Rahm Emanuel
Appearances
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Well, oh, I got a text. And it was from a staff person who said, I've had it. And I said, what did I do? What are you so upset about? I thought they were quitting or something. I've had it. I can't do this. And they have two young kids. And I said, well, we'll talk about the hours. You don't have to do this in a text. And I didn't know the name of the podcast was called I've Had It. Yeah.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I've had it, first of all, a couple of things in political life right now. I've had it with us not focusing on the American people. And I've had it with us talking around each other and scoring political points. And I'm not beyond scoring political points, but not at the expense of the national project, so to speak. So that's what I've had it.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I've also had it with, I would say, we have a series of topics that I think sometimes consume and other topics that don't actually get the attention that they should get. I don't know how many kids you guys have. I have three grown children. I've been animated. I've spent a good portion of public life on education. It was a 30-year worst reading scores ever and math scores.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
30 years, you know, we're literally at the bottom of where we were when we first started. And nobody wants to talk about it. We're talking about everything else but our kids' education. And it's a disaster. And so I've had it with the fact that certain things we're not talking about versus certain things that we do talk about to ad nauseum that are really diversions.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
You know, you say you come from a state. To me, that's another way of scratching this itch of how do we not. And that's not really a Democrat or a Republican. How do we make sure that every child, not just your children or my children, have a plan for themselves, a future? Because we know a high school diploma just doesn't cut it no more.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And so that, to me, is how we have to approach these things. There are things going on in red states, and there are things that are going on in blue states that are a problem, but there's things that we can learn from each other.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I've had it, and this gets back to where I started, is neither Democrat or Republican governors are calling an international emergency meeting of the Governors Association Dealing with the fact that we have a massive academic crisis on our hands, and our kids are failing, and all the adults are looking at their shoes. Not talking about it. They don't want to deal with it.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Can I ask you a personal question? Yeah. How old are your kids?
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Okay. Ever since they were in that high chair at the kitchen table, you built in expectations, right? This is my one point. Every child is homeschooled. Every child. Some better than others. At your home, like at our home, kids learn the value of an education, whether it's valued or not valued. And what happens at school is not the only place to get an education.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
They get an education at home, get an education in the community, in the neighborhood, et cetera, and you invest in it. Ones at Syracuse, and I don't know, but I assume that a high schooler is off to college. But nobody from day one at that high chair at that kitchen table was high school considered the end of their education. They were inculcated with expectations. Now, I'm a mayor.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I was a mayor, rather, in the city of Chicago, where 83% of our kids are from poverty or below. That's not reinforced. Your kids are like, where am I going to be in four years? There were kids in Chicago, they wouldn't know if they were going to be alive in four weeks. And you have to stretch out their imagination and have them posit themselves where they have a tomorrow.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And your visa and your passport to the future is not going to be the high school diploma. It's going to be every one of the other pieces of that educational piece. And to me, that is the most important thing we have to give every child. And some of them will get it at home.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And some of them will get it at the school that makes up where, not that the parents don't want to get it or the mother doesn't want to do it, but they don't have the agency or the capacity. And, you know, I could get here, be philosophical. We're short plumbers and pipe fitters and steel workers and carpenters. We're short people in our armed forces.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And we're also short people that have the technical skills that community colleges give. don't have a person to waste and we got to invest in them and i don't think that's a blue state red state or anything it's just an understanding what the future will bear uh and i do think and i will say this is you know somebody in my own life who fought for marriage equality
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
There are others that give you an example of this, of all the challenges we have in the world. We have a war in Europe, a war in the Middle East. We have challenges with China. We have climate change. We have AI.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Two people want to love each other and build a home of love? We want to get in the way of that? You love each other? You want to build a home? You want to raise children? I'm for it. We got broken families everywhere. You want to marry each other? You want to build a home of love? God bless you. Let's go.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Here's what's going to happen. You're going to see coming up, whether, you know, especially like a state like Oklahoma, you said you're from, you tell me a rural hospital, a rural community that can survive with Medicaid cuts. There's no rural hospital, forget Tulsa and Oklahoma City, et cetera, no rural hospital that's going to survive with these Medicaid cuts.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And you're going to put kids and families back into poverty behind the eight ball when you cut that health care. We know what we did to eliminate poverty with the Child Tax Credit. We know it. And it has an immediate impact on life expectancy, all sorts of other ancillary benefits come from it. And people talk about family, but every family needs support.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Some can get it from other family, but some are going to need other type of assistance that's related to that. And the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Child Tax Credit, All these poor parents trying to raise their children, no right from wrong and out of poverty. And, you know, it's ironic also not to get too philosophical here.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Outside of senior citizens in the last 40 years, welfare reform, minimum wage, children's health insurance, private sector, etc. We've actually done a pretty good job lifting kids out of poverty. We're on the 10 yard line. We could finish the job here. And nothing would be better for that child's life than having an adolescence not enmeshed in poverty.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
It changes their trajectory in so many ways that are beneficial to them and then to the rest of the community of Harnham.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Well, it's interesting you say that. So two things I would say to you. One is I think people, we're only in, I don't know where you are, but We're a month, let's say it's April, so it's basically three and a half months. And I think people are pretty goddamn exhausted by all this. And I think if you fast forward in another 20 weeks, they're going to be, the last thing they want is more fighting.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And I'm not, I'm a middle child and I'm known as a fighter. I'm not one for unilateral disarmament. But I think to read the room, I think the American people, A, want to go south on him pretty quickly. He's at 41%, 42%. They think they got betrayed and stabbed in the back by this president, and it's only getting worse.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And I do think Democrats should stand up not only to fight for their own principles, but to also fight for democracy. the people we represent. And for too often, on a whole host of cultural issues, we were off on tangential things that didn't matter to them. Their kids' education, the price of groceries, security of their children's education, the security of their parents.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
People were missing medications and doctor visits because they couldn't afford them. Things that we broke faith with them on. And so I'm not against fighting, but I want to make sure we're not just fighting for the sake of fighting, but fighting for the sake that people know and know what we care about, what's in our soul and what our North Star is. And we ended up fighting for the wrong things.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I got to be honest with you. I mean, I was sitting over in Japan for the last three years as ambassador. And I learned a lot about Japan. I learned a lot about India.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Shit's blowing up. But you want to know something? Being away from America, you learn a lot about America.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And I will just tell you, we look mighty strange having some of the arguments. We had the luxury of being a superpower. We're having superfluous arguments about things that didn't matter to people. We became not a party that was built on the culture of acceptance, but a party that became an advocate for certain things that, in my view, were just nuts. Nice. And they weren't core.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Now look, I think you pick. So you say to me fight, tell me what we're gonna fight about. Because I'm not interested in fighting about how you play this. I just I said this just a minute ago to somebody else. We were really south on kitchen table issues. We weren't really good about the family room issues.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
The only room we were doing really well was the bathroom. And that's the smallest room in the house.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Hey, let me say this. As mayor, 2016, I dealt with the bathroom issue. It's just not my most important issue. It was dealt with and I appropriately dealt with marriage equality, as I said.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Listen, I'm happy where you choose to live, but I've just got to be honest with you. You keep talking about living in this red state craziness. You know, there is U-Haul if you want to move out. But I would just tell you this. My view is there's a whole set of issues and these are side tangential issues. They're not core and they're not core to what we believe in.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And if you go through presidential history, you go through working for President Biden, President Obama, President Clinton or President Kennedy. We never got sidetracked on a set of issues. Our main focus was education, economic vitality and the American dream. And that's where we're going to make our bread and butter.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I wasn't bullying anybody. I just like the record to show I was just giving and expressing my view on this show.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
As somebody here, as one person on this podcast that actually won a house, worked on a presidential campaign, ran and said, OK, look, I don't have a... I'm going to get back and I'm going to just say this. I get the spirit of fighting given when you see all the assaults by Donald Trump and his people on things and values and ideas that we care about. I get that.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
But I want to know what we're fighting for and who we're fighting on behalf because not every fight is equal. Okay. And when it comes to quote unquote progressives, I don't think there's anything more progressive than an education of a child.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And I don't see anybody standing up for that. And we have the worst reading scores, worst math scores in 30 years. We're not fighting for that. We're over there and we're fighting on a whole host of what I would not call secondary, but periphery issues that are core if you want to go win elections. That's President Obama, President Clinton, myself. I add to that Nancy Pelosi.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Elections have consequences. If you don't win elections, all the other stuff is just secondary.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And they're valuable. So look, they're valuable issues. But you've got to deal with an electorate where they are. And I would just, like on a series of subjects, I would just tell you, Democratic brand now is down at 27%. They think we care about a set of cultural issues that are tangential and that those are our main focus. So you can sit here and say, I don't want to bully.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I get you don't want to bully. I'm not interested in bullying either. I never have bullied.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
on that but the fact is we're down to the lowest level we've been in 50 years because we're seen as caring about a set of issues as a set of priority issues that aren't core to them and i got to deal with the electorate where they are when you put your name on the ballot or you try to win an election and you know and i can tell you this that
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
two other presidents I work for, I know firsthand that their assessment is of politics and what happened differently, is we were seen as not hearing, listening, and seeing what was priority A for the American people. And it was a set of issues. And connecting on what is core to the American people is crucial if you're going to win those elections.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And if you're seen as fighting, and I'm using this both metaphorically and literally, on bathroom access and who plays in what sports, but not on who's reading and writing and what the math capability of those kids are or access to a post-high school education or ability of a first-time home buyer to buy a home, then you're going to be seen as fighting for something that's not part of the problem.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
But let me ask you this. Wait a second. Okay. And I'll get back to this. Your son's about to graduate Syracuse, right?
