Rahm Emanuel, former US Ambassador to Japan, Mayor of Chicago, Chief of Employees to POTUS Barack Obama, key advisor to POTUS Invoice Clinton, and older brother to Hollywood billionaire energy dealer Ari “Entourage” Emanuel, is teasing a run for President in 2028.
Emanuel is strictly the type of broadly despised, totally uncharismatic, scandal-ridden determine that I’d dismiss out of hand if the Democrats hadn’t nominated Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Kamala Harris back-to-back-to-back.
MSNBC sums him up:
Emanuel, who embodies the failed Democratic technique of all the time tacking to the fitting and displaying deference to the GOP, would doubtless lead the celebration again towards the type of concepts that acquired it on this mess.
However you actually must learn Rahm Emanuel’s personal phrases, as spoken to centrist seer Ezra “Abundance” Klein to essentially get the flavour of the person, which is whole B.S.:
I believe there’s two seminal moments that specify the final 20-plus years in American politics. One, the Iraq warfare, the place the American individuals have been deceived right into a warfare of selection. We misplaced hundreds of younger women and men. 1000’s of younger women and men are maimed for all times. And we spent a trillion {dollars} in a failed endeavor and a warfare of selection. And we’re lied to, and no person — and I imply no person — is ever held accountable.
Six years later, the monetary trade, housing crash, close to despair, individuals lose not their lives like within the Iraq warfare, however they lose their livelihood, their properties.
So you’ve individuals shedding lives, livelihood, and the elite and the highest of the society completely unaccountable and by no means act like they did something improper. Individuals out of the overseas coverage institution — they’re on boards, establishments, universities, bankers yelling for his or her bonuses, and the American persons are fed up.
And then you definitely fast-forward by way of Covid, and I believe that what occurs is the Democrats go — within the prior years, President Obama, the ’06 elections, and many others. — from anti-establishment to the institution and the elite, with the entire approach we handled Covid, the best way we handled science and talked to individuals.
It is a triple play of mendaciousness since Rahm Emanuel supported the Iraq invasion, was Obama’s Chief of Employees after they protected the banksters who triggered the crash on the expense of tens of millions of previously middle-class People, and his brother Zeke was a key architect of Biden’s COVID “new regular” insurance policies (whereas managing to personally distance himself from the worst of the selections).
Consider me, Rahm Emanuel is aware of all about “no person is ever held accountable.”
In an enchanting “course of” piece Jonathan Martyn of Politico lays out the steps that Rahm Emanuel has been taking, I’ve bolded the final and least essential step on the finish “on the lookout for a difficulty he could make his personal”:
Title the political podcast and Emanuel has doubtless been on it or shall be shortly. He instantly snagged a CNN contract and common Washington Put up column, no small accomplishment for a former official at a second of retrenchment for information organizations.
He’s additionally hitting the lecture circuit, showing for paid and free of charge gigs earlier than audiences such because the Realtors and the Chicago Financial Membership. Emanuel is pointedly avoiding Ivy League campuses and later this month will make his first cease on a service academy tour when he speaks at West Level.
Simply as hanging is to speak to anyone in high-level Democratic politics who is aware of Emanuel — which is to say most everybody — and listen to how matter of reality they’re in regards to the inevitability of his candidacy.
The most important Rahm-may-run inform, although, is that he’s already road-testing the primary outlines of a stump speech, or not less than a difficulty he could make his personal.
Martyn goes on to approvingly quote Rahm attacking US AID employees and the trans group.
It shouldn’t be a shock that Rahm can be attacking the newly nominated Democratic candidate for Mayor of New York Metropolis, in Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Avenue Journal no much less.
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 1, 2025
Rahm opened his WSJ piece with this declare:
The Higher Peninsula of Michigan is extra essential to nationwide elections and the way forward for the Democratic Celebration than the Higher West Facet of Manhattan. America doesn’t essentially go the best way of the Huge Apple.
Usually of Rahm’s claims, he’s acquired his reality set precisely backwards. The Higher Peninsula voted for the democratic socialist Bernie Sanders in 2016; the Higher West Facet voted for Cuomo final week.
