advertising, primary and general was on, and welfare as we know it, was not on the economy stupid, was not on the middle-class tax cut. And so that is essential terrain. We, in 2024 as a party, get caught up in what I call bathroom access and locker room access, not on classroom excellence. We get caught up on pronouns. We get caught up on a host of subjects. But do we get caught up? Because Kamala Harris barely mentioned like trans issues, trans rights in her campaign. Republicans talked about these issues constantly. They ran $50 million worth of ads attacking her. And I think some people would argue, actually the problem was Democrats didn't fight back and defend and explain our position. Well, for a lot of reasons, mainly because we allowed constituent groups to dictate message. That is not the people that do it. Yes, they made it an issue, but that's a campaign. Okay, your job is to make what you want the issue. You have to not only rebut it, you have to turn it. And we did things, it was a recent report on immigration in the early days in the transition for Biden. And they allowed Washington constituency groups to drive not only policy, but message and then the political consequences. That is also true on a whole host of other cultural subjects. And I'm using culture in a capital C. Yeah, but if you look at the history of successful Democrats, they cross a cultural terrain that gives them a legitimacy to get hurt on the rest. Let me take this message or this point just a further. In 06, as you know, we kind of modeled first ever using people out of not using, but recruiting people out of the national security apparatus to run for office. The tactic of believing that messenger was message was their biography opened up a slew of voters that you'd normally get the mute button on as a Democrat. In the same way on presidential, if you don't look like one, you're grounded where they are in the family room. And two, that you have the strength to take on a member of the family and say, you're wrong. Pastor Wright, sister soldier going on. You can't get heard on the, where you want the campaign to be, which is a dichotomy between who we're fighting for and who the Republicans are protecting. So I hear you. So that's my analysis of 2024. There's other things to kind of go through, but money wasn't the problem. Usually in campaigns, you got $3 billion. Okay. The message and how you operated as a campaign, in my view, and I can say this from a distance, in July and August, I was arguing with the campaign from a distance about calling for a national ban on cell phones in classrooms. And I must've made, so I don't get an illegal, I was doing it in after hours, but I was making tons of calls to anybody that would answer. Couldn't get anybody to move? Yeah. And I'm not saying that would have won it, but it would have given you that cultural edge I'm talking about. I think that's a really interesting point. It's something that hits people directly. I do think, look, I think on immigration, you're right. There was an abject failure to read pretty glaring warning sides, to watch the coverage on Fox News, to see how every day they were focused on the border and it felt like chaos and a crisis and the Biden people didn't move. I do think there's been this emphasis in the wake of 2024 on the suggestion that Democrats ran on trans rights or were constantly talking about the bathroom or were constantly talking about whatever or pronouns. And I just, I don't think that's accurate. And I think it leads to the trans community feeling like they were blamed for a loss that I think was about inflation and economic issues and others. And I think if we, I don't want us to miss the point. And I think that was really the real problem. It's your show, but I just slightly disagree. You can disagree. No, here's why. For one, you come out of your, let's dial, put the clock back a little and look at the video again. We spent two years shutting schools down during COVID, much longer than the science actually grounded. That radicalized people. And people knew it. Yeah. And the moment we opened that school door, we blew open the bathroom door. There was debates about bathroom access. There was debate about locker room access and there was debate about sports. And we were, this is where I disagree. We weren't a party of acceptance. We were a party of advocacy on a set of subjects that weren't core to people. And not that people, I, as somebody who in 2016 as mayor dealt with bathroom access, I just didn't make it primary. But there was, to act like there wasn't heat on these topics and that we were more than silent and we went from trying to create an environment of acceptance to one that was advocating for something. And then there are other cultural issues. Don't put them in boxes. How we were permissive. We were permissive on this topic. We were permissive on immigration. We were permissive on a host of other cultural issues that boxed us in a place that took a whole group of voters that we could have won. And they said, look, you look like, you sound like you're from Mars. Yeah, look, we might've just agreed to disagree. Look, you're right. I think we should. There was heat on this issue, right? Look, I think the right policy approach is basically libertarian, which is let people make their own medical decisions. Let families, parents and kids make their own medical decisions. Get RFK and Dr. Oz the fuck out of my conversation with my doctor. When it comes to sports, of course there's questions of sports fairness, but it's not a one size fits all approach. Let's let local communities figure that out. Then there's just this question of empathy, right? And communities feeling heard. And imagine you're, look, think back to high school. Like I was a nerdy kid. Sometimes you feel left out. You feel different than others. Imagine you're like a trans kid and you turn on the TV. And Donald Trump is mocking trans athletes like every day at rallies. We have to fight for those kids. And taking ballet in the seventies. And trust me, I was the only male in that class. Okay, I'm about an accepting culture without becoming an advocacy culture. We are gonna disagree to disagree because I think you are underestimating how much that became a brand and a profile knowing full well that the other side was gonna use it. Pod Save America is brought to you by CookUnity. Festive holiday favorites are available for a limited time and only in select CookUnity markets. Like old fashioned glazed holiday ham, ultimate holiday turkey dinner, maple whipped sweet potatoes and their candied yam cake. Sounds pretty good. Yeah, I need that. I love CookUnity. Bob's Barbecue has a lot of CookUnity stuff. They've got some pork, they got some chicken, they got a pulled pork sandwich. Delicious. That's really good. Who is this, Bob? I don't know. I was like, I'm like, are they here? Are they in LA? Who knows? But anyway, they deliver CookUnity to me and it's delicious. CookUnity meals are delivered fully cooked. Just heat up in as little as five minutes. 