The Education Crisis Nobody Wants to Fix

A conversation with Rahm Emanuel on education reform, community colleges, and the 2028 race

In the B.T. era (Before Trump), I loved presidential elections. I love the horse race, the contest of ideas, the battle of pure grit and charisma, the intellectual marathon. I think I’ll love presidential elections again in the A.T. era. I love that we’re going to have a wide-open competition for both major parties’ nominations, and I bet there will be some interesting independent and small-party candidates in the mix as well. I’m here for all of it. Our 250-year-old democracy needs a good vision-workshopping for the next 250.

I’m excited for 2028. I’m also curious about what we all think America needs in the A.T. era.

Rahm Emanuel frequently says a version of “tough times call for a tough leader.” As much as I have resisted the tough-guy routine from many politicians, I find myself buying it from Emanuel. He has drawers of receipts from battles that were hard-fought and hard-won. He’s been honest about the trade-offs involved in tackling hard questions (you’ll hear him talk in this episode about the difficult decision to close schools in Chicago). I’m leaning forward in my chair when he endorses an immigration bill that he acknowledges is imperfect. His particular combination of experience, pragmatism, and willingness to listen to regular people all across America is meeting the moment for me.

I’m thrilled that he joined us as a guest today and would truly be up for 40 more hours of conversation. And I am very curious to hear whether he meets the moment for you. - Beth

Topics Discussed

• The Education Crisis: Why We Know What to Do and Won’t Do It (science of reading, phonics, the Mississippi Marathon)

• High School Reform, Community Colleges, and the “Learn, Plan, Succeed” Framework

• Phones, Screens, and What We’ve Abdicated to the Algorithm

• School Closures, Political Will, and Owning Tough Decisions

• Outside of Politics: Swimming, Coffee in Bed, and Raising Boys

Want more Pantsuit Politics? Subscribe to ensure you never miss an episode and get access to our premium shows and community.

Episode Resources

Rahm Emanuel

• Rahm Emanuel Eyes 2028 Presidential Bid, Advocates for Education Reform (Axios)

• Draft Rahm Emanuel for President 2028

The Mississippi Miracle (Marathon)

• Inside the Mississippi Marathon (Progressive Policy Institute)

• Was there a “Mississippi miracle” behind its soaring reading scores? (Chalkbeat)

• Mississippi’s Reading Revolution (George W. Bush Presidential Center)

Immigration

• The DIGNIDAD (Dignity) Act of 2025 (Congress.gov)

• The Dignity Act of 2025: Bill Summary (National Immigration Forum)

Chicago School Reform

• Sean Reardon/Stanford study on Chicago public schools

Episode Transcript

Sarah 0:29

This is Sarah Stewart Holland.

Beth 0:31

This is Beth Silvers. You’re listening to Pantsuit Politics. Today, we are joined by Rahm Emanuel, who has done everything. Rahm Emanuel has been a member of Congress. He’s been the White House Chief of Staff. He’s been our Ambassador to Japan and the mayor of Chicago, and we are really interested in him as a 2028, presidential contender, because he has all this experience, but doesn’t seem content to just rest in it. He feels like someone who is out there listening to people. He’s traveling the country, going to places that people don’t expect him to go, talking to people that he is not expected to talk to, and you can hear it in the policies he’s rolling out. So we wanted to have him on to talk about education and a whole lot more. You are not going to want to miss his Outside of Politics tips for empty nesters.

Sarah 1:15

We find Rham refreshing. If you do too, we hope that you’ll text this conversation to someone in your life and let them know what we do here at Pantsuit Politics. It is the best way to get normal people interested in politics, and we need more normal people participating in the American political scene.

Beth 1:34

Next up, our conversation with Rahm Emanuel. Rahm Emanuel, welcome to Pantsuit Politics.

Rahm Emanuel 1:49

How are you doing?

Beth 1:50

We’re so glad that you’re here. We have been excited about all the conversations you’re having right now, because you’re talking about education. And every presidential cycle, we sit together and say, why is no one talking about education? So how did this get on your front burner?