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Okay. Okay. I don't know you very well. We just met. You've seen all the good sides of her. Okay. Well, your, your kid, yours, your child may be coming home to Oklahoma, may go on somewhere else, but they're not going to live in the basement. They're not going to have $40,000 worth of debt. They're going to go on in their life in a way that they're going to be on the road.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
You've launched them and they're going to have a shot at the American dream. That dream is not accessible. to the lion's share of his classmates. That dream of not only owning a home, a job, saving for your retirement, and your children's children, your grandchildren's one day education, and not having a health care, that is missing. Now, you want to talk about bathrooms? Great.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I dealt with that in 2016. It's just not core and central when you have people graduating with $30,000 worth of debt, are living in the basement of their parents' home, their grandparents have moved into the house, they're missing medications, and you're using your 401k. Like I said, basically an ATM machine to make sure that you pay bills on the monthly time.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
This is, that to me, is where we're not only going to succeed electorally, it's actually where we're going to get America right with America. And that to me is core.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
The last election was a bit schizophrenic. Here's my analysis. President Biden and Kamala Harris are eight to nine points down from Joe Biden after the debate, et cetera. President Biden steps down. Kamala Harris takes the mantle, runs a campaign focused on the economy, and moves from eight down to plus three. That's an 11-point swing. That's not a statistical error.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
You could say it was seven down, plus two, whatever, but it's a big swing movement. After that debate, she drops her economic argument that is resonating and scoring, and picks up this argument around democracy. Now, if you care about democracy, which based on this interview, I'm assuming all three of us do, you had to say hello.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
It was the economic story that swung 11 points, and as democracy, when we started making that as a central to our argument, we went down three. That was a six-point swing. Now, I study politics too much. It's an obsession of mine. But if you move 11 points, I won't get off of it. I agree with you.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And we were exactly what I was talking about on the American Green monthly bills, being able to pay them and understanding the pressure. They wanted a president that appreciated the pressure that was on that family. And every policy you have fills in that picture of that pressure. And somewhere after the debate, there was...
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
almost like somebody flipped a switch and we veered off into this discussion. And I care. You can see daily the assault on the legal system and the institutions that back up and define what America is. And it's valuable. But if you wanted to win the election, it wasn't that. It was what got you from down eight to plus three, which is the core economic pressure on a family.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
And that's how you win elections. And if you want to make a difference in policy, across the waterfront of issues, elections have consequences.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
This may be the last time you let me on the show. So let me just say this.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
No, let me just be clear. You're not wrong, but you're not totally right.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
We give them a lot of material to work with. And you're missing that.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Hit it. So every day as chief of staff, I have secret service. You know, they drive me home. I'm getting up to the front stoop and the suburbans drive off and I open the door and I go in. So after about six months, I said to my secret service, I said, how come every time I get to the front stoop and start to open the door, you guys drive off? They go, well, you're safe.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I said, I don't know if you know this. The only people want to kill me in that house. And I said, so that was our joke.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I mean, you know, I'll tell you, I'll bet you. I'll tell you why. He used to stand up for NATO. He stood up for Ukraine. He stood up against Putin. And he's taking all his principles and put them in a lockbox.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I have no idea why you would lose your dignity to that, A, in any case, or B, to that man. It's wild.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Nobody ever works for him. as an improvement in their career.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, I could tell. I could tell that was a total middle child war or peace kind of statement.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
and i don't have a problem arguing i like i think it's so i do too i like it i want to have them get them in trouble for playing middle childhood i'm a middle child too see i'm trying to like be a peacemaker here and i'm being vilified for it as being a dad she goes yeah kids what y'all do today i substitute on mom's podcast so here's what i do you know what i do every morning what
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
So Layar, the youngest, goes off to college. And I, first day, we're empty nesters. I make coffee in the morning. I get up at 5.30. And I bring it to Amy in bed. And I said, it's Mother's Day. The kids are all grown up. Everybody's up. I bring coffee in bed. She loved it. So next day, six years later, I'm bringing her coffee in bed.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
So until you start doing that, you just be that peacemaker over there. Every morning.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I'll tell you, I'll tell you even a funnier story. Is that right? Oh yeah. We're six months into empty Nesterville and we're sitting on the couch and neither one of us can figure out how to get an apple tea. We're totally technologically, you know, back to the stone age. And I look over to Amy's knitting and we're trying to figure out something.
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I leaned over and I said, Amy, I think this marriage needs a project. We had had 21 years filled with free projects. And we went off and we started a reading group on Shakespeare together. We did that for a while. We did a couple other things. Then we decided to build a house together and stuff like that. But all right, what's my other had it or hid it?
I've Had It
Total Bullsh*t with Rahm Emanuel
I may just need it for marriage. Yeah. Why think about proper coffee? I may just want to square off beforehand with you before I get to the kitchen. Hey, you keep getting that five 30 coffee and you're going to be, I am the Neville Chamberlain of our marriage. Peace in our time. That's all I seek.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Anyone who went to Action Park understood you could get really messed up going there. Not only did we know that, it was a huge part of the appeal.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
So you're right, Jess. Last 30 years, Democrats had anywhere starting from Jimmy Carter's creating the Department of Education and Reagan trying to or advocating to shut it down. We had anywhere, call it from 20 to 30 point advantage on education. President Obama did race to the top. President Clinton did, teachers of excellence. But we basically kept coming at this, focused on the classroom.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Accelerate. There's no doubt during COVID, we shut schools down much longer than they need to be, much longer than, quote unquote, the science told us to do, even though we kept saying we're going to follow the science. Second, we got in a bunch of ancillary discussions that had nothing to do with reading, writing, and math.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
The name of the school, was it named after George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or any other founding father? Or access to the bathroom and access to locker rooms. We've gotten into bathroom and locker rooms and we avoided the classroom. So you have to go back for political purposes to the place where you build political support. That's one. Now,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
We're at a 30-year low on reading scores and I think near 30-year low on math scores. Alabama in fourth grade is the only state that has made gains on math. Mississippi, going back to 2010, but even through COVID and post, has made significant gains on reading. There's a couple common themes to that. One, time on task. They dedicate more time to early intervention.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Look, I mean, I have a couple answers on this. You know, look, White Houses are insular. Yeah. And the Oval Office is seductive. And while you talked about his medical condition and all this, my take on this is this is Shakespearean. And the reason I say that is I've worked with former President Biden in three different functions.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Three, where needed, one-on-one instruction. That should become an emergency meeting using the Oval Office, all the governors, etc. How do we get over the next 18 months what Alabama and Mississippi's done? What are the best practices and how do we make them universal and start getting back to basics of that? We have an absentee rate in Chicago of double digits. And that's true nationally.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
We have normalized absenteeism. Parents and kids have self-selected four-day school week, and we've made it a norm. And I think we should set a national standard. No child will go from fourth to fifth grade who has north of seven, I'm using for this discussion, 7%, because we're doing social promotion. The data is quite clear. Kids can't learn if they're not in the classroom.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
So if you're not in the classroom, you're not going to the next grade. End it. No more social promotion. Lastly, and I think this is really important, we haven't rethought the high school since introducing universal high school education. It's been 100 years. I'm not saying we did everything right in Chicago, but we did a couple things, I think, that do matter in that reinvention.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
We went from a mindset of a diploma machine, get you to graduation, get you a diploma, to high school was preparation for what's next. So we did three things. First, if you earn a B average, we made community college free. You got free books, free tuition, free transportation. And in a school district with 83% poverty, 20,000 kids have availed themselves of it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Three quarters of them are the first in the family to go to college. We made it free, but you got to have a B average. Two, you could not get your high school diploma without showing a letter of acceptance from a college, community college, a branch of the armed services, or a vocational school. You will not get your high school diploma without that letter. So you have to help parents. do that.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
So we hired a massive amount of college and career counselors and got them into high schools across the city. We help kids starting their freshman year. What do you want to do? How do you want to do it? Okay. And every year you met with that counselor. So you were, did you need more math? Did you need more science? Did, you know, where were you on this or that?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
So they were preparing if they wanted to go Marines, they wanted to go plumbing, where they wanted to go to Harold Washington Community College, to Northern or UIC or wherever they want to apply. And we had a 99.4% compliance. We, as best we could, rethought and reinvented the high school education. So, you know, my motto always was you earn what you learn.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
You get a high school education, you'll learn that. You don't get one, you'll learn that too.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
So there's two things I will get to, but I want to finish one thought I was going to say. Sure. Because it deals with at least that one data point you pulled out about incarceration. Yeah. An oversized amount of the folks in prison are black men between the ages of 18 and 35 without a high school degree. The only thing I can change in that is whether you have a high school degree or not.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