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I think we'd both agree on that. Sketch out for me like the Rahm Emanuel vision for the Democratic Party. How do we fix this challenge we have? Because we're not doing a lot of that right now. No, well, one is the nominee will, I'm not, well, let me back up. The nominee will go a long way that you can't go without a nominee and a primary fight. Before that, there was a couple of rules about the different, people conflate 2026 and 2028. 2026 is a referendum election on them. They own the House, the White House and the Congress. When you have that, like in 2010, 2018, 1994 or 2006, that is a referendum election. You have a high turnout about the party out of power. We have seen in every election across the country in the last year, exactly that. Independents are gonna break two to one for the party out of power. We have seen it in every election in every part of the country since November of 2024. And there'll be a low turnout among Republicans, which we have seen in every election for the last year. That is what this election is about. And like we did in 06, somewhere in the spring, you announce a, like we did a six in 06, you should have announced a six in 2026. Some modicum of a minimum wage, things that we're gonna work on, healthcare cost control, things that actually reflect the message of affordability and accessibility and income growth. I actually think one of the argument, one topic if I could do a shout out, your groceries are up, housing costs are up, utility rates are up, healthcare costs are up. You know what's not up? People's paycheck. And we need to, if one person in this state is getting a trillion dollar pay package, how about giving people a minimum wage increase across the country? They haven't had an increase in wages. And with all this technology coming and productivity coming, well, the contract calls for an increase in wages. So if other things, all right. So that's a 2026 referendum. 2028 is a choice election. Now, one of my things that I think is a problem for the party is we've allowed Donald Trump to blind us. And what I mean by that is everything we're doing is about, and there's a lot to fight Donald Trump on. He's doing a lot that's damaging to the core of America. But we have to be able to also prove that we can fight for America as much as we are fighting with every fiber and every vigor of our body in fighting Trump. And that centers around in my core view, both on a message standpoint and then what the brand of the party is, that the American dream, and you and I were talking about our kids earlier before, it's not affordable and it's not accessible to the broad base of America. It's inaccessible. And for those of us that over our course of our careers have made it, our kids, one way or another, are gonna be okay. But it can't be the American dream when only 10% of the kids of America get access to it. The rules, when people say, I feel like I can't win, there's a reason, because you can't win. It is skewed. skewed towards Tommy and Rahm and our families for our heads out we win tails you lose yeah and our message and the truth of the matter is and I think Tommy you and I read a lot of history etc the moment the American dream becomes unaffordable is when our democracy becomes unstable if you think the system is rigged for your failure you're gonna get pretty angry agreed and to the party is about fighting for that home and the contract is not really hard good job on a home safe for your retirement safe for your kids education and be able to afford health care that that is not really a lot to ask for out of a country and we don't have that now we have to be honest we didn't get here overnight it was not a Republican vote it's happened over the last 30 years each thing incrementally over a period of time the ladder got pulled up the door got shut and double latches were put on and you can see there's never been a greater concentration of wealth in this country in a period of time both on home and on the stock market I mean the two things they generate well like now and the idea that the next generation just literally gets handed their entire life's income plus just handed to him and the tax code encourages you to do it it's crazy it's good um and so to me that's the core and it would open up to a group of voters over a period of time and it's not a one election thing every day you're doing sweat activity pushing this and I think knowing that is you know the joke is paranoid people have enemies that system is not only skewed you are rather instruct you know striving to get into a status you're struggling to maintain it and there you are getting the shaft you look when I left college I earned less than $20,000 and I was able to get an apartment today my son has worked in the Navy leaves college he gets without going in much north of what I got but he gets a housing statement and without that housing stipend his life would be more no more difficult a lot of people are making three times what their parents made and they're stuck in the basement this is a lived they're not paranoid this is and they don't and and the next thing is if mom and I want to sell the house the kids coming with the house because they can't get out of there they can't afford an apartment where I was making a third less than what kid my own kids but other kids are making and I could afford to live on my own where today kids cannot they have to have three or four roommates or they have to live in their parents basement this is insane so that's what I think is the right I think that is how you get right with the American people you make it core to who you are what you are what you're gonna fight about I think there are other things that if we're strong at home and I say this going back to what I said about Japan I learned a lot about Japan learned a lot about the Indo-Pacific being away from America 8,000 miles in 12 hours I got a chance to learn a lot about America probably more about America than any other thing and we have nothing China is doing scares me it's what we are not doing at home China doesn't decide whether 50% of our kids can't do reading and math at grade level China doesn't decide whether we declare war on our research universities while they're racing ahead China doesn't decide whether we don't do all the above on energy and but only pick oil and gas is and we're gonna bet everything on it we have made there are challenges other things we have to do but the things we are not doing at home to take care of the home front is making us weaker both at home and abroad that was and it's and it's really becoming at a higher and higher price to us look I think I think that is the right message I think people feel like the system is rigged because it is rigged you're hearing it you're seeing in polling you're seeing in focus groups like you know swing left is knocking on doors the number one thing they're hearing is not necessarily affordability it's like the system is broken it doesn't you know burn it all down and so that that leads to the question like look I think on paper you are it's hard to argue anyone else is better prepared to be president you've been in