Rahm Emmanuel Talks Midterm Election Results

Emanuel Calls Midterms a Repudiation and Urges 2027 Action

The midterms were a repudiation of Donald Trump rather than a mandate for the left. Rahm Emanuel argues Democrats will only convert it into a win if they spend 2027 passing ethics reform, tariff relief, a minimum wage rise and achievable healthcare reform at speed. That means building a broad coalition and ignoring loud voices that do not represent many voters.

Takeaways

• Midterms were a repudiation, not vindication. Emanuel says Trump promised to end wars but started one, and promised lower prices but tariffs and war pushed them up. He promised money in voters' pockets while enriching himself. Voters are angry at Trump, not merely tired of Republican rule as in 2006.
• 2027 delivery will decide whether Democrats won. Emanuel says Democrats must build a broad-based coalition and act at speed, not process. He notes sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln were at sea 322 days with rancid food and no bathrooms while Congress sat for 100 days.
• Ethics reform unites Democrats and divides Republicans. Emanuel argues this is the key that unites his own team and divides the other side. He wants an ethics bill out of the House within two months.
• Impeachment would be a food fight. Emanuel prefers hearings into the Venezuela money and warns that impeachment would produce no result. Without lobbying and ethics reform, he says, oversight hearings would look vindictive rather than deliver vindication.
• Winning coalition was broad, not progressive. New Democratic senators in South Carolina and Kansas, a possible one in Mississippi, and governors in Georgia, Nevada and Texas. Emanuel says the majority came from a coalition broader than the Democratic Socialists of America, including independents and non-MAGA Republicans.
• Loud voices do not represent many voters. Emanuel says sound is not always fury and criticises the loud voices that intimidated the Biden White House on the border. He warns against putting the new South Carolina senator at risk by treating the result as a left mandate.
• 2028 field is wide open and crowded. Emanuel refuses to say who is in prime position and says the party had no real choice in recent presidential cycles. He jokes the field will be Baskin-Robbins-like with him as Rocky Road.

Emanuel's 2027 playbook

• Hold hearings to follow the money, including the Venezuela money, instead of pursuing impeachment.
• Pass a lobbying and ethics bill like the one enacted in 2007, when Barack Obama was a senator and Emanuel a congressman.
• Raise the minimum wage.
• Restrict and repeal the punitive tariffs.