One, I was assigned by President Clinton when I was senior advisor to work with him on passing the Violence Against Women Act and the assault weapon ban when he's a senator and I was, as I said, senior advisor for the president. Then our offices, when I'm chief of staff for President Obama, are adjacent to each other.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Can't change gender, can't change race, can't change age. That changes on its own. And so to me, getting kids, one of the things that we drove, and I say we meaning Dr. Janice Jackson and I, she was the chancellor of our schools, is if you said to our kids, what are you going to do in four years? They could tell you. I had kids when I was mayor in Chicago, which is true today.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Four weeks was their horizon. They didn't know if they were going to be alive at 18. You get a child that walks across that stage and gets a diploma, they have a tomorrow. They don't get to that stage, they're not thinking about tomorrow. Their horizon is different. So if you can get them thinking about tomorrow, they're going to change the way they think about themselves.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Second, and this was the inspiration for President Obama's My Brother's Keeper, University of Chicago comes to me and they show me this program that had about 80 kids called Becoming a Man. And it's a circle group. You sit in, you do about four hours a day. That's one part. And then they do other things with the children for about four hours a day, five days a week. I was... smitten by it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
I got Jimmy Butler involved in it, the basketball player. I got other athletes, anybody that came, including President Obama. I made him participate at Hyde Park High School, and that became his inspiration. We blew it up from 100 kids over my tenure to 7,500 young men, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th grade. Four hours a day, five days a week, nine months out of the year. It was their mentor.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
It was their coach. And it was their role model. And I'm not going to do social science, but there's enough data about staying out of the criminal justice system, graduating high school, that it's overwhelming. And again, I'm dealing with the population in Chicago. It doesn't mean it applies across the board, but I think it does. Just with a little mentoring, their lives were different.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
You can see this hollowness in their eyes and it's changed when they're involved in something that's rewarding, which I also believe about why I think we should go to universal national service. Look, a kid's life is 20% in the classroom and 80% out. If you want the 20% to succeed, invest in the 80. Now, we blew up after school programs and summer jobs and we tripled the enrollment rate.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And then as ambassador that he appointed me, and I'm 8,000 miles away, we worked through this historic agreement between Japan, Korea, and the United States. So I've seen him at different stages from different locations, and I've seen him change. And what saddens me, and I'm just saying this as a friend, genuine friend to him, he's a good man.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
But giving kids something where they get their own sense of confidence back. And I would say to you, Scott, one of the things that's clear to me Our young men have internalized a self-loathing, a self-doubt beyond just what teenage years used to.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
There's something that has happened that they have, look, everybody has a level of insecurity and grows up with it, but they have internalized this anger that's self-directed. Sometimes it is outside and there's, you can just, they're craving a direction and they're craving, in my view, an adult who cares about them.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
You know, my father used to say as a pediatrician, you know, he's never saw a kid that was spoiled because they were told they were loved too many times. So I do know what the government can do and I know what the government can't do. A government can support parenting. A government can support a child. A government program can give a child certain kind of supports. There's things it can't do.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And I think one of the things we have to realize is we're not, and I think you've talked, both of you have talked about this, we're not in a zero-sum game that somehow if you're helping young men, it comes at the expense of young women. But the crisis that is now a flashing red light, not a yellow light, is these young men aimless. And I mean, you can hear it in their voice.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And if we don't in some way interject ourselves and start doing different things rather than the same thing, we're going to pay a huge price and they're going to pay a huge price. So I looked at this mentoring program. I would look at summer jobs after school, and then I'm a firm believer that it's got to be across the board, universal national service for six months. Everybody's got to do it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Nobody gets to cut out of it just because you're going to go to college or med school. Forget about it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Yeah. So just here's how I think about it. There's a lot of people, rightfully, on the other end of the pool whose entire existence is fighting Donald Trump. And there's a lot to fight. And I don't belittle it. If I'm right, this election in 2026 is a referendum. 2028 is a choice, not a referendum.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And I'm going to spend my time, as I have both writing pieces, et cetera, on education, on national service. I've already done certain things on national security and ideas about how to make the American dream affordable. I don't think it's an accident that the moment the American dream became out of reach, it was less affordable. It was exactly the time in which our politics became unstable.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
who did good work, who wanted one thing in life, which was to be known as somebody that was significant. And the tragedy here will be that his last act is going to become a defining act. And it is going to actually undo the one thing he wanted out of his life, which is it's going to, I won't say obliterate, that's a little dramatic, but it's definitely going to color in a very significant way
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
They're connected. And so if I think I have something to offer that others don't, I'll take that pledge. But I am going to spend my time now thinking, writing about what I think are the big issues that we have to address. That gets to the topic of lost men. That gets to the topic of rethinking our educational system. There's nothing partisan about reinventing high school.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
You know, I happen to be for free community college. President Obama took our program, Advocating Nationally, but that's not the only road to the same destination. And if I think I got something that other people aren't talking about and a way to talk about it, then I'll dive into the deep end. But I'm going to spend my time articulating that, thinking about that, talking to people.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And if I don't think anybody else is going to do that, or I think if I'm present in that campaign, I can drive that, I'll dive in the pool. If I don't, I won't. That's how I'm thinking about it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Well, you know, so two things got... The shooter, I mean, the Chicago Police Department has it. He's been in our house a number of times for protests starting in 2017. So I have a slight connection with that. Second is, I have a slight twist on what you said. You said an increase. Anti-Semitism has always existed.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Yes. And the question is, why is it more visible? Why these people? Why now? Straight up, why? And to me, we're going to have to have a hard conversation. There has been a permission slip for what used to be behind closed doors said about Jews or said in a kind of snide remark, et cetera, to where it's said now publicly. where anti-Semitism or anti-Semitic expressions are said openly.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Yes, October 7th ushered in one level, but anti-Semitism has existed, and what's new is it's got a green light. And that green light, not only to expressing it, bubbles over into violence, not just stays rhetorical. And I said this last week, and I'm going to say it again. I said it at the 92nd Street Watch.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
When you have people in 2017 marching around saying Jews will not replace us, blood and soil, and the next day doesn't call for Lincoln's malice towards none, we say there's good people on both sides. We got a problem. And I want to be very clear. I'm not saying that this is on President Trump. But we have a permission slip.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
for what was once repressed or said in hushed tones is now fully said and there's no boundary to where we'll lead. You know, look, my life, adult public life, when I was working for President Clinton because of certain things said about Rahm Israel Emanuel, we had a dog that would smell the car before we were allowed to turn it on.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
When we were in Japan, somebody spray-painted the fence in front of our house with neo-Nazi signs, etc. And to this day, I don't know who, a neighbor went and painted over it. I got elected, Rahm Israel Emanuel, in a congressional district that used to have, represented by Dan Rosenkowski, Frank Anunzio, Roman Paczynski. Brad Blagojevich, Flanagan, Quigley. You know, what doesn't fit there?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Rahm Israel Magno. But I had people in a district vote for a Jewish kid. I was elected the mayor of a city of Chicago whose Jewish population is 3%, a working class city. So I have seen the best of folks, and I know firsthand the worst of folks.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
The one thing he wanted. And had he stayed true to his commitment in 2020 and said, I'm going to be a transitional, I do believe this was, you know, this gets back to a question. Could the Democrat have won this race? I've always thought a Democrat could have beaten Donald Trump. He didn't get 50 plus percent. And I feel empathy for him because he wanted one thing in life.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
I think anti-Semitism today is at a heightened level, and for a host of reasons not singular, there's a green light to expressing it that didn't exist in years past.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
It was personal for you. No, I look, I don't. Anti-Semitism doesn't have a political party or political identification or ideological. And if you do that, then you're actually not dealing with anti-Semitism. You're getting sidetracked into a political discussion that's actually extremely unhelpful.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
I have seen, as I said by the anecdote I gave in Virginia in 2017, that wasn't the left, quote-unquote. And I don't find trying to figure out which party is responsible... I really not only think it's a sidetrack argument, it actually blinds us from dealing with some core issues. And we're going to have to deal with it as a country and ask some really hard questions.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And I think the notion that somehow Democrats bear more of it is not just unhelpful, it's actually trying to wash your hands of coming to crux because anti-Semitism doesn't have a party or ideological point of origin.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
It's a fair point, except for I want to say, you know, this country, I not only represent it, I mean, I don't want to go through my titles, but I'm the son of an Israeli immigrant and the grandson of... of an immigrant from Moldova who came here fleeing the pogroms. This country has been incredible to the Jewish community.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
It's based on the rule of law, self-determination, and a series of freedoms. When those get degraded, that is not good. I got 2,000 years of Jewish history where that's not good. It doesn't have a philosophical or ideological point.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And the reason you stand up for these values or these principles is because it has allowed us as a community to flourish and contribute in a way that we just haven't anywhere else. And I'm not disappointing my party. I would say there are people on both parties that want to confront and fight anti-Semitism.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Who's more neurotic?