Rahm Emanuel 2:06

Well, a couple things. So, actually, when I was in college, I studied to be an early childhood teacher. Always was an interest of mine. I’ll even wind the clock back a little, I got accepted to the Joffrey Ballet School, did not take it. Much to my mother’s anger, still to this day. Convinced her I’ll go to Sarah Lawrence College and I’ll study dance, and if I miss it, I can always go down to New York City. It’s up in Westchester. Anyway, mom and dad drive off and I throw the ballet shoes against the wall. Stacker! Fool them. Anyway, so I go, and while I don’t dance, I get very interested in early childhood education and they have a school there for not only teaching, but for early childhood education and that is what interests me. Now, maybe you could relate it to the fact that my dad was a pediatrician. I used to go on rounds with him every other Saturday, etc. Probably, if you know, we were paying a therapist 100 bucks an hour, who took Blue Cross, Blue Shield, but that’s probably a piece of this. And then I go into interest in early childhood psychology. And then if you fast forward, it’s actually a primary interest of mine when I’m to run for mayor. And when I’m mayor, we not only create full day kindergarten for every child which did not exist, but also full day Pre-K for every four year old which did not exist. We added an hour and 15 minutes also to every day. Actually, we added four years of classroom time for every child more than they were prior to my tenure as mayor. And I think when you look at graduation rates, reading scores, math scores, Stanford says Chicago is the best of the top 100 school systems in America. So that’s been an interest of mine. And also, it’s not just an interest. I’m also a father of three. I firmly believe in education, you can’t get from here to there with 50% of your kids not reading at grade level. And what’s weird to me then, on a political level, I worked for Bill Clinton, who was on the vanguard of education, Governor Riley, Governor Hunt in North Carolina, Governor Chiles in Florida. I can’t name four governors today that are on the vanguard of education. And let me drill down just one level deeper. When President Clinton was in the vanguard, we didn’t know what to do, but we had people experimenting. What’s weird to me today is with 50% of our kids it’s not reading at grade level, the lowest in 30 years. Mississippi actually--

Sarah 5:05

I was going to say there’s some people on the vanguard.

Rahm Emanuel 5:07

Mississippi tells you what to do. So the problem isn’t what’s the combination to the lock. We actually have the combination lock. Nobody wants to move their fingers. It’s actually political will is the problem. Thirty years ago we didn’t know what we had, but we had political will. Today, we know what to do, unlike 30 years ago, but we lack the political will. So this is core to me. And look, if it’s not important to-- and I say this everywhere I go. If education is not important to you, don’t vote for me because you’re going to be disappointed. It’s really important to me because I know how I’m sitting in this chair. I know how my kids are sitting in their chair, and no child can get from here to there. I don’t care. And this was a big reform we did in Chicago. You could not get your high school diploma without showing a letter of acceptance from either a college, community college, a branch of the armed forces, or a vocational school. You had to know on graduation day not that you were walking, but where you were walking to. And 98% of the kids in Chicago met that expectation and requirement.

Sarah 6:15

As a parent, I tell people I feel like we live in Kentucky, we’re kind of in the normie situation here, and I feel like I’m Indiana Jones. I have a fifth grader, and I’m running with this fifth grader, and the road is crumbling behind me, and I’m just barely keeping up with the teacher hiring crisis, with the fact that we just keep piling on schools doing more and more and more and more. Social work, security, education, the testing. And so as you think about this, because you’ve worked in the federal government, you’ve worked in Chicago, I’m particularly interested in maybe anything you picked up in Japan [crosstalk].

Rahm Emanuel 7:00

I’ll talk to you about that.

Sarah 7:00

What’s the role the federal government in preventing this road from washing out underneath all of us?