served in Congress you were a mayor you were an ambassador you were the White House chief of staff like literally no other job that a White House chief of staff could prepare you to the job of president right but I think politically that you're gonna encounter voters who are like fuck Washington burn that place down burn what they've done down over the last you know 30 years and they might blame you for NAFTA the finance things we are response to the financial crisis in the Obama years you know things Congress did like how do you how do you respond to that how do you deal with a couple things one is you're not wrong about there's let me say that there's an axis one way of saying new which is a bigger bigger kind of call about change is generational young versus old the other one is strength versus weak which is a part of the Brad party grant and having somebody with strength would be different for the party as you all know when it came to taking on the financial industry who got the call and who got the ball when it came to taking on the insurance companies for kids health care who got the call who got the ball who was the first municipality to sue the pharmaceutical industry or opiates who has had the toughest regulations as it relates to tobacco and kids who took on the national gun lobby so strength would be a whole new quality to the Democratic Party and second is as it relates to the financial industry I would just say some of us were advocating for Old Testament justice I don't want to relitigate recall okay some of us said I wish you'd won that okay well no well actually this actually is a good lesson and I just did this yesterday with a bunch of high school kids in in Vegas Old Testament justice well no in the sense of you know the president in the Oval Office are two choices bad and worse right there's never good and bad yeah the people that were advocating health care first we're not wrong that every day that you didn't do it is a day you probably can't get it done those of us who are arguing for taking on the financial industry and making the banks and insurance comes your enemy we're actually we're right both on the economics but more importantly right also on the politics which is you needed an enemy of an interest group the American people were angry at in the end of the day he got 300 plus like October volts he makes the big decision he picked health care we did get health care but there was a political cost called the Tea Party and none of these are a hundred percent right now and zero wrong I do believe that we should have taken on the fight after both tarp the bailout for the banks insurance companies and then after the Recovery Act of 1.6 trillion dollars to collectively and that's when 1.6 trillion was real money the political the culture of the country needed a Old Testament justice and you can't do you couldn't do both and the president said of the three kids cap-and-trade health health care and financial reform his favorite child was health care that was his joke that Saturday yeah and he wasn't wrong we got it done but don't think that it doesn't come with a consequence both in a sense of trade-off yeah because to pass health care the insurance companies had to sit on the same table that was the lesson from Hillary care fighting banks would have been a better fight that said health care has become the kind of the beaches of Okinawa for the Republican Party yeah I want to ask you one kind of LA question before we get LA yeah you're in LA at the moment I think you got a relative who works in the movie business I think he's like a PA or something I try to forget that he's my brother so what do you make of this battle between Paramount and Netflix to buy Warner Brothers and in particular like President Trump's efforts to inject himself into the process and pick the winner like I'm imagining 2010 Barack Obama calling up Warner Brothers and saying like you must green light the town before we get to this time how many times a day do you say to yourself if we had done something every day okay like that before 10 times before 9 a.m. yeah yeah I can't believe I spent $300,000 creating a blind trust as chief executive I mean as chief of staff I can't believe I did that yeah and I look at this and also another couple hundred for ambassador I look at people coming out of prison already nominated but like what what am I the schmuck in the room we all were funny story I give the head of the ethics at the State Department you know four months out you have to do an exit ethics report I said I will do this but you must be the Maytag woman man I mean is nobody filling up I look at all these people never filled out a financial form you're chasing me four months afterwards crazy yeah okay now like that thanks for the third so one this let me go where I think the problem is this is the Roberts Supreme Court I blame them because with their decisions about FTC the security exchange that you don't you know their view of the unitary power of the presidency means that the president is the ultimate judge and he will insert himself and it won't be the rule of law and it won't be a non-political independent body yeah I mean nobody believes this just a part of antitrust division no okay so they rock Noah Feldman in Bloomberg had a fabulous piece yes yesterday that all the other justices at the Court of Appeal you know Circuit Court Court of Appeals etc have done a fabulous job and the Supreme Court the leaders have abandoned the rank-and-file judges on the field this is their fault I'm not a fan of Trump so I don't want this to be me he has a permission slip to insert himself and all the guardrails about concentrating power in either one person or one of the three branches government have been eradicated forget the Congress because the Republicans have put their entire manhood into a lockbox this is Roberts fault and nobody should kid themselves the Supreme Court has made a horrendous decision about the balance of power in a country that's based on the rule of law and you got a decision here and the president's inserting himself not only against CNN and not only on what he's rewarding friends that have rewarded him and he's gonna weigh in yeah this is not a pop quiz do you forget that you and I I mean whatever I feel about Donald Trump you have given a the president whoever he or she may be a permission slip to have an opinion that's more powerful than the law this is for originalists or a court system that base thinks of themselves as richest this is not anywhere close to the original founding framers of the Constitution about how power exercises itself in a political system I agree yeah so everybody's I mean I look I've read about Netflix versus Paramount and the concentration not gonna and I don't you know I I don't know but what I do know is that the Supreme Court has allowed the opinion of a president to outweigh the law in a dramatic way not just and I'm putting aside Donald Trump there will be another decision of a concentration of power economic and the Supreme Court has given a green light to whoever's in the presidency to make that decision not the laws