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Between now and 2026, rubber stamp Republicans. That's winnable. And if you get the House back, it's going to be essential to giving us a chance in 2028. In 2028, and it's not just by election, I think the core principle for the Democratic Party, the American dream is unaffordable. It's inaccessible, and that is totally unacceptable to us.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
The idea that you have people in our country with three, four, five, six homes, and a young family can't get a starter home is crazy. It's the core crux of the American dream. I grew up, my dad was a pediatrician, my mother was a radiologist. If you asked a second opinion, it was another healthcare professional.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Today, it's an insurance bureaucrat sitting on the other line telling you you can't get that procedure or we're not going to cover it. And to me, the American dream, and this gets back to how people think corrupt. I don't know you, Jess. I don't really know you, Scott. You guys kind of know me through me. Our kids are going to be fine. We have given every other person's child the shaft.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
beyond doing good work, you know, some sense to be seen as a significant player, et cetera. And the vanity, the power of the office, the lack of people around him that would tell him truth. And I add one thing, I mean, President Obama and President Clinton can tell you, your job at certain times of the presidency is to tell the president not what they want to know, but what they need to hear.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
The system has screwed them. And we have allowed both parties over the years, as long as our kids were okay and it kind of didn't really hit a crisis, it's fine. It's not fine. And the core premise, if you want to strengthen democracy, make the American dream more affordable and more accessible. And if it's got a restriction sign around it, you're going to get a lot of people pissed off.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And I don't know if we can solve it overnight. And I don't think we can. I think it's going to take a long time. It's going to take a long time to get here. But you can't have a situation where people are using their 401k, which is supposed to be for their retirement, to make up for their paycheck, not covering their costs.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Healthcare, they spend more time arguing with their bureaucrat than they do talking to the doctor. And we have young couples sitting at their parents' home down in the basement and can't find a home. And unless we fix that, The rest of it is going to come apart. And second, on a very crass political level, if we put that at the core,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
A, it will shunt out this week in woke and will look like we're fighting exactly for the people and against the exact interests that have been giving people the shaft for years. So to me, that's the core thing. That's where I'm actually spending my time. And I think it's going to take us a long time.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And the reason we disappointed people and they got disappointed in the Democrats, not only for these tangential issues, but we lost connection with what they expect from us. We were always the defender of what comes under inclusive economy, that more and more people would have a shot at just the basics.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Own a home, save for your retirement, save for your kids' education, afford your healthcare, and take a three-week vacation. And none of that is affordable unless you're well-off. And you shouldn't be comfortable if you're well-off that the rest of the country isn't comfortable. So that's my core thing of what the party needs to do.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And we get all caught up in, you know, not only tangential issues, but overthinking. You look and you just, you know, as I used to do when I was a mayor and I was doing this when I used to do Congress on your corner, you go to down Target, you walk down the aisles, you go to Walmart. I used to call them Target town halls or Walmart walk-ins.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And people that would stop to, you know, other people say, oh, hi, Mr. Mayor or whatever. But people would stop and talk to you. This is not complicated. Solving it is, but understanding people want somebody there that will get in there in the morning, roll up their sleeves, and the one thing they're going to focus on like a laser is making sure they have a shot.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And what survived Bill Clinton and Barack Obama through every presidency has ups and downs, is that at the core, the public knew who they were working for, and who they were working against. And we've abandoned it. And guess what? They got us read right. We're dead to rights, man.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
We got caught off on bathrooms and Latinx and making people, you couldn't use that language, you're doing that cultural approach. And people couldn't figure out how to get a down payment on the home. They had to pick which child goes to college and which one doesn't and postpones it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
They were taking money that they knew in their gut was supposed to be for retirement, but they couldn't make the bills. They were taking another 401k and paying penalties. We've put people in untenable positions just to do the basics. Just to, you know, if I had a medical problem, like obviously when my dad was, I could call my dad or whatever.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And that didn't happen. He or they or both got walled off from that. And White Houses get very, very insular. And that office is incredibly seductive. So I feel him not holding to his pledge had consequences, one to him and two to all of us. And we're dealing with it today.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
People spend hours arguing with an insurance executive. Half a doctor's time and a nurse's time is talking to some jerk on a telephone about a procedure that's fundamental. And I will tell you why I loved being mayor.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
When I did these graduations, when kids were coming with a Chicago Star scholarship to free, the relief in a parent's eye that they didn't have to either take a second job, a second mortgage, or pick between the two kids who goes to college and who doesn't. That, because your son or daughter earned a B and they're going free. They earned it. That relief.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
I used to tell Amy, I said, you got to come to one of these. So she came. I mean, people were, parents are crying inside. There was an emotional catharsis because they were in this crazy Solomon choice. Second job, second mortgage, or second child. This is insane. Insane. So that's what, to me, is what matters.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Thanks, guys.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Well, it's not only cognitive. You ever see a before and after picture of a president in the White House? The day they walk in and the day we walk out? Every year is a dog year, okay? You walk into that office and it is a physical, mental, emotional, psychological beating by the hour. There should be a cap. You saw it with Ronald Reagan's, I mean, deterioration in his final years.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Yes, that's the short answer. I will say one thing. There's an anecdote out of the Oval. You know, obviously, I'm President Obama's chief of staff for the first two years. And one day, you know, we were going from health care to a 10-minute financial reform. Then we were going into the oil well that had exploded. And it was just, you know, that was only by 1030.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And I told him, I said, look, man, when we get out of here— I want to get a t-shirt check. On a beach. And I want to sell one color, white. So if somebody said blue, I go white. And one size, medium. Just so I don't have to think, I don't have to make a call. And we used to have this, like we'd be in a meeting and it was like mind boggling. I look at him, I go white.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
He'd look at me and go medium. Because we were going to open up a t-shirt shack on a Hawaiian beach. And all we were going to do all day is lean forward. and just watch the waves so you didn't have to think anymore. And the immense pressure, as my grandfather would say, it takes the neshama out of you.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
You know, this wasn't a surprise to the American people.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Yes. I mean, if you go back and do kind of an autopsy of the presidency... There's the confluence in that first August with both what happens in Afghanistan and the recurrence of COVID. And also, which I think sometimes gets lost in the analysis, he doesn't try to deal with Afghanistan directly. by doing a Kennedy post Bay of Pigs and say, I own this. This is on me. I made the decision.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And his response sets off triggers because he was supposed to be hired to manage better than the chaos of Trump 1.0. And that starts to build the resistance to him. He never then gets back to positive real estate from a polling standpoint and trust.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And as inflation picks up and gets deeper, and he tries to tell the American people the economy is better than you appreciate, the age issue comes over as a person who's out of touch. And it grows to like a 70 mile an hour headwind straight at them. And the American people could not see past that block. And it grew in intensity every day that went by. So it was the most discussed subject.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
If it was a secret, the American people were in on it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
It wasn't a secret. Right. They were in on it and they issued a judgment. Now, there is a trust factor. I think there's a trust factor for politicians. The truth is a trust factor. The farther you get away from people's home, the less trust there is. Local politics versus national. There's not, you know, people go, oh, our democracy is that threat. Not the local level. Right. National level.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
I think the bigger challenge for Democrats is, and I don't think we own universally the deficit on trust. I think our challenge, Democrats are seen as weak and woke. Republicans are seen as going to be in this reconciliation bill as people that stab you in the back and betray you. That's the two vulnerabilities of both parties.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And if we do certain things that I've been advocating, I can talk about it on the show. I think we can make up for and address the week and woke in a very kind of focused way. I think people have clearly because a week and woke disappointed in us. And that has made them appropriately angry at us.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Look, I'm sensitive to a child that's trying to figure out what pronoun they want to use. But nobody wants to be sensitive to the fact that the rest of the classroom can't tell you what a pronoun is. And to me, this is insane. I've said this before and I'll say it again. We shut the front door of a school for two years during COVID and then we blew open the bathroom door right afterwards.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And not only were we off on a tangent of a set of issues, we made them primary to us. Yes, by our DNA as Democrats, we are an accepting party. We became a party that advocated. And that's a mistake. Go back to President Clinton. That's a formative experience for me. In 1992, 40% of his advertising is on ending welfare as you know it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
He comes on the heels of Jimmy Carter's loss, Walter Mondale's loss, Michael Dukakis' loss. He ran openly as a new Democrat. And that new Democrat wasn't just the economy stupid. It was 100,000 community police officers not defunding the police. It was ending welfare as we know it, not continuing kind of a failed system, even when it was self-evident that it was broken.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
The economics and the cultural aspect were grounded in mainstream. President Obama himself talked openly about it's easy to father a child. It's different to be a dad. And he got criticized for it. And he stood up for that. Grounding yourself in the mainstream culturally is really, really important for the whole agenda, not just tactically.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
Democrats, and this is a thing that I would say about politics, sound is not always fury. And you have to, if you're good in politics, know the difference between sound and fury. Just because a Washington group tells you to use the word Latinx doesn't mean People use it.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
And we have to be not cavalier attacking people, but we have to ground ourselves in the very conversation that families have about social media, about homeless encampments near their house, things that happen on their block, and not look at work running off in some tangent because some Washington group with a 202 area code on their phone yelling at you. And my other point to illustrate this is,
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
In the last State of the Union by President Biden, he said illegal immigrant. The next morning, the Washington interest groups attack him and say, you have to use undocumented. And rather than say, hey, look, they crossed the border illegally. They're immigrants. I'm using illegal immigrants. You want to use undocumented? You use it. I'm going to use what I'm going to use.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
That would have been a sign of strength. Grounding yourself in the mainstream and the strength to say when somebody who's in the family is off sides. That is essential, more so for Democrats. And we got caught in a cul-de-sac driving around in a circle in the last three years.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
This is not an advocate for my web traffic on my piece, but I just had a piece go up on The Washington Post on this piece. But I think this is a huge opportunity for Democrats. You don't have either the microphone of the Oval Office or the gavel of the congressional. Both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue are owned by the Republicans. There is an architecture built in to that midterm.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
An energized opposition, two to one independence break from the incumbent party and a depressed incumbent party. That is already, you can see in the early polling, setting up for 2026. You can see Democrats are energized in these special elections. Independents have broke from the Republican Party. Republican Party is just not turning out the way they did when Donald Trump was on the ballot.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
It's early, but the outlines of that architecture exist today, Scott. On this bill, make simplicity a virtue. There is a division between the MAGA, realizing all of a sudden Medicaid affects the rural hospitals and their constituents, and the fiscal, if there are such things in the Republican Party, conservatives who like the pain of cutting Medicaid. Enjoy it, actually.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
To me, you should make the battle cry. raise taxes on the wealthy so that we can give health care to the many. Very simple. The Democrats should be offering one simple bill, raise taxes on people making above $2.5 million, eliminate carried interest, put the corporate tax rate back up to 27%, restore all the health care cuts. Don't try to solve all the problems. This is setting up 2026.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
The one thing we can win is 2026. That's what this is about. The independent voters, which are going to be key in swing states and swing districts, want reform, but most importantly, they want a check on an untethered, unchecked Donald Trump. And you got to associate the Republicans as a rubber stamp Congress. This is not about oligarchy. This is not about fascism.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
This is not about do nothing Democrats and weakness. Midterms are a referendum on the party in power. Make it a referendum on the party in power. This is a rubber stamp Republican Congress that has decided to reinforce what I refer to as the three Cs, corruption, chaos, and cruelty. And repeat it. Washington interest groups see corruption as the Qatar jet, the Bitcoin.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
The public sees corruption as a well-heeled, well-connected, getting a tax cut, and we're getting our healthcare cut. That's how they see, perceive corruption. And we should go right at it, drive like a Mack truck right to that point. And don't go off wandering onto other ancillary issues. The wealthy are walking off with all the money and you're paying for it with your health care.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
It also has the beauty of one thing. It's true.