But it surely shouldn’t be a shock that he’s attacking Mamdani (who’s notably been congratulated by Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jefferies, and Invoice Clinton however not by Barack Obama), for as Lydia Polgreen of The NY Instances factors out, “Nothing might be extra dispositive for Rahm Emanuel’s presidential bid than Andrew Cuomo’s face plant. Democrats are simply executed with this type of determine. In 2015, beset by scandal, Rahm’s approval ranking sunk to *18 %.*”
It’s additionally helpful to recollect why the Biden administration packed Rahm off to Tokyo as a substitute of giving him a plum cupboard spot like Transportation Secretary or U.S. Commerce Consultant:
The White Home introduced Friday that President Joe Biden supposed to appoint Rahm Emanuel to be the subsequent ambassador to Japan. The nomination, which comes after Emanuel was apparently rejected for different positions within the administration, belies Biden’s declare that he was working for president to revive “the soul of this nation.” Emanuel is chargeable for one of many extra soulless strikes by a Democratic politician in current reminiscence.
As Emanuel was preventing for re-election as mayor of Chicago, he stored video of the police homicide of Laquan McDonald hidden from public view. Emanuel’s administration spent greater than a yr arguing towards releasing footage of the 17-year-old’s dying to the general public, solely relenting due to a choose’s order.
Whereas Emanuel has denied {that a} cover-up ever came about, blaming his lack of transparency on “metropolis guidelines,” the usually staid Related Press pulled no punches when town’s full investigative report was launched after he had left workplace: “There isn’t a incident in current Chicago historical past that has created such mistrust of Metropolis Corridor and the police division than then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s unsuccessful authorized battle to maintain underneath wraps the dashcam video displaying Officer Jason Van Dyke shoot the teenager 16 occasions.”
And the way did Rahm fare in Japan? The Monetary Instances put it pithily, partly blaming a troubled G7 assembly on “Rahm Emanuel…a person who might begin a diplomatic incident in an empty room.”
Maybe it wasn’t solely the buffoonery of the Trump administration that resulted in Japan’s sudden refusal to attend a NATO summit in June.
And I received’t even get into the outdated Netroots hatred of Rahm over his credit-claiming for the Democrats’ reclaiming of Congress in 2006.
No, there’s a a lot greater drawback with Rahm’s candidacy than his private repulsiveness and apparent weaknesses as a candidate: Rahm’s little brother Ari.
Ari Emanuel is finest recognized to Bare Capitalism readers as a “Hollywood energy dealer” however what made him a billionaire is his big stake in TKO, the holding firm he shaped to merge the Final Preventing Championship (UFC) with World Huge Wrestling (WWE).
And as a few of you could remember, the UFC’s determine head Dana White is legendarily near President Donald Trump.
Combat enterprise insider publication The MMA Draw defined a few of Ari’s shell recreation final summer time when Trump made his post-conviction public debut at a UFC occasion:
Ari pays no political value for placing his chips down on pink within the presidential election. The one whose final result our very democracy is driving on. No less than that’s what the “credible centrists” in old-line legacy media have been saying.
Which is why Ari isn’t even risking his personal private model on the Trump deal. It’s formally Dana White’s deal in spite of everything.
And apart from, the UFC underneath Endeavor is prepared to associate with individuals who promote very costly magic rocks. How influential can they actually be?
That’s simply Ari’s kayfabing everybody. He has absolute management of this entity and Dana White.
Dana White was by no means prepared to brazenly courtroom controversy or take an brazenly partisan political stance underneath Zuffa’s possession.
That was again when the Fertittas wanted to be seen to be professionalizing the product searching for legitimacy with main community, promoting and finally acquisition companions.
The UFC beast needed to be washed up earlier than it might be taken to slaughter.
That modified instantly underneath Ari’s possession in 2016.
And on condition that Ari made Dana hearth his long-time finest bros (and UFC legends) Chuck Liddell and Matt Hughes, we are able to presume that he’s making the massive selections right here.
All of which is a roundabout approach to say, any Republican or right-wing extremist who’s endorsing Trump for idealistic causes, who’s sincerely studying this and going ‘Dana White as vice-president? HELL YEA!’ ought to spend a minute or two analyzing the person behind the Dana curtain.
The MMA Draw additionally documented Ari Emanuel’s key position in forcing Joe Biden out of the presidential race in 2024:
Ari Emanuel, regardless of proudly owning considered one of Trump’s most high-profile company allies, remains to be a significant participant in Democratic politics. He proved it together with his mid-campaign name for Biden to step apart that led a parade of Hollywood donors to desert the senile POTUS.