and the interests of the country and we do have to prowl I think of myself as a free-market capitalist and on one side you have Marxism on the other side you have monopolists and right now the monopolists are winning because that's Donald Trump's economic philosophy yeah and he gets to decide because he's also gonna like he's doing today and I've talked about this a year ago on Ezra Klein Joe corruption is gonna be the issue and and I actually think the reason MAGA voters feel the way they do is because they've been trade he rather than worried about their paycheck in their checkbook he's worried about his paycheck in his checkbook and they know it yeah I think right look I think point well taken on the courts I also do blame Amazon a little bit for paying 40 million dollars for some boring ass Melania documentary which is self-evidently a bribe yeah but you know broad daylight we'll call it what it is I guess no I mean look okay this is and I'm gonna do a shout out to the American people the Roberts court is corrupt corporate America is spineless Republicans in Congress and they both branches are useless so we're down to the judgment of the American people and thank God for them I know a lot of people in our party all the American people why do they vote for this guy they're gonna issue a judgment in 2026 and I'm very confident unless something dramatic happens it is going to be a verdict of guilty on the president the Republican Party and thank God for them because they are the thin blue line that's gonna put a stop to Donald Trump and pause it where Roberts the Republicans corporate leaders titans of media are useless yeah and I'm trying to make sure that this gets through the FCC what I'm saying because they are useless and I could say some other things I used to say when I was chief of staff and you walked in I cannot stand what they have done yeah I agree every one of them have failed the test of integrity pot save America is brought to you by AG 1 AG 1 is the daily health drink that combines your multivitamin pre and probiotics superfoods and antioxidants into one simple green scoop it's one of the easiest things you can do to support your body every day this time of the year with the chaos of the holiday season it's more important than ever to be proactive about supporting your immune health especially if you have kids because they're all getting sick and all their friends are sick and all their friends friends are sick and then everybody's sick so true they g1 you can be confident you're 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York Times a couple weeks back he recommended among other things that the US cut off military support to Israel support US recognition of a Palestinian state and refused to take AIPAC money curious what you think of those recommendations and then like what changes you would propose if any so as you tell me you know this in 2009 there's only one person the Prime Minister of Israel calls a self-hating Jew publicly you and Axelrod right yeah Axelrod's pissed that he never gets for the recognition I said you're not that good at you David you're also not named around Israel publicly and he's also in his book the only person he attacks in the book is me his own book what he's at you for just that I was anti-israel you know the same stuff got it and if you remember and I think you do that battle also in the Oval Office where literally the president had to tell the Prime Minister I'm the president lay off a rom and so on and so forth I have a photo of it actually because we went toe-to-toe over the housing expansions and settlements expansion in West Bank yeah so here's let me before it's just about Israel let's talk about the Middle East and I'll talk about Israel in that context I think it's the context that matters Israel has never been more strategically secure since Ben-Gurion was dancing the horror in 1948 and Tel Aviv but more politically vulnerable I had never in my life that I thought that a Prime Minister of the state of Israel would lead Jews back into the ghetto and that's what's happening in Israel that's what's happening in the world and that's what's happening around the world Jews can't go to Europe and participate in Eurovision while the UAE is holding a hosting the world financially in the f1 he has literally in the way he has executed pieces of the last not just the last two years but over his time isolated Jews in Israel the fact of the matter is this is the best strategic terrain Israel's had since the founding you have peace in Jordan with Israel you have peace with Egypt mm-hmm Syria and Lebanon basically call it non-belligerence you can use whatever label but it is in more secure place than ever before Iran is on their back foot I do want to spend time on this I think one of the most unreported stories right now is the collapse of Iran not just strategically imploding in society you don't really have in the near geography a strategic threat second when we were starting in politics the Gulf was all about just oil today they want to be part of the world economy which is what Israel's ace is the UAE Bahrain Oman Kuwait Saudi Arabia want to use their petrodollars to be part of the global economy and their citizens to be part of what that is an invitation for Israel and they're pissing it away with this Prime Minister Rabin understood that and he was a statesman and I say because we're on the 30-year eve of his assassination to seize a moment it's look these are not easy decisions you have to make compromises and then and then kind of leap into the strategic not only unknown but try to shape the events to your face you have the Gulf countries ready to accept Israel as part of the region which has been the dream the nation among nations since its founding and be you have strategic stability and you have seen and you are perceived as a strategic superpower in the region that is the and an economic superpower that is an incredible that is as good a chessboard as Israel has ever had in 77 years and there is nothing that this Prime Minister has done whether it's with Lebanon Syria or the situations they have done that opened up the Gulf to seize that moment that the IDF created now I would do things that are very clear as it relates to Israel you've crossed the line on the settlements unacceptable I said this when I was ambassador to Japan to members of the Biden administration any settler who's involved in any violence on the West Bank is on a no-fly zone put him on all the flies on nothing would make them more upset that they can't come go to Brooklyn go to any part of America or go to your just no-fly zone Biden sort of started some of that process but I was Trump walked it back right you want to go further okay I without calling it out there are people that know that I want to go much further got to you know and you and I worked on this president Obama signed the largest security defense package in Israel's history I would continue that but there are going to be restraints and boundaries on that and third you're either going to make the most of this strategic opportunity but you will not hold Americans foreign policy you will not hold our strategic interests I think all the others in Trump administration that basically want to just be a hemispheric you do not want to give up our position in the Middle East I think that's a foolish idea and strategically flawed and I would say this is the this is where we're going and you can either be a part of it or you can be on your own so if you want mr. prime minister you want a Sparta nation let me not stop you but you're gonna realize that's a losing bet well but it isn't I mean like a lot of people sort of default to the two-state solution right but Netanyahu says he opposes a Palestinian state the Knesset just voted to annex the West Bank we've been dealing with this right-wing government in Israel for 15 years it's only getting worse it's it's like you know Ben Gavir It's like, you know, Ben Gavir and Basil Smotrich are now like extremists who are members. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has no credibility. It's been undercut. Yeah. They don't get a pass because they missed three from Camp David with Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat to what Omar offered him six years later. It's all the same. But they have missed many opportunities and Israel has since those times and other events from bombs in Disney World Square to October 7th have just legitimized their position of non-dialogue. But it's not a choice. Right. And so, like, I guess what I'm getting at is it feels like, look, a lot of Democrats in the U.S. just say, oh, we need a two-state solution. We need to negotiate that. It feels like that's just a way to punt and will perpetuate the status quo. At some point, don't we need to use our leverage where we can to try to push or pressure Netanyahu to make better decisions? Well, here's the one thing, and since Netanyahu's decided to play in American politics, I have no problem discussing, but the first step on that journey, and I give Naftali Ben-David, the former prime minister that was kind of the one prime minister interrupting Bibi's 17-year run, is legitimizing the Arab Israelis to be part of the coalition government. They were. They had 10 seats. That would reduce the stigma, but also legitimize the Arab participant, I mean, one-third of the population, not one-third, 20% of the population is Arab Israelis. That's first step. Second, there are boundaries. And this was also part of the housing fight that, I mean, Mitchell and I were not on the same page. He thought I was too strident about this. At that time, I haven't seen the law since. You used to be able in America to get a tax write-off if you contributed to building settlements in Israel. Eliminate it. I don't know if it has been eliminated, but back then it wasn't. That was my position. Two, you cross the line, totally unacceptable. Three, you're part of any violence, you're on the no-fly zone. You have to impose political, not just economic, but there are some economic costs to violating the two-state solution because, look, there will never be a river to the sea, and there will never be a greater Israel, which is the inverse of the river to the sea. There's the same thing. Both parties have to give up their extremist position and learn how to live together. There is a legitimate concern by Israel in the sense of a Palestinian authority that can be a legitimate partner with the interest of finding how to work with the state of Israel. You and I sit here in Beverly Hills as we're taping this. Hollywood, sure. Okay, Hollywood. The trauma on Israel post-October 7th... Horrifying, unimaginable. It took us a decade on September 11th. Yes. And you can't... No doubt. If you're navigating a democracy, you can't basically ignore that trauma. I agree. And it's real. It's viscerally real. I agree. Finding a... And there's a sad twist of irony because the kibbutzim on the border of Gaza, when you look at the vote totals, were the most progressive in Israel politics, and they destroyed not just Hamas, but the attacks in Dizengoff going back 20 years, destroyed any center of gravity in Israel for finding a partner for peace. That's just a fact for their psyche and their dynamics of their politics. The history of America with Israel is we do... America does things to create a space for a prime minister to take the risky political steps. Coddling prime minister, saying yes to his actions, is not in Israel's self-interest. That has not worked, and this course will not work. You will not repress the Palestinian aspiration for a state. On the other hand, the Palestinians have to accept a two-state solution, not a river to the sea solution. Would you want to condition military aid so that it's not used in the West Bank, for example? You've seen the videos. I've seen the Smotris handing out American machine guns to extremists in the West Bank. Shouldn't there be some strings attached to that money? A small why, yes. As it relates to the West Bank, et cetera, I get what you're saying. As it relates to the security of Israel and in the relationship, because the biggest conflict right now in Israel is Gaza. It's not kind of Iran, although Iran's a very serious threat, but I'm saying in the sense of hot or Lebanon. Without going this policy, there has to be a cost benefit to making sure that Israel realizes the decisions they make to continually repress a Palestinian aspiration, and we're paying for it. America's paying for it. I think Israel's paying for it through their isolation, both political, strategic, and economically. I mean, look, the Israeli Symphony can't go perform somewhere in Europe, and a singer can't perform somewhere in Europe. Academics can't participate in conferences on biomedicine and some of the great biomedicists and life sciences are being done in Israel, or in AI technology. That isolation's going to come with the consequences, and forget that I said it. I'd like to remind the Prime Minister, Israel's now facing, for the first time, a net emigration. Your best young minds in the areas of science and technology are leaving, and they're going to Berlin, which has its own twist of irony. I said, you want to keep doing this, go ahead, because we're not going to bankroll this, because you're bankrupting your own country, and you have to be... Nothing helps, as somebody who took on Bibi in 2009, when a lot of other people were lip-syncing the talking points out of APEC, nothing helps Israel by saying yes to them automatically. There's a cost to this, and we can't keep covering up that cost. So whether your manifestation of it is restrictions on weapons, I'm finding a series of other things that I think would hit a nerve politically and culturally in Israel, that this is not the cost we should be paying. This is not the Rubicon. I'm not disagreeing with you. The question is, which of these restrictions, costs, would hit the nerve to get them to wake up, because right now they're living in an illusion that there is no choice they have to make. The choice you're making, which you think is no choice, comes with a huge consequence, and I'm not covering that bill for you when I say I, meaning the