Raging Moderates with Scott Galloway and Jessica Tarlov
The Death of the American Dream (feat. Rahm Emanuel)
No, we're always meeting with our PhD committee to explain our theory of the case. Yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
You have to believe.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Well, I'm doing daily show writing. Uh-huh, uh-huh.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, I'm working for Centerview, and I do write for the Washington Post, and I'm on CNN. I thought you worked at an investment bank. Yeah, Centerview. Oh, Centerview.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
How's that going? I'm out there with a takeout. When did you join? Yeah. About a month ago. Uh-huh.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Well, there's a six-letter word that a lot of people are saying lately. What's that? Tariffs.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Cash? Yeah, yeah. I mean, here is... I'm going to breathe calmly. Don't panic, because everything's going to be fine. Yeah. 11 weeks and $11 trillion. Out the window. Arrivederci. Shalom Aleichem. Whoa. Yeah, bon voyage. Look at you. Yeah. And we only have 200 more weeks to go.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, as my father would say, so what could go wrong?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, let me try to help you, John. Please. Yeah. So, I mean, I'm just very, I have a Elon Musk measure. What does that mean? How many kids do you have? What does that mean? This is supposed to be a manufacturing renaissance. Manufacturing is going to come back. Screws, next to Apple phones, as you said.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Elon Musk has a 20,000-person factory in Shanghai, a 12,000-person factory in Berlin. When those get repurposed back in the United States, this is an incredible success. Until that time, it's an absolute failure. And what is really, I mean, on a serious note, also driving me absolutely crazy, we had China isolated.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
We had the whole world angry at China for exporting and destroying their economies, and we were going to be their hope and dream. We worked on getting Japan and Korea to align with the United States, isolate China. Now they're working their own economic deal, and we're isolated. It's really the most... Japan and South Korea are working their... Working now with China.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Yes, but they were actually... Number one foreign investor in the United States? Japan. Japan. A million Americans work for them. One of the biggest manufacturing countries that support manufacturing in the United States, Japan. It's the most reckless thing done by a president. I mean, there is natural disasters, human disasters. There's lightning, creates a fire.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
There's arson that creates a fire. This is arsonist.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
You look like you're taking... I'm thinking of how I can do this. I was going to bring some Excedrin for you. Excedrin?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
He's giving China a get out of jail card. They were in the doghouse with everybody. They were isolating. They were destroying steel plants in Chile. They were destroying steel plants in South Africa.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
But they were also exporting all their economic problems domestic all over the world. Yes. And they had a lot.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Yes, yes, yes. And they were isolated. And they were becoming a problem for everybody. We are going to be the safe haven. We've now become the problem. We've given them a get out of jail card. This is, listen, the way I look at it, March Madness used to be about basketball. Right. Now, it's about the Trump administration. You used to do brackets. Now you do 401ks. And you used to do portfolios.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
I'm telling you, I've literally... He's going to announce. The only thing that I can say good about this is you see all these CEOs on the shows that are all now like, this is crazy, this is insane. I'm going to say, Schmuck, what took you so long? I mean, I cannot believe all these guys running around. Oh, it's the largest tax increase in American history. Thank God for the American people.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
They think this is horrible. They don't? You listen to his people? No, his people. I'm talking about the American people, not his people. It's totally different. Oh, yeah.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
His people are literally, their grasp of the English language is down to four words. Yes, sir, Mr. President.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
I used to, I worked for three presidents. I used to be 6'2". I'm now only 5'8". Your job is to go in the Oval Office and tell them, You're out of your mind. These guys, yes, they go off and they repeat all this crap on TV. You know, Ludnick, the Secretary of Commerce, he makes a used car salesman look like a decent guy. I've never seen anything like this.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
I want to go back to your first point. Please. In your book here, The Art of the Deal, he is the worst negotiator. China never bought anything. They took him to cleaner. North Korea never agreed to anything. He negotiated the trade deal with Canada and Mexico, and then he just blew it up. He's blowing up his own deal. Yeah. He is not a good negotiator.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
When you claim you're a good negotiator, it should cover up the fact that you're a horrible negotiator. You could have done this seven different ways. He picked the eighth way. Right. And the problem is not just, and you are right, he's going to say after Japan or after Israel, I got this deal, and he's going to try to calm the markets down.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
But the fact is the damage to America, nobody will ever trust us. In eight weeks, he's destroyed 80 years of reputation that America built, all of us collectively. All through all the battles, he has destroyed it. And just like your dog, he threw up on the bed. That was my point.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Did you miss the point of the whole story? That was my point. But I wanted to say it my way, and I feel better for being here. Thank you, John. Did you think I just brought that up randomly? No, that was.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
OK.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
No, no doubt about it. Here's we got to own this. Here's the fact, which is we disappointed the country. Now they will stab you in the back. We will disappoint you. And that's just down to where it is. And you get to pick as the American people. That's the good news.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
You ask me. No, but you know, I disappoint you. We got to be honest. When you make a mistake, you got to own it. And that's the only way to be. And here and here and here. No, here's and here's what it is. Yeah. We were just talking earlier. Yes. The Stewart kids and the Emanuel kids, they're going to be good. Loving home, good education.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
And the American dream, they're going to get a shot at it, which is a deal. But in fact, out of Washington, the American people haven't gotten the shot. They've gotten the shaft. And what happened is trying to own a home, trying to basically save for your retirement, save your kid's education and health care so you're not in the poorhouse one sickness away. People are missing medications.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Kids are coming home from college or living in the basement. And the American dream is good for only about 10% of the kids. That's not how we keep score. And we are responsible for not keeping faith with that.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Here's my thing. Here's my thing. Yeah. More than that, because of what happened both in Iraq war, what happened in the financial meltdown. The American people lost their lives, their livelihood, and the elite let them down. There is no doubt that their right to be angry. I have no problem with some of the people that make up the MAGA.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
They have a right to be angry because they've lost the elite, lost faith with them. What I have is all these other executives who've lived large on America. who allow a president to run roughshod over the law, who run roughshod over America, they have no right to that.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
That's, again, placing it to... So let's stay with... No, the Democrats have a responsibility for what they have done with losing faith. You can't let Peoria, Youngstown, you can't let parts of Wisconsin, La Crosse... But we did. No, we did. And that's why the first thing... Sorry. We owe you. No, we do.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
You have to get clean with people, own what we did wrong, and worst case scenario, we then get sidetracked into side issues rather than the main cause, which is the American dream. So how would Democrats bring that back? The American dream is unaffordable. Right. It's inaccessible. Yes. And that should be unacceptable to us.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
And then number two, what you have to do is right now is deal with the fundamentals, OK? No part of America is off from being invested or invested in. You've got to make sure every American has a chance at the American dream, which means it starts first and foremost with education.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Even when we did it. Wait a second, hold on. No, don't. No, wait a second. I've got one. I've got to own that. Okay, number two, you own with the fact is you've got to invest in this country. And we did not do that. We basically let Americans and let the Chinese eat their lunch. And that's not fair.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, you pointed out, and I agree with you 100% of what we literally did. Passing the legislation should be hard, not actually getting the resource out. On the other hand, let me give you one reverse. Can I ask you? Is this about a dog? No. It's about when the auto industry was on their back. And they were literally, I remember, as the chief of staff for President Obama. Right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
And we got a notice that there were six weeks left before Chrysler and GM are belly up. And thousands of jobs and thousands of communities were on their back. The United States came in and saved it. And our auto industry came back. So, in fact, there is moments you can point to. You can't get a charging station. You go...
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
You're looking at the guy 100%.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
We saved GM when all the guys that work at GM lost their houses. You're looking at the guy. Well, that's actually, that's cheap. That's not actually true. GM jobs got saved rather than go back. Some people were out here. But you know what I'm talking about. Yes, but you're not totally accurate. This may be the last time I'm asked on the show.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
But on the second thing, here's the thing. We did do, and we saved the auto industry from going under.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
And the second thing is, on that part, and somebody who was in the White House had advocated for Old Testament justice on bankers, because they should have been put into the public square and literally had the crap beat out of them, because they were asking for bonuses when people were losing their homes. And I... No. Now...
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Whip them! Actually, to be honest, it wasn't the Oval Office. Put them in a stockade! It wasn't the Oval Office. It was in the Roosevelt Room. Yeah, they should be beaten up because they're sitting there asking for their bonuses as if they earned a bonus when people lost their homes, their livelihood, and their life savings. That's right.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
And that is where we lost faith in the Iraq war, which is built on deception. The liar's loan that lost people their homes was built on deception. And then you got COVID coming around, and the Democrats sat around and acted like they were scientists and doctors.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
I was the one that called you. When he was with you, I got free time and I actually got the work done.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
The answer is, in the Talmudic way, yes and no. And I'll tell you why. No, yes, I was like... No, no, I feel like... Don't ever say that again. Okay. Or I'll have to give you... I understand. This hand. I understand. I understand. Here's the thing. I, like, sometimes I look around and I literally... I set up a blind trust. You look at these people. They're literally trading.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
They're setting up Bitcoin. I'm like, we were schmucks. We were idiots for doing this. On the other hand... Nobody had ever had an ethics problem in the Obama White House. We did follow the rules of law. America was respected around the world. And we did create jobs. So did we follow it and say, oh, we should have done it audaciously like this and break over?