Rahm Emanuel 7:03

We’re going to have to do three or four podcasts here. Okay, we can’t do it all day. So one is bracket the elementary years and return them to the fundamentals. What Mississippi did was phonics and the science of reading. It’s what you grew up on, I grew up on. About 20 years ago, some jerk at Columbia University went with the art of reading. If you like the letter A, use the letter A. If you don’t like the letter A, don’t. And we ruined a generation of kids. Get back to the science of reading. Get back to the science of math. And so I say in the elementary years and including early childhood, the fundamentals. High School fundamentally reformed. And we did, as I said, three things in the high school years in Chicago that drove our graduation from 56 to 84 and two thirds of our kids were going to college. One, learn, plan, succeed. Nobody graduates without a letter of acceptance from what’s next. Two, 50% of our kids graduated with college credit. I would make that a national paradigm 100% of our kids in high school must graduate with a minimum of 10 credits. Re-energize and re-engage kids when we lose them most- our high school years. Put the college there. One, kids get confidence. More importantly, or equally, mom and dad save a lot of money. They don’t have to pay for those 10 credits again. They get them free. And then third, some states are already doing this, but we did it first in Chicago as a city. Tennessee did it first as a state. If you earned a B average in Chicago, we made community college free: tuition, books and transportation. So the high school years went from diploma driven and focused to college and career focused. Big difference psychologically and then all the pieces. Fourth, which I played out a community college plan, which is you basically got to do four things, kind of similar to what we did in Chicago. But I saw it in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I saw it in Spartanburg, South Carolina. I also saw it up in Franklin, New Hampshire, but make it national. Which is of the 1200 community colleges, you must have a dual credit and dual enrollment program with your high schools in the area. High school or high schools. So kids are getting those college credits. Two, you must have a board made up of the corporations and business leadership so the curriculum at the community college is relevant to what you’re hiring and training for. So when a nurse wants to become a radiology nurse, he or she can plus up. When a somebody in a law firm wants to become office manager, he or she has the ability to bother working to skill up and move up the middle class ladder. We have 1200 community colleges. Nobody has invested in them in over 40 years, and they are the backbone of our economy. And to be honest, also the insurance against AI. Put that education system from the community colleges down to your elementary years on a race to the top model, I’m going to give you 400 million bucks if you do these reforms. If you don’t, you don’t have to have the money. Not a problem. But given the stress in Kentucky on money, you’re going to apply for that money. So there’s a carrot and stick. And the other thing is and drive these reforms. You’ll design them for Kentucky. Illinois would design them for Illinois, but we’re setting the goals. Everybody’s going to adopt, learn, plan, succeed. Nobody graduates high school without what’s next in life. A hundred percent of our kids are going to graduate high school with a minimum of 10 credits from college. Our elementary years are going to go back to the fundamentals. I’m also saying if you come out of the military, we’re going to give you $10,000 as a signing bonus to go into one of the trades. You want to be a carpenter, great. You want to be an electrician, great. You want to be a plumber, great.

Rahm Emanuel 11:13

Our problem in society is you want to hire a lawyer there’s a line of 40,000 people. You want to hire a plumber, you have to wait four weeks to hire somebody because there’s not enough. And so to me, it doesn’t take new money. As I said, like the community college plan $8 billion. What are we building? All these detention centers that nobody wants in their backyard? Yet, you in Kentucky have a lot of community colleges that could use that money to refurbish the curriculum and refurbish the facilities. So take 20% that we you were dedicating to something stupid that nobody wants in their backyard-- and they already have something in their neighborhood. It’s called a community college or a technical school. Modernize it for the 21st Century. So when a paralegal wants to become office manager, he or she can go get it while they’re working full time. Almost half, if not 60% of the people going to community colleges in America are working full time while they go. And I saw this in Spartanburg. Young man, unemployed, he’s working at the community college in Spartanburg. May 11, I think I’m remembering the day, right? He’s already got a job at GE at 33 an hour plus benefits, and he was unemployed. I saw it in La Crosse, Wisconsin. They got a robotics program so that the people in the high school, but also in the community college, can go work at a furniture company manufactured right there in their community. The community colleges and the people that go are not seen, not heard and not respected by Washington. So the federal government provide the resources, the goals, and then locally, the governors and the mayors of America who are closer to the ground implement. And again, you don’t want money for your community colleges? No sweat off my back, but I got $500 million here for you. You want to modernize; you want to get relevant? Here’s what you got to do with it.

Beth 13:22

I love all of that, and I like that you said the thing about re-engaging kids when they’re burned out in high school because I definitely see that in my own kids.

Rahm Emanuel 13:29

How old are your kids? If I may.