Americans, anymore. Agreed on that. Last little thing on this. Because we're doing things, if you want to isolate Israel, and you, Mr. Prime Minister, give this stupid speech about Sparta, that's you. We're not going to isolate ourselves. And what you're doing, we're not going to keep covering because we're not going to get isolated with you. That's not how we're doing this score. Last little thing on this. So speaking of Ben Rhodes. Proud to quote President Clinton. Who is the superpower here? The fucking superpower here in Netanyahu. We're going to take a quick break, but before we do, please listen for 30 more seconds. That's your gift to me this holiday season. If you like Crooked Media, if you want to support the work we're doing, please consider becoming a subscriber. Go to crooked.com slash friends. It's the best way you could support what we're doing here. You also get tons of great bonus content, like Polar Coaster from Dan Pfeiffer, where he digs deep into all the polls. He's doing an end of the year wrap up and looking at what all the data might mean going into Trump's lame duck 2026 midterm year. There's also lots of fun shows like Terminally Online. There's bonus behind the scenes stuff. You get lots of great content, including ad-free episodes of your favorite Crooked shows, but also it really helps us as an organization. So crooked.com slash friends. Pod Save America is brought to you by Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Please don't skip this ad. I know you might be tempted, but this really matters. Planned Parenthood is on the front lines every day defending our rights when healthcare is under attack. And right now they need us. Here's why. The Trump administration and Congress have defunded Planned Parenthood. It's a devastating blow to patients and our country's already broken healthcare system. Planned Parenthood health centers are committed to providing care no matter what, but they need your help to do it. Whether you give a little or a lot, your gift says something about who you are. Someone who shows up for what's right, who believes people who need care should be able to get it. Please don't wait. Go to plannedparenthood.org slash defend and give today. It's plannedparenthood.org slash defend. Ben Rhodes wrote in his book that you once jokingly referred to him as Hamas. People on the left have taken this anecdote and interpreted it as showing that you didn't care about Palestinian rights. People on the right seem to think, they like to throw it in Ben's face and suggest you think he was a literal terrorist sympathizer. Do you want to clarify whether in that moment you thought Ben was living in a tunnel somewhere? I still think academia is a tunnel. Well, first of all, you are talking about John Kerry is chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, calls the presidents on the road, he says, Hamas wants to hand me a letter. I said, we'll take it. Fact. Yeah. I said, bring it, bring it back so we can see it as a don't cut off and the communication. And when the, as soon as the president was back, it was a domestic terrorist, I said, I approve this. And he says, good. So that's my background. I, I don't remember that anecdote, but sounds kind of accurate, so it's hard for me to argue about it. Sounds like a harmless joke. I don't know. Well, yeah, it was probably harmless, but obviously it cut a nerve with, with Ben because he remembers it. But look, we had disagreements, which is what you're supposed to have on policy and how best to, the goal of what we were both trying to achieve, and I don't mean just isolating this to Ben and I. It's ironic. Ben would say what he said about me and then BB would say what I said, I think I'm perfectly positioned. You mentioned around a couple of times, do you think president Trump was right to bomb Iran's nuclear sites? The decision, yes, but let me walk back where I think we are. One is we made this threat by all means, both Democrat, Republican presidents have said all options are on the table. Here was an option and you had a chance for once, because if you didn't do it, you definitely would have been shorter than where we are from a strategic setback. I actually think one of the things, Tommy, that's underappreciated right now, and you have a lot of news around Ukraine, you have what China's doing vis-a-vis Japan and or Taiwan right now. I think this split between society and the government in Iran is an underappreciated, underreported story. I don't think three years from now, Iran's going to be what you and I are sitting here today. You have, there's a massive drought where they're talking about moving the capital out of Tehran. Huge drought. I don't know if anybody knows this, but that's not a minor story. Two, there are bars popping up all over the place and the government can't and won't and will not shut them down. Women now are fully dressing and doing whatever they want as it relates, the Hajib law that we talk about from cosmetics, et cetera. Fourth, music concerts that were restricted are happening all over the place. Fifth, there was recently a marathon run in which women were not, were dressing like as if they were any Western city. There is a gulf of legitimacy between the society and the government that is wider than we've ever experienced. Now a lot of people said the revolution or the collapse of the government is right around the corner so that I could also be the 20th wrong predictor. It's in the last dozen years, you've had three separate manifestations of domestic civil unrest. Something is bubbling. You've also had the economic pressure by the West led by the United States and you have given that the government and most importantly the security apparatus failed in its ability to protect the country. I think the religious and you have lastly, I should just say, a head of state who's 80 plus years old, too old and there's a transition of power. All those data points always historically but in this point to something dramatically about to happen. Yeah, I don't know, it doesn't mean that it goes reformist and I should probably add the president of Iran just said, I can't fix this. Yeah, that was a weird quote. That was, yeah. You and I would have grabbed the president by the collar and pulled him back into the oval. We're not saying that. No, I don't know what happened with the truth medication but we're changing the dosage here. No, I think so. Something is not good in Denmark, to quote William Shakespeare. So something is amiss there and it's not on anybody's radar screen as like the last proposal between the Russians and Ukrainians for good reason but something long, short and medium term is happening there of massive significance where the relationship between society and government is under a fundamental change. Does it lead to revolution? I don't know but when you have that transition of power, there's going to be a break. That's my prediction. I'm just on the Iranian front. I mean, do you think that's a wrong analysis? No, I think it's an interesting analysis. I'm watching as closely as you are. I just think on the nuclear front, I mean, the tale of