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
No, because as many... What would you have done, though, if you could? Oh, that's going to... We have to do three more shows. All right. No, but I say to... Yeah. In defense of President Obama... It's not in defense.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
No, no, no. He said... You know, my presidency's a marathon, and I hand over the baton to somebody else to pick up. I actually think he left America better than the one he inherited from President Bush in a whole host of ways. I don't agree with everything. And then you look at this. No, I don't wish we did this. And I'm glad we didn't do this. Was it constraining? Yes.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
But leaving here, literally walking around saying, will be a recession what do you need a 401k for no and then i don't mean i mean to to push things in a way that didn't follow well somebody who uh pushed a number of people yeah known for that that's why i'm that's why i'm asking you this question there are things there's no doubt like what they're about to do let's take this on the budget and say
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Well, $5 trillion in the Texas doesn't cost anything. Well, I'm sorry. Any kid in third grade math, even post-COVID, knows what $5 trillion does cost, okay? I mean, give me a break. So when they sit there and do all this... They got it. You didn't get it.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
I want the dumb children removed. No, wait a second. I think the American people agree with me about bankers getting beaten.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
I know, but I'm only here for 20 minutes, so it feels pretty good. Here's what we need. Okay, but here's, no, the thing is, do I feel like I could, back to your original question, do I feel like we should have done certain things like this? Yeah, but for a guy, I believe in the end of the day, following the rules, playing by the rules is better for the country. Ultimately.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Not just ultimately, also at the time. There were definitely frustrating things. There are things that, what I will say this, is you look at what they did on the courts and how they stacked them versus the way we did it in the sense of the process, full background checks, et cetera. You could have no doubt pushed that much harder and much faster. No doubt about it.
The Daily Show: Ears Edition
Jon Stewart on Trump's Botched Tariff Rollout & Market Meltdown | Rahm Emanuel
Thank you. Thank you. ,,,,,,.........,,,,.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,......................................................................................................... Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
It's the largest tax increase in American history on the American consumer. And I kind of say this both fictitiously but also seriously. If this is supposed to be a renaissance in America's manufacturing – Elon Musk, the president's friend, has a facility in Shanghai. 20,000 people work there. He has another one in Berlin, 12,000. Shutter them and bring all the jobs back in manufacturing.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Now, the over-under on that, not very good. But this is why it's really one of the worst policies and decisions. And you not only have a collapse in the market, but five months ago, the United States was outpacing everybody's economy. We had low unemployment. We had growth at levels everybody else was envious of.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And in five months, we're already talking about a 60% chance of a recession, all because one man has decided a new economic theory that was totally reputed. So in 80 days, he's undone 80 years worth of work.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Yeah, there was a period. Look, there was not only cooperation between President Bush and incoming President Obama's administration. I will just, one anecdote of that cooperation, all the resources expended to help the banks, we were notified in the transition. I met with President Bush and Josh Bolton. He and Josh Bolton and I had a meal. We went in to see President Bush.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
I told him, I said, look, we've gotten a heads up. that both GM and Chrysler, not potentially Ford, but definitely GM and Chrysler, have six weeks left. That is it. We not only have this massive financial engulf to collapse that is going to lead to not just worldwide, but the United States going from a recession into maybe something far worse.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And to give us some help here, so we have breathing room, could you take the politics of tapping the resources to save the auto industry so we have enough time to deal with one and set up the process to deal with the second? And there were going to be politics about tapping those resources outside of the financial sector for the auto industry and all the auto jobs and all the communities.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And President Bush said, I'll do it. We negotiated. Do we get eight weeks, six weeks? They took the six weeks, et cetera. I think there was 24. I'm doing it by memory. I think they gave...
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
supported with 24 billion dollars for general motors and chrysler and he took both the politics as well as giving us some breathing room to work that's an anecdote of trust not just of an action of trust also worldwide of coordination as you said and i remember if you go back now this is where president bush is president this is pre the transition ben bernanke
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Mr. Cox, the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, and Hank Paulson came up to speak to the bipartisan leadership. We were all meeting in Nancy Pelosi's office. And he says the economy has 48 hours, 72 hours before it totally collapses, not just the market collapses.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And we thought from Democratic leader to Republican leader, House member to Senate member, we all leaned forward around the conference and said, what did you just say? Said, we have 72 hours. The economy will collect.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And we spent all night working through, and also the next 72 hours, what became the hated, for good reason and bad reason, I'll walk through it if you want, the financial assistance to stabilize this financial system. And that was bipartisan. And it was across Pennsylvania Avenue. What did you have in that room? Patriotism and trust.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Now, there were a lot of faults, and we can talk about it later on, things that I wanted to get done, we didn't get done, et cetera. But those two examples of working together to stave off not just a financial crisis, but also we were that close from the Great Recession bordering into a small D depression, which we hadn't seen since 29th.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
David, I mean, you got to treat friends like they are friends. You can't treat them worse than you treat your adversaries. I mean, now you say they don't want to help. I agree with that. There's also a part of them that the more you try to hurt, it may boomerang. So it's not exactly a clean shot on goal here. But there is a lot of animosity and I can't get back
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
not only trust in America, the devastation to America as a safe harbor that's built up. And so much of our hard power, economic power is built on what people view of America. Rule of law, somebody you can depend on in a storm. That power, these other manifestations of it, are dependent on one piece.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And the president is not only destroying America's hard power, its soft power, but the credibility of the American brand that people maybe short term will try to figure out retaliation versus negotiation because the Trump administration is sending both signals, which is also confusing. On the other hand, that's short term, long term.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Everybody will start to design economic pieces around America and away from America that will hurt America. Example, two things illustrating this point. We spent the lion's share of my time in Japan building a coherent alliance between the United States, Japan, and Korea, isolating China.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
China seeing the opening just created an economic and discussion and partnership between Japan, Korea, and China, isolating America. Very bad for America. Two, forget the countries. Samsung, which was critical to America's export controls against China on semiconductors, just cut a deal with a Chinese company. So we already have a company crack in the United Front against China.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
You don't trust America? You think America is going to treat you worse than they treat its own worst adversary? then you make your own deals. And now it's going to come where, which is what I said. They just gave Beijing a get out of jail card.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Well, they're going to show that they're the adult. If you were sitting in Beijing's corridors of power, why would you not take advantage of that? Look after the wolf warrior, And after the economic coercion, we organized the Indo-Pacific against China. They knew they were isolated.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
They kept complaining about it because they had made a massive mistake treating Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, the Philippines as the enemy. We organized it. On goal by China, we took advantage of it, and China was complaining that we were isolating them in their own backyard. Yeah, we were. Exactly. We isolated the isolator.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Now China sees an opening, and it's basically isolating the United States and taking advantage of it. We just hurt ourselves.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Well, I think it's so they can't make heads or tails or having, for lack of a better analogy, a vertigo. The world they knew is upside down. Now, think of it. If you're the Japanese for four consecutive years and starting on the fifth, you're the number one foreign direct investor in the United States. One million Americans work for Japanese companies.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
48% of them are in manufacturing and industrial. Those are years of investment, mainly in the auto industry, but not limited, where you trust America and you invest in America. And they just had the wind spit back in their face. And they've now realized that those were bad investments. That's one. Given the defense piece, they're going to try to figure out, can we work this out amicably?
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And while we're talking to you, We're going to start these conversations with Korea, Australia, Taiwan, Philippines, the EU, Canada, and develop other economic ties. Now remember, when America pulls out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, Japan steps in, takes leadership, and creates that for their own good. They are now going to look at other markets.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
and other ways of becoming less integrated with the U.S. economy and less supportive of a million Americans working in companies owned and run by Japanese. So there's a short-term, medium-term, and a long-term.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
I'm going to stop you there. There is no economic theory. Don't dress it up and put lipstick on a pig. This is all about vindictiveness, anger. There's no economic theory behind this. And this is an on goal of the worst order.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
We can take polite out of the conversation as a necessity.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
So first and foremost, the analysis of the problem is correct. Over the last 30 years, neither the risk or the opportunities were equally shared. And as I like to say, The American dream is unaffordable now and inaccessible to many Americans, and that should be unacceptable to us. Rather than having a shot at the American dream, the American public's been given the shaft.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And globalization does have winners, but it has losers, and we left the losers alone, isolated, and on their own, just figure out their own way. That's wrong. That's un-American, actually. So the problem with the tariffs is it treats everything as a nail to its hammer. China and Colombia are not the same. One's a potential ally. The other one's an adversary. One's a potential market.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
The other one isn't. Colombia doesn't involve itself in economic espionage. It doesn't involve itself in intellectual property theft. China does. That's one. Second, how do you make sure that Peoria, Youngstown, Battle Creek, La Crosse, Wisconsin, Ainge, Iowa, are not left on their own to negotiate against China, Mexico, or for that matter, Vietnam.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And the best way to do that in my view is to invest in Americans and America. And we didn't do that. So while globalization was happening, huge opportunities, also huge risk. Your kids, my kids are gonna succeed.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Other people's kids are going to get the shaft unless we give them the tools to succeed like our families gave our own children to succeed, which means, one, and I'm not saying I have the exact ticket, but we know it's true in human history. Education is essential for progress, both for society and for the individual.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
One of the things I try to do in Chicago, we're the first city to make, if you've got to be average in high school, community college was free. So everybody had a shot without going into the poorhouse or a second mortgage to get an education past high school, which is where three quarters of all jobs are.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Second, equally valuable, to get your high school diploma, you had to show us a letter of acceptance from a college, a community college, a branch of the armed forces, or vocational education institution. We gave you support, career counseling, kept you on course, so if you wanted to go to the Navy, you knew what math courses, what history classes, what to take, so you were ready.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
We made post-high school education expectations and requirements universal, not just the from and Emmanuel children. And third, just shy of 50%, 49.2% of our kids we're taking either advanced placement, international baccalaureate, or dual credit, dual enrollment college classes in high school. They would get graduating already with college credit and not having to pay for it.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
