There is no denying the Democrats have a leadership problem. A recent CNN poll found that less than a third of Democratic voters think their party has “strong leaders” (that number drops to a paltry 16 percent when you look at the overall electorate). And while there are plenty of rumors about who may have presidential ambitions in 2028, one potential candidate is now flirting with the idea in a very public way.
Rahm Emanuel, a former adviser to Bill Clinton, congressman from Illinois, White House chief of staff for Barack Obama, two-term mayor of Chicago, and ambassador to Japan, recently said he is “in training” for a run as he trashed the current state of the “weak” and “woke” Democrat brand.
So, could he prove to be the answer for a party suffocating under the weight of identity politics and culture war issues? On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by Mark Halperin, Sean Spicer, and Dan Turrentine, hosts of 2Way’s Morning Meeting, to discuss why Emanuel would face an uphill battle for the nomination.
Dropping Hints
Emanuel has been on a media tour of sorts in recent weeks and is making headlines for the not-so-subtle-hints he has been dropping about his ambitions. After the ladies of The View told him he sounded like a presidential contender, Emanuel didn’t deny it. “I am in training,” he said coyly. “I don’t know if I’ll make the Olympics.”
To be fair, Emanuel has also been linked to the 2026 Illinois governor’s race, the 2026 U.S. Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Dick Durbin, and even a return to Windy City politics in 2027. But his upcoming schedule certainly suggests a loftier goal.
As part of a larger interview with the veteran Dem, The Wall Street Journal reported Emanuel will headline a September fish fry for his party in – wait for it – Iowa. That is as clear a signal there is that he is at least considering a White House bid.
“I’m tired of sitting in the back seat when somebody’s gunning it at 90 miles an hour for a cliff,” he told WSJ in a blistering take on what thinks is wrong with the Democratic Party. He called the Dem brand “toxic” and “weak and woke,” in what the Journal pointed out is “a nod to culture-war issues he thinks Democrats have become too often fixated on that President Trump has successfully used against them.”
“If you want the country to give you the keys to the car, somebody’s got to be articulating an agenda that’s fighting for America, not just fighting Trump,” Emanuel said. “The American dream has become unaffordable. It’s inaccessible. And that has to be unacceptable to us.”
On the topic of populism, he told the Journal “the public’s not wrong. They figured it out. The system’s rigged. It’s corrupt.” And he winked at the candidate quality issues of the 2024 election when asked about a potentially crowded Democratic primary field in 2028. “Voters will be lucky,” Emanuel said. “They’ll have a real debate, one we didn’t have in 2024.”
The Primary Problem
Of all those being floated as possible contenders on the left, Megyn said Emanuel is an “interesting name” to have in the mix. “I’ll tell you what I find interesting about him… He’s not one of those wussy, pathetic, soy boy Democrats… He’s tough… He’s a ballbuster… He is kind of a bully, which is okay… You can get some sh-t done being that way… He’s not woke,” she explained. “If I were a Democrat, I’d be feeling somewhat hopeful about him.”
Turrentine is a former Democrat advisor, and while he acknowledged everything Megyn said about Emanuel’s personality is true, he does not see him making it through the primary process. “About half the party despises him… [after] over 30 years of being in the trenches,” he said.
He pointed to the 2014 death of Laquan McDonald in Chicago. “There was a young boy that was killed by a police officer, and he would not release the video camera,” Turrentine noted. “So, there are some that have not forgiven him for that.”
And then there was his time as head of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “One of the first things Rahm Emanuel did when he took over the DCCC [in 2005] was pull all these contracts that were just complete political patronage,” Turrentine recalled. “Rahm fired all of them. He said, ‘We’re all about winning. I’m going to hire the best and the brightest. If they’re all one gender, one race, whatever, I don’t care. It’s about winning.'”
“Now, he ran an excellent set of campaigns. We won. But he has made enemies with that type of [approach],” he continued. “I think he’s one of the smartest people there is in the party. I think what he is saying… that we need to not just be anti-Trump is 100 percent right… But his biggest challenge is going to be getting through a Democratic primary.”
Spicer agreed. “The guy is a political animal, he is a fighter, and none of this woke crap would be in his lexicon… And for all of those reasons, they will never get him through a primary,” he said. “The other issue is… he is the opposite of Elizabeth Warren. He has hung out with all the private equity guys. He hangs out with the wrong people, to put it bluntly.”
So while Spicer believes Emanuel has “the political gravitas, the instincts, and the messaging to do well,” he doesn’t believe he is “woke enough” or “progressive enough” to make it to a general election at the national level.
Even so, Halperin said anything is possible given the caliber of his potential opponents. “It is a very weak field, so anyone who’s got any strength you can’t dismiss,” he noted. “And the other thing about Rahm that hasn’t come up is… most [Democrats] cannot raise $20 million. Rahm can… You can’t discount him… because of money.”
And yet the uphill battle remains. “He can claim he is an outsider, but he is not… And I just think it is going to be difficult for him to find something to say to Democrats except, ‘Vote for me because I can win a general election,'” Halperin concluded. “And I don’t believe that is enough right now for him to overcome the way the base feels about him.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Halperin, Spicer, and Turrentine by tuning in to episode 1,086 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.