the tape is you're right. Every Democrat, Obama included, Republican said, all options are on the table that Obama cuts the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal. The US pulls out of it unilaterally even though the Iranians are complying. His own staff, his national security team is like, don't do this. This is making us safer. He gets into these talks with the Iranians, sort of this iteration this last year. He says he wants to cut a deal but now the Trump administration is like bragging to the press about how they were actually lying and they were just saying they wanted more talks to give the Israelis covers to go bomb the shit out of them and that we bombed. That's crazy, yeah. I just worry about American credibility because who's going to cut a deal with us? Well, here's the thing though. Let's take the credibility and thread it. I happen to think when President Obama said to Syria that you're going to cross a red line and we didn't execute on that, it hurt America's credibility. You have a situation, Israel's de-bombing what they're doing, et cetera. We always have said all options on the table. Had we not chosen to do that, I think American credibility would have taken a hit. I'm not wrong about, look, I supported the agreement with Iran. It's a 51-49 but I leaned on the 51. It was not a 80-20, it wasn't a 60-40. That's just my view. It was a close call. It was a bet that if you stymied the nuclear peace that this thing that I'm talking about that's happening now because of the demographics of Iran, the youth who wanted to be part of the world would desire. That was the basic bet. Now what it didn't do was deal with the Shiite crescent from Hezbollah to Syria, et cetera. What it didn't do was deal with the technology on missile delivery, which are false to that agreement. There were blemishes on that agreement. They were part of it. Look, every agreement- Did it do everything? Yeah. I don't know if you know this, but Obamacare didn't do everything on health care. You just basically, you make a decision that this slice of the loaf of the bread is good if not good enough. Those were two things that were big problems. You had to make a decision, were they problems enough not to do it? That's why I say the president was right to do it, but I'm conscious of it. It's a 51-49 call. That was his option on the table, but he always said to get there, the military kinetic option had to be there. There was a chance given that what Iran was doing in the final three months prior to that of not participating in the international community and not really opening up the full kimono, you could set back their nuclear timeline. Again, that too, the bombing, was a 51-49 decision, if you ask me, I think it was the right decision. I'm just worried we're going to be doing it again pretty soon, but we'll see. That's actually the two things I'd keep a flashing light as Gaza stalls and Israel gets filled with their hubris, specifically the prime minister, and not have the courage to make the most of the strategic window he has that the IDF gave him. I worry about his decision, what he's going to do with Hezbollah up in Lebanon, and what he's going to do that he thinks he has an opportunity to continue to keep Iran on their back heel. I do worry about that. That's why I think America's power is not to say us closely aligned, but here is our position and anytime you're going to endanger our strategic position, that's when we have a gulf between us. It's not our job to stay close to you, it's your job to stay close to us. I'm going super long, so you tell me when you got to go. I got to catch a flight. What time is it? 1056. Okay, you get like, we're going to do five, no more than 10 minutes, but five minutes. Okay, great. All right. Fast round. Let's go. World. Globe. So you were Biden's ambassador to Japan. Rumor has it. You're still an ally. You're still an ally. You had doubts, Tommy. You did not think that I could go three years, let alone three months as an ally. God bless you. There's a lot of turnover over there. Did you notice that? So they have a new prime minister, Sanae Takeuchi. She's the first woman to serve as prime minister. Interesting person, ultra conservative, kind of wonky nationalists like Shinzo Abe protege. But she made waves right out of the gate by saying that if the Chinese invade Taiwan, that is like a so-called existential threat, which would allow Japan under their constitution to deploy troops and use force. That didn't go over well in Beijing. There led to this war of words, diplomatic crisis. And then earlier this month, Tokyo says Chinese fighter jets locked radar on their F-15s for like 30 minutes. And it took the United States 10 days, two weeks to say to the long pole, our most entrusted ally that we're going to stand behind you. Which is crazy. With a B-52 and some exercises. Which is crazy. Yes. And I'm wondering... And everybody in the rest of the region was watching the United States fumble the ball. Well, so that's kind of the bigger point. Like, first of all, was this a rookie move on her part? How did you read what she said? And also, how worried are we that we got like rising China, increasingly nationalist and militarized Japan? And then the U.S. who seemed willing to just like sell out Taiwan and walk away if we can get an economic deal from the Chinese. I don't know. You just saw the military package by the president. That was pretty robust on the... From Congress, right? It did go $11 billion. It was kind of robust. Yes, it was. You might be right. I thought it was announced by the administration. Maybe I'm... I could be wrong. Okay. So let's go on the core here. I don't think her move was rookie. She actually enunciated what had been the policy. And I actually think what China's upset is now it's explicit. What China never wanted was the cost to be explicit and it isolated China in the region. My constant refrain when I was in the administration, and I think we were there, not that I shaped it, not that I declared it, but I influenced it, which was our goal is to isolate the isolator. China's strategy is to constantly take one country, use political, economic, and other type of power to isolate them, but by building the coalition of Australia, South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, India, Canada, that China's the isolator, and they knew it. That's why... So I think what she did is the right... She said what was always implied, never clear, and now China knows the cost. Second, they're doing a series of things on the island chains of Okinawa that go all the way to within 67 miles of Taiwan that things that we worked on that I thought would take a decade are happening. Third, my guess is what she is doing helps him at home and what she's doing is helping her at home politically because she's in the 70s. As I said, she's the only head of state in the entire developed world that's above 50%, and that's a telling sign. And I think she's done a unique thing. As a woman, she's gotten the urban centers of Japan excited about this change. On the other hand, her policies are all very old and traditional