So to me, that's number one, because your education is your passport to a better future. I don't care whether it's going into healthcare, at Malcolm X Community College in Chicago, Transportation Distribution Logistics at another school in our community college center, Advanced Manufacturing at Richard J. Daly Community College.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
But everybody's gonna have the skills so they can navigate the future the best they can. Education is essential. Then investing in science, technology, the critical kind of infrastructure writ large, which means investing in America. And if you invest in Americans in America, I don't care if you're from Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, we're gonna kick your butt.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
I always bet on America and Americans, but we gotta be honest, the last 30 years, they didn't get that equal investment, they didn't get the peace dividend at the end of the Cold War, and we paid a price for it, and they paid a price, and they have every right to be furious.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
There's actually an interesting article today. One is, look, I wasn't in office anymore, but I was against what we were doing during COVID because it became clear within six months, kids, mortality rates, et cetera, they're locking kids out of schools for two years. And the impact of what COVID did to
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Especially if you're like a former mayor like me in Chicago where 84% of your kids are from poverty. Absolutely stupidest thing you could do. And I'm not going to clean it up. It was stupid. Now, there's a story today in the Times from the day you're asking me.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
It's pretty clear that both Leave No Child Behind by President Bush, President Clinton's 100,000 specialized teachers plus school choice plus other types of things on both reform and accountability. President Obama's basically race to the top, those were actually quite successful academically.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
They were slow, but steady progress on reading, math, scores, to getting not just the high-end kids or meaning children of high-income families, but low-income children succeeding. Now, the truth of the matter is we were replacing teaching with just testing. And there was a reaction both to the left, to the right to it.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And then once that accountability was basically erased, you had a deterioration in standards and educational attainment. And parents, mainly also educators, rebelled against the accountability. Now, testing is only a means of information to improve education. What happened was because of the strictures, we threw the baby out with the bathwater.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
The testing became, we were teaching towards the test rather than using the test to improve teaching. And it kind of flipped. And what should have happened was more of a reform. But the idea that there was an improvement is not true. In fact, there was improvement. It begins to stall out around 2010, just at the period of time where people start to break from accountability.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And the impacts on that were most dramatically felt by first-time English learners and also the poor. And then it starts to, in COVID, float up to kind of all income levels.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Look, there's two things. One is the way I look at it, and there's Lessons to be learned from Alabama's improvement on math, Mississippi's improvements on reading. You can't undo the stupidity of two years of locking kids out of school. Can't undo it. But you can start to ameliorate it and make up for lost ground. A couple things are very clear.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
You need more time on topic, so you've got to add time in the day. to reading, math, and writing. Two, testing so you can find early data on intervention and then apply one-on-one, whether that's in person or by using technology. One of the things that comes out of COVID that was the one thing that was valuable.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
And you can start to do one-on-one through technology and tutoring kids so they get more time. And once they get that time, you could see dramatic improvements in both reading, writing as an example of academic areas.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
third a horrible habit has been basically kids and parents have accepted almost a four-day school week and I think you should make a man because of absentee rates now are double digits any child absent more than seven percent an absolute you won't be able to matriculate to the next grade we have to reimpose a minimum of a five day it was up to me to
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
I'd reorganize the school year round so you don't have the summer slide that everybody in the educational fields talk about. But that's a different subject. Because dealing with absenteeism, that has now become chronic, and it's now in the high teens, and it's across the board. Anything north of 7, pick your number, 7%, 8%, whatever it is, you can't matriculate.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
and start to reimpose more time, not just in the school, more time on one-on-one instruction. I will also say though, one of the costs here that's crazy, 20% of a child's life, David, is in the classroom. And if you want a child to succeed, you got to invest in the other 80%. So we as a city, as a state, invest in the 80% to back up and support the 20%. No teacher by themselves
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
can handle the effects of poverty rushing through the front door of the classroom. It's not possible. Back up.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Yeah. Get rid of them. Not in the classroom. Not allowed. All the time should be on the teacher and the blackboard, not on your phones. Get rid of them. I've been a long, in fact, I don't want to say the campaign knows this. I try to get Kamala Harris's campaign in the summer. to adopt a national standard of no phones in classrooms. I'm a big supporter.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Because, again, you're not allowing the teacher to teach. You're having the teacher become a policeman. That's not the job of the teacher.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
Here's my kind of take on this moment in particular, and it's kind of a pullback, which is China, in my view, you can't raise tariffs high enough on them, China was becoming the center of focus of energy in the world economy. They shuttered the Chilean steel plant, about to do that to South Africa.
The David Frum Show
Treating Friends Like Enemies
There's more than 500 countries that have taken different type of legal actions against China because of unfair trade practices. And the President of the United States just declared Liberation Day in Beijing, not in America, because he's giving them an out-of-jail card to get out and now made America the focal of everybody's energy and anger and frustration. I think, obviously, this is on goal.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
World Leaders Put the Screws in Trump as He Freezes Up
Here's what you should note. Ever since the United States in Ukraine showed a weakness and a vulnerability towards Putin, That very week or a week later, China did an unprecedented naval exercise against Australia, our ally. They had to shut down civilian air traffic near Sydney. They did an unprecedented move against Japan in the Sea of Japan. They did it against Vietnam.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
World Leaders Put the Screws in Trump as He Freezes Up
They did it in the Philippine area, and they did it on Taiwan Straits. So they see weakness. Weakness invites aggression.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Furious Japan Issues Major Threat to Trump
Japan's the number one foreign direct investor in the United States for the last four years consecutively. Over a million Americans or a million Americans work for Japanese companies and nearly half of their investment goes to manufacturing. So it's a kind of, you know, we're gonna kind of be penny wise and dollar foolish here.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Furious Japan Issues Major Threat to Trump
Second, Japan hosts the largest military footprint the United States has anywhere in the world. It's the only country that has a permanent aircraft carrier. It is the long pole in our deterrence against China in the Indo-Pacific. And so, you know, nothing stays just in the economic lane. It's a relationship. So that means national security, diplomatic support.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Furious Japan Issues Major Threat to Trump
It means political support and it means economic support and integration. Second, imagine this. When the United States wants to put further sanctions on China as it relates to export controls for high tech, the only way it's successful is Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Dutch stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Furious Japan Issues Major Threat to Trump
they're gonna think real hard about whether we should stand with the United States or allow our companies to continue to export to China. So, you know, relationships don't just have one length. It's a series of things you weigh equities against each other. So I think this is very short-sighted in this approach.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Furious Japan Issues Major Threat to Trump
There's a way you could have approached as we did in years past, both when I worked for President Clinton, we did the five pillars on trade, et cetera. Japan now is the number one, as I said, number one foreign investor in the United States. Nearly a million Americans work for them. And of those, half are in the manufacturing industrial space.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Well, if you have 11 billionaires in your cabinet, what do they know about pain? For a family that can't make it to the 31st of the month on their paycheck and is trying to get it to Walmart or to Target, and they are buying less and less and less, as noted by the Walmart CEO, this is real economics. And I think one of the things that's missed in the past is
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Those who are doing well, we're actually healthy as consumers. The rest of the consumers in our society, we're actually living in a recession. Our job is to help them economically, not hurt them.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Yeah, well, look, here's my thing. America today is less safe, the economy is less stable, and our future is less secure. Our obligation, because the middle class have been betrayed, not just now, but in the past, and the American dream, is unaffordable to the American people. It's inaccessible to the American people. And for us, that is unacceptable. We're going to work tirelessly.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
We didn't get here overnight, but we're going to work tirelessly to get us out. And this is an administration not only that has betrayed you, but is corrupt to its core. And that's what I would do. And I would start with things like Social Security. I would start with things like Medicare.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
And I do think we should remember, while there's a lot of focus and energy on Washington, it's kind of a tale of two parties. What's happening in the rest of the country, you can see by these special elections, Democrats at the ballot are strong, vibrant, and aggressive.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Washington needs to understand that and be strategic in its direction of the demarcation between the Trump administration, the Republicans who are blindly falling in line, versus a party that offers not just, we're not anti-Trump, but an alternative of what we're gonna do for the working middle class of this country.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
make of all this i would take it at two points first japan's the number one foreign direct investor in the united states for the last four years consecutively over a million americans or a million americans work for japanese companies and nearly half of their investment goes to manufacturing so it's a kind of you know we're going to kind of be penny wise and dollar foolish here uh second
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Japan hosts the largest military footprint the United States has anywhere in the world. It's the only country that has a permanent aircraft carrier. It is the long pole in our deterrence against China in the Indo-Pacific. And so, you know, nothing stays just in the economic lane. It's a relationship. So that means national security, diplomatic support.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
It means political support and it means economic support and integration. Second, imagine this. When the United States wants to put further sanctions on China as it relates to export controls for high tech, the only way it's successful is Japan, Korea, Taiwan, the Dutch stand shoulder to shoulder with the United States.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
They're going to think real hard about whether we should stand with the United States or allow our companies to continue to export to China. So, you know, relationships don't just have one length. It's a series of things you weigh equities against each other. So I think this is very short-sighted in this approach.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
There's a way you could have approached as we did in years past, both when I worked for President Clinton, we did the five pillars on trade, et cetera. Japan now is the number one, as I said, number one foreign investor in the United States. Nearly a million Americans work for them. And of those, half are in the manufacturing industrial space. the exact job we want in the United States.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Well, let me be clear. It's not like economic relations don't need to be reformed, changed, altered. What we're successfully doing is breaking. Nobody has successfully in this administration yet built. We're very good at the breaking part. The building part, you have yet to see.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
And if the whole idea is that out of the zenith is going to come some new world, as he says, it's going to be Liberation Day. This is a country that has, as I said, is creating manufacturing industrial jobs in the United States. What are you looking at? Where is this zenith? Describe it. Who's coming? Outside of you say it's going to happen. In fact, give you an example.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Japan has increased, gone from 1% to 2% of their GDP will go to defense. It's going to become the third largest defense budget in the world, United States, China, Japan. 99.9% of that budget is going to go into purchasing equipment. We're going to be the largest. What if Japan decides to start partnering with Europe?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