Beth 13:31

I have a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old, both girls, both really good students, both people who I think are capable of knowing what direction they want to go in at the end of high school, but they are really burned out because elementary school and middle school have become so much about the atomization of skills. It’s like we believe skill plus skill plus skill equals learning, and there are not ideas being embraced. They’re not talking about big things; they’re not connecting dots. They’re just trying to master things, mostly through software programs. I feel like we’ve tried to answer every question in education with software. So I’d love to hear how you feel about that.

Sarah 14:08

Don’t get us started on edtech or we’ll be here for another five hours. We’re both mad about it.

Rahm Emanuel 14:13

My kids are 29, 28 and 27 so I’m kind of past, but I would say three things. I’ll be quick. I’m 100% going to ban all telephones in classrooms. They should be focused on the teacher. It’s not the teacher’s job to police the students.

Sarah 14:26

Yes, that’s another thing we’re asking teachers to do.

Rahm Emanuel 14:29

Okay. Number two, which is I was the first on this, but I absolutely studied it for about a year and engaged with the professors that did the research on this. No social media apps for kids 16 or younger. It’s either the adult raises the adolescent or their algorithm, and that algorithm is an addictive drug, and Facebook told you they wanted to make it a drug. Third in this area of technology. I don’t know if you saw the story the other day, even with the technology, if you ban all the other the telephones from the classroom, when you ban the social media, kids are using the computers and tablets that schools gives them in the class to do YouTube videos. They’re watching them. So my view is kids are conversant with technology. You don’t have to teach them anymore. A generation ago, fair question. Today, forget about it.

Sarah 15:24

Do you know how many calls I get that it’s like, well, your son is distracted in class by the laptop. And you know what I say, I didn’t give it to him. I didn’t give him the laptop. What do you want me to do about it? I did not give him the laptop that, of course, he’s distracted by. It’s so frustrating.

Rahm Emanuel 15:39

In every school, I would just say to give you example from Franklin, New Hampshire, and you guys know this anecdote, etc., and data point, they banned the telephone in the classroom. The cafeteria came alive again. There was conversation again. Kids were engaging each other. You didn’t have social and isolation and sense of depression. Their attendance is now at 96 or 97%. where prior there’s a host of problems giving kids depression, sense of isolation that they didn’t show up at school. So these things have been obviously become ubiquitous in our life. That is a fact, but we have to manage it. This wild west is out of control. No telephones in classroom, no social media apps for kids under the age of 16. And I would also go as far as related to tablets and computers-- I’m making this up as we talk, so I want to be really clear. Hold on here. I mean, basically, kids can’t get more than an hour and a half of computer time.

Sarah 16:44

Well, I think they should go back computer go back to the computer lab. They don’t have to take them everywhere.

Rahm Emanuel 16:49

I’m with you, man. Look, we have a job as adults. We have a responsibility, and we’ve abdicated to this thing called the tablet. Like, screw it.

Beth 17:09

Every time I’m in a school, I have this overwhelming feeling that more adults are needed. Not just more teachers, but more people in the cafeteria, more custodians. You just can see the battle that these folks are fighting. And I look at the budgets and how much money we’re spending on technology, how much money we’re spending on Chromebook chargers, and it really bothers me. I really want us to value people in our schools.

Rahm Emanuel 17:37

I’m only smiling and laughing because our eldest, Zachariah, who’s now 29, we used to ban TV. So in our cottage there was no computer, no internet, no TV. And he use to whine that we were not a normal family because we didn’t have a TV show that was a Family TV show.

Sarah 18:01

And now if you have a family TV show, that’s like sweet.

Rahm Emanuel 18:05

Yeah. I said, there’s a whole host of reasons we’re not a normal family, that’s just [inaudible].

Sarah 18:08

Well, and here’s what drives me crazy. Like this is why I appreciate your focus on education and kids because we know where the federal budget goes. The federal budget goes to seniors. It’s like we spend 10 times the amount on seniors than children, and that’s why you have young people who are nihilistic and frustrated and checked out because you want to see the priorities of the federal government. Look where they spend money. It’s like a massive amount on Medicare and Social Security, and they’re like, well, what about us?

Rahm Emanuel 18:45

Well, I don’t want to get wonky on you for a second, but...

Sarah 18:49

Please do. It’s welcome here.