and conservative, so she's kept the LDP's rule base and brought them back into the fold when they were fading away. So she's got this kind of very interesting, solid position based on the fact that both by person and by policy, she's put together a coalition that the LDP has been struggling for 20 years to get politically. Third, Japan is the long pole of America's policy in Indo-Pacific. And for her to say, one, they went up under our watch from 1% to 2% of GDP to defense spending from the ninth to the third largest capabilities. They just did something recently that everybody would have said you couldn't do without a constitutional change. They're selling military equipment to Australia. That used to be banned. So they are crossing thresholds because of the security threat. Now if the United States was all in giving confidence to our allies, Korea, Japan, Australia, not doing what we did in India, which is ridiculous, we would have, we have a partner now for a robust strategy that would say to China, here are the costs for what you're going to do. And you better do, you better think about this. And remember one other thing, China's, in my view, first strategy vis-a-vis Taiwan is going to be more of a kind of quarantine. You cannot do that, given where we are in the Philippines and where Japan is on the southern islands of Okinawa that come part of that first island chain. It is not impossible, but very difficult once those capacities are fully mobilized. And so to me, to short end of your comments is, I think that it wasn't a rookie mistake and I think it's incumbent upon us not to make her look like she has to back down to China because that will not stay in the Japan periphery, that will reverberate in the region. And if we look like we're weak and we look like we're not a permanent Pacific power in presence, there is no way that countries in that region, and I'm thinking of Korea and Japan, don't think over the next 10 years that they have to go nuclear. If you think the cost of non-proliferation is expensive, you're going to get sticker shock on proliferation. No shit. Yeah. It's real scary. Last question, got to get to a point. I've been thinking a lot about like early Obama era counterterrorism policies. A lot of critics say there are way too many drone strikes. The further I get from that time in government, I tend to agree with them. Really? And well, I tend to feel like the so-called war on terror writ large has been an abject failure when you see Al-Qaeda like affiliates, ISIS spreading everywhere, right? Now, the counterpoint to that is when you were chief of staff 2009, 2010, there were some real deal scary threats to the United States, the Christmas Day bomber, Times Square bomber. The guy from Colorado. I'll walk you through that story. Najib al-Azizi, right? I'll never forget. Yes. Near misses. Like we, luck saved us from catastrophe, right? And then there were these counterterrorism policies and a lot of those things haven't happened again. So I'm just curious when you reflect on that time and you think about how you'd keep the country safe from terrorism, how that informs your thinking. I've always, so I don't know if you remember this story. Some young man in the NSA picked up a word on the telecommunications that said the marriage worked. And he just caught him and says, nobody says that. And then he starts to unravel this and where the call was originated and made. Now all the smarty pants pooh-poohed this kid. And I, not just me, but the president, myself, Biden, well, run it down. Turns out, they find out he goes to Walmart, buys 10 backpacks. He goes to one of those kind of bulk buying, you know, when you buy stuff for the beauty show, all these giant cases that are essential materials for homemade bombs. And then all the smarty pants who thought the kid was out of his mind because he caught the word, the marriage worked. That's what you say after 20 years, not in 10 seconds, that he was onto something. And then we started finding other stuff in his credit card. And then we put helicopters and we find out he's starting to drive. To New York, right? To New York. Yeah. And we had cars to New Jersey. So I'll never forget that 96 hours. I must have aged, and I think the president did too. And we aged, although we had confidence we had him in the sense we had him in our line of vision. But that was breathtaking and there were other events that you have identified. I just got to know Najib al-Aziz who, along with two friends, was going to blow up the New York City subway. I don't know if you remember, but the FBI got ahead of the police department or no, I think the police department moved ahead and it is a classic case of the FBI and local law enforcement not exactly being on the same page. But that said, got him before anything. And the imam, it's not clear whether he knew it or was protecting him or was acting like he didn't know him, et cetera, or what his intent was. So to me, you know, Tommy, I got to be honest, I hadn't really thought about it in the sense did our actions have a reaction that made the situation worse? I do think you have to think about two things. One, people are trying to do harm to the United States. Our border, specifically on the south, have been used by enemies for their advantage. And you have to be, that doesn't, Donald Trump pulling people's green cards, not letting kids go to school. That's not the end. That's not what I want. I haven't thought a lot recently about whether the policies we were pursuing in the quote unquote, in the name of the war on terror, both overseas and here, actually perpetuated or accentuated, because I think actually on one scorecard, we haven't really had a local terrorism attack vis-a-vis kind of a 9-11 line. So at one level from a homeland front, it has worked. At another, it has created its own, the terrorist cells, there's as many before, there's just more of them spread out and smaller. That just may be what both of those are happening in real time, which is we've protected the home front, but we've created more threats overseas. Yeah, it's a complicated story. Rahm Emanuel, thank you so much for sitting down. Thank you. Great to see you. Could ask you another hour. Happy and a healthy new year. And mazel tov to you and your wife and the young kids. Thank you. If you want to listen to Pod Save America ad-free and get access to exclusive podcasts, go to crooked.com slash friends to subscribe on Supercast, Substack, YouTube, or Apple Podcasts. Also, please consider leaving us a review, that helps boost this episode and everything we do here at Crooked. Pod Save America is a Crooked Media production. Our producers are David Toledo, Emma Illich-Frank, and Saul Rubin. Our associate producer is Farah Safari. Austin Fisher is our senior producer. Reed Cherland is our executive editor. Adrian Hill is our head of news and politics. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Cantor is our sound engineer with audio support from Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Matt DeGroat is our head of production. 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