That means we're going to lose manufacturing jobs inside the military industrial part of the United States. What if they decide to cut back on the F-35, the Patriot? the cruise missile, and they're gonna say, we're gonna partner and do that with Europe. You're gonna actually lose manufacturing jobs, not gain it. So this is, I know it comes as a shock, sit down, I wanna be able to do this gently.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
And it was historic because it showed a united front and a clear, credible deterrent against China. China was very nervous. Now that we have decided to pull back, step back and beat our allies like their adversaries, China is in the middle of having now had two meetings, both with Japan and Korea jointly on both the foreign policy diplomatic front and also on the trade front.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
So they're going to reap all the advantages that we had built previously. between the United States, Japan, and Korea. And so we're literally hurting not only our allies, but hurting the credibility of our deterrence against our number one threat, China. Sorry about that.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Here's what you should note. Ever since the United States in Ukraine showed a weakness and a vulnerability towards Putin, That very week or a week later, China did an unprecedented naval exercise against Australia, our ally. They had a shutdown civilian air traffic near Sydney. They did an unprecedented move against Japan in the Sea of Japan. They did it against Vietnam.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
They did it in the Philippine area. And they did it on Taiwan Straits. So they see weakness. Weakness invites aggression.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
You have to be smart about your deterrence, but it is not an accident that both while China is talking to Japan and Korea, which are very important allies, they project our power, they reinforce the basic message of the United States that we are a permanent Pacific power and presence, you can bet long on us, versus China's theory, we're the rising power, the United States is declining power, you either get in line or you're gonna get coercion.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
And in this situation, we built something that is a fundamental restructuring the strategic landscape of the region, enhancing America's credibility of its deterrence. China took note of it. Now, all of a sudden, the administration's walked away from it. And China is stepping into that void and taking all the benefits and all the fruits of our hard work.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Because your perspective here, you know, needs to be- Actually, watching this unfold in the last 48 hours, I think the Trump administration's national, the moniker on their national security will be dumb and dumber. It'll be the reissuing of an old classic. And I can't I look at this and think about other instances.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Did you think this was happening when we were planning and preparing for Osama bin Laden? I was in the situation room with the president in the first seven weeks of his administration. We had a meeting in a small situation room, not the big one, on how to handle the pirate situation, which the U.S. ship was taken. And we dealt with it.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
It was four of us, the president, myself, Tom Donilon, deputy national security advisor, and the national security advisor, Mr. Jones. He made a decision on Friday night. That was the execution in a secure area.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
If you had done this when we were preparing to put our men and women's boots on the ground in Pakistan in the preparation for the exercise of the president's plan for the capturing or eliminating Osama bin Laden, there was six months of preparation. Nothing leaked. It was not on a public diet. There was a security. There's a reason you have these plans secure. A, the element of surprise.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
The ability for our men and women in uniform, Air Force, Navy, otherwise Marines, to execute the mission that the commander in chief details them with. That surprise is a piece of your security. If what they're saying is true, that Jeff Goldberg figured out how to get on there on his own, that means China, Russia, and all our adversaries that are trying to harm the United States can get on there.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
So that's crap. So they have earned a reputation as the Keystone Cops. The reissuing of the movie, the moniker on the national security team will be Dumb and Dumber, and you can figure out who plays dumb and who plays dumber.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
One of the things that we dealt with a lot during President Obama's time, and I've There are different moments of different things with President Clinton as it relates to Bosnia, et cetera. But President Obama, when we were picking or selecting targets, leaders in terrorist organizations, there was a process, a very secure process run by the national security that had intel, military intelligence.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
you know, collateral type of damage, weighing different equities. There's none ever. None of it leaked because, you know, God forbid, the heads up was, you know, given to the terrorists to change their patterns, to change how they move, to change the way they communicate. If this had been picked up by Iran, they would change.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
And obviously, if it was successful and it looks like it was successful operation, they would have notified the individuals we were trying to target, the missiles. The person for the Houthis operates their missile program, which is what we're trying to degrade, if not eliminate. And this gets back to something I also said. They talk pathetically.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
using their term, about our allies who actually, the UK, Canada, the 51st state, Denmark, the colonial power of Greenland, the Dutch, Aussies, Kiwis, and Bahrain, have all been part of an operation since January 12th. Those are our allies, standing shoulder to shoulder. The people that are freeloading are President Trump's allies, Russia, China, Belarus, and North Korea.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
They're the ones that the ships haven't been hit. And if you think that's an accident, I gotta bridge over the tigers for every you can buy. This administration doesn't know who an ally and adversary is. The freeloaders are President Trump's allies.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
The allies of the United States of America are the ones that are not pathetic, but actually are risking their own servicemen and women on behalf of the freedom of seas. So the freeloaders are our adversaries. Those defending the freedom of navigation are our allies.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
One of the things, I mean, look, all we know right now is what's broken. And I'm surprised none of the Republicans have said, whoa. If I was in leadership like I used to be in Congress, they have grandmothers sitting on the phone for five hours with nobody to answer that for their Social Security check. They are breaking.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
That is, if your husband dies, you're trying to secure your benefits and your check. They have ruined the system. Now, I think this is going to be a you. It has a potential. there's both a political standpoint and a policy. Politically, the Republicans aren't going to own this. If I were the Democrats, I would press this issue right now on the floor.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
And there's plenty of time to do it while there's stuff about Signalgate, etc. But I would prepare an attack on the way they have hurt our grandparents and their retirement security that they earned. They're sitting on call centers for five hours with nobody picking up the phone. That's also true at IRS.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
So all they know how to do, and remember, I think Colin Powell told George Bush, you break it, you own it. That's going to be true here too. So all we know is what they know how to break. You have yet to tell me where the savings are, and what they've actually, is a better service before.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Whether that's the veterans benefits, whether that's going to, today you're asking me the day in which we're going to lay off all these people on healthcare. There's going to be massive impacts on cancer drugs, HIV drugs, other types of things, and also delivering services to seniors that rely on Medicare. Seniors and poor people that rely on Medicaid. And so breaking is easy.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Building, very difficult. And you're going to see that. And the Republicans are going to own it also in the midst of what is a desire by the president for a recession and his economic theme. You think he actually has a desire for it? Does he want a recession?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
I don't know why he said it, but well, first of all, I don't know if he wants it, but I worked for President Obama when we inherited what's called the Great Recession, and it was this close to going and tipping into a depression. We stopped it, pulled the economy back. I worked for President Clinton, who inherited a recession.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
We worked as an administration, the presidents led them, to pull the country out of of a recession and to then build an economy that became, in both cases, examples of great growth and job creation. This administration, through their tariffs and chaos, are driving a healthy, and we just got today, you're asking me, today they showed the report, the economy was doing well and had forward momentum.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
Tariffs go up, 401ks go down. Consumers have pulled back. And when the consumers pull back, the economy tips over. That's right. And he said, well, there could be a recession. I've never seen anybody be so cavalier with people's own personal economy. and economic security for the working middle class of this country. But he said it. I'm using his words. And his treasury secretary, he's at AC.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Interview with Ambassador Rahm Emanuel
They basically, oh, that could be the consequence. I don't know. I worked for two administrations tirelessly that worked every day, 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year to get out of a recession and to build the economy. You have an administration that shrugs their shoulders and says, well, There could be a little pain here.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
I don't know why he said it, but well, first of all, I don't know if he wants it, but I worked for President Obama when we inherited what's called the Great Recession, and it was this close to going and tipping into a depression. We stopped it, pulled the economy back. I worked for President Clinton, who inherited a recession.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
We worked as an administration, the presidents led them, to pull the country out of of a recession and to then build an economy that became, in both cases, examples of great growth and job creation. This administration, through their tariffs and chaos, are driving a healthy, and we just got today, you're asking me, today they showed the report, the economy was doing well and had forward momentum.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
Tariffs go up, 401ks go down. Consumers have pulled back. And when the consumers pull back, the economy tips over. That's right. And he said, well, there could be a recession. I've never seen anybody be so cavalier with people's own personal economy. and economic security for the working middle class of this country. But he said it. I'm using his words.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
And his treasury secretary, he said, he said, they basically, oh, that could be the consequence. I don't know. I worked for two administrations tirelessly that worked every day, 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year to get out of a recession and to build the economy. You have an administration that shrugs their shoulders and says, well, there could be a little pain here. Well,
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
If you have 11 billionaires in your cabinet, what do they know about pain? For a family that can't make it to the 31st of the month on their paycheck and is trying to get it to Walmart or to Target, and they are buying less and less and less, as noted by the Walmart CEO, this is real economics. And I think one of the things that's missed in the past is
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Republicans Blow Up on Live TV over Trump Crash
Those who are doing well were actually healthy as consumers. The rest of the consumers in our society were actually living in a recession. Our job is to help them economically, not hurt them.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
I don't know why he said it, but, well, first of all, I don't know if he wants it, but I worked for President Obama when we inherited what's called the Great Recession, and it was this close to going and tipping into a depression. We stopped it, pulled the economy back. I worked for President Clinton, who inherited a recession.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
We worked as an administration, the presidents led them, to pull the country out of of a recession and to then build an economy that became, in both cases, examples of great growth and job creation. This administration, through their tariffs and chaos, are driving a healthy, and we just got today, you're asking me, today they showed the report, the economy was doing well and had forward momentum.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
Tariffs go up, 401Ks go down. Consumers have pulled back. And when the consumers pull back, the economy tips over. That's right. And he said, well, there could be a recession. I've never seen anybody be so cavalier with people's own personal economy and economic security for the working middle class of this country. But he said it using his words.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
And his Treasury Secretary, he said, you see, they basically, oh, that could be the consequence. I don't know. I worked for two administrations tirelessly that worked every day, 24 hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year to get out of a recession and to build the economy. You have an administration that shrugs their shoulders and says, well, there could be a little pain here.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
Well, if you have 11 billionaires in your cabinet, what do they know about pain? For a family that can't make it to the 31st of the month on their paycheck and is trying to get it to Walmart or to Target, and they are buying less and less and less, as noted by the Walmart CEO. This is real economics.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
And I think one of the things that's missed in the past is those who are doing well are actually healthy as consumers. The rest of the consumers in our society, we're actually living in a recession. Our job is to help them economically, not hurt them.