As all the time Ari was enjoying a number of angles. The Dump Biden effort significantly weakened rival Hollywood inside participant Jeffrey Katzenberg who co-chaired Biden’s marketing campaign.
It is going to be very fascinating to see how lengthy Ari can keep his standing as a mega-player contained in the Democratic celebration at the same time as his UFC and WWE properties feast at Trump’s trough.
They usually put all that collectively even earlier than the massive blockbuster e-book on Biden’s senility got here out:
Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson’s blockbuster new e-book, Unique Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cowl-Up, and His Disastrous Option to Run Once more, it’s revealed that Rahm Emanuel’s hotshot Hollywood super-agent brother Ari Emanuel screamed at former White Home Chief of Employees Ron Klain over Biden’s situation.
It was late September 2023, 5 months after Biden introduced he would run for reelection, and Ari Emanuel had invited members of the president’s workforce to his annual ‘Energy Gamers’ retreat.
‘For months now, Ari Emanuel – CEO of Endeavor, a expertise and leisure firm, and a significant Democratic donor – hadn’t been capable of consider what he was watching,’ the authors wrote.
It’s basic that no point out is fabricated from Ari’s chairmanship of TKO/UFC/WWE like….ever, regardless of the fact that it’s the supply of his fortune and his profitable political connections to Trump.
One factor I realized within the “Public Affairs” enterprise is that having a frontperson — even probably the most ridiculous and implausible one — stops 99% of additional inquiries into “who’s behind this B.S.?” chilly.
Satirically, Ari’s Hollywood empire needed to be delisted in a take non-public earlier this yr as a result of it made no sense to traders.
However that’s a aspect difficulty, the primary level is that Rahm’s billionaire brother is the king of Democratic fundraising in Hollywood AND a key Trump insider who hosted POTUS, Elon Musk, and David Ellison cageside at a UFC occasion in April.
Oh and bear in mind the pressing Democratic quest to seek out their very own Joe Rogan? There’s some cause to consider Ari is the explanation Rogan endorsed Trump within the first place:
Trump principally wrapped his marketing campaign by showing on Joe Rogan’s podcast to gather Joe’s endorsement, one thing Rogan had pointedly refused to do as not too long ago as 2022.
Rogan’s lengthy painted himself as a left-leaning Barack Obama and Bernie Sanders supporter who has known as the previous president “so fucking harmful … a man can incite a bunch of morons to do one thing actually fucking silly.”
Rogan publicly credited Elon Musk for main him to assist Trump, however I’d be very curious to know if he talked about his choice with Ari Emanuel, who’s in spite of everything his boss on the UFC.
Rogan’s endorsement of Trump was a giant deal:
— Nat Wilson Turner (@natwilsonturner) July 2, 2025
Ellison (son of Oracle founder Larry) was there to do some enterprise and seemingly gained Trump’s assist for a mega-merger he desires to execute:
Ellison was photographed in a detailed circle round Trump the evening earlier than, apparently a visitor of TKO chief Ari Emanuel, who, like Ellison, is Jewish and skipped the Passover celebration to be there. He socialized with the president’s interior circle that evening, Oliver Darcy first reported in his Standing publication.
The Skydance CEO was noticed alongside Elon Musk, Ted Cruz, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others, with photographs posted on Reddit and X. TheWrap has confirmed the main points from Darcy’s report.
All of that is to say, that if Rahm’s billionaire brother, who I’m informed is already locking up main Hollywood Democratic cash in assist of Rahm Emanuel 2028, wins both approach, no matter which celebration is within the White Home in 2029, possibly Rahm’s candidacy is as a lot kayfabe as marketing campaign.
I’ll shut with this from Rick Perlstein’s epic 2015 New Yorker take down of Rahm and what he’s actually all about:
Obsessive fund-raising can be the muse of Emanuel’s political operation in Chicago. When two reporters for the Chicago Reader filed a Freedom of Info Act request for the mayor’s non-public schedule in 2011 (not like earlier mayors, his public schedule was just about clean), they found that he virtually by no means met with group leaders. He did, nevertheless, spend huge blocks of time with the wealthy businessmen, together with Republicans, who had showered him with money.
The Emanuel political household is all about one factor and one factor solely — elevating cash. Getting the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination shall be one hell of a money seize, win or lose.
It’s clear Rahm cares in regards to the money and unclear that he or Ari care about the rest.