Rahm Emanuel 18:50

Okay. Well, 1960s early ‘60s, one out of three people that were in poverty were seniors. So everybody says the war on poverty didn’t succeed. It did. Today, one out of 10 seniors are poor. So Medicare and Social Security and Medicaid-- I’m sorry, breaking news-- really successful. So successful that-- and I’m not against, or would I advocate cutting Social Security and Medicare, Medicaid, but we went from one out of three people in poverty to one out of 10 who are seniors. That’s a successful war on poverty. What has happened is what you exactly said, which is we haven’t made either equal-- and it’s not about taking money away-- equal investments in our kids. And also I would say one thing, and this is lost, California spends more than Mississippi on education, so it’s not more money alone, it’s how you spend that money. So when we created three community college, I noticed in the community college budget for Chicago we had a separate system, six schools campuses, that we were spending $40 million on remedial math and reading out of a call it $600 million budget. So basically about in that kind of 8, 9% of the budget, or 8 to 7% of the budget, was going to making up for what they should have been doing in the elementary and high school years. So I said, if you give me $5 million of that $40, and we say you get a B average, you get it free. Let’s reward success, not ensure failure. And it’s a self-propulsion fund. So the $5 million redirected, we still spent-- at that time, I don’t know what they’re doing today-- $35 million on the remedial. But we spent money of that within the budget. We didn’t raise taxes, etc. We spent it on if you’re getting a B average, pretty good bet you got the reading and math skills that we don’t have to spend on the remedial. In the same way, I would say you could spend more money in California. You ain’t getting a different result because you’re not doing phonics education. So redirect what you’re doing. Retrain the teachers around phonics, get coaches for every school so they stay disciplined on it. This was a 20-year journey in Mississippi. They call it the Mississippi marathon. Everybody outside calls it the miracle. It’s not a miracle. It took work. Miracle was like, whoa, look at that! I really admire Mr. Barksdale from Netscape who put the money sea capital. Because they said, okay, we started kindergarten all the way to third grade. Massive increase from 49th in the country to ninth. But they realized there was a tapering off for fifth and sixth grade. So they’re now doing reading campuses and redesigning to make sure that the momentum they have from third grade doesn’t fall off a cliff when you go to fourth and fifth. And so it’s a very-- but it’s a marathon. And again, to back to your core subject or point, to me, what you’re spending on is as important as how much you’re spending. So as I would say, and I would design it, what role does the federal government have? Here’s the money we’re going to give you if you do these three things. You don’t, it’s okay by me, I’ll just spend double in Tennessee. Or I’ll spend double in Illinois because they’re going to do it. So Kentucky, you ain’t got it yet. And I happen to think you got a great governor and your governor’s going your governor is going to figure it out, etc. But the one thing I worked with President Clinton when we did public school choice. I worked with President Obama when we did Race to the Top, and then as Mayor of the City of Chicago, I happen to think the incentive money is the right way to go based on you get the resources for these policies, but you implement them. But again, I want to be clear to the crux of this. Unlike 30 years ago, we didn’t know what to do when Mr. Bloom wrote the book or the report for President Reagan, which was a Nation at Risk. We now know what to do. Mississippi showed us. Chicago showed us. La Crosse, Wisconsin, Spartanburg, South Carolina showed us. Hattiesburg showed us. Where’s the political will?

Beth 23:38

Speaking of political will, we have a lot of teachers in our audience. When I read education publications right now, they say, we are so glad that Rahm Emanuel is talking about education, but he closed some schools in Chicago. So can you walk us through that experience? Because it’s hard to get things done around education for a lot of reasons, right? So can you just talk us through that?

Rahm Emanuel 23:58

Yeah, absolutely. So one, I joked that when I became mayor I was 6’2 and 250 pounds. I’m now 148 dripper wet, and I’m 5’8. So look, it was one of the hardest decisions I made as mayor. For years, they were talking about reducing the school buildings we had because we had a school system set up for 550,000 kids, and we were down to 410. But it’s a real tough thing. It’s tough on the kids, it’s tough on the neighborhood, it’s tough on the parents. My life would have been easier had I never touched it. Outside of my kids schools, teachers showed up with signs outside the window. Your dad’s an asshole. Your dad’s a jerk. And my kids grab the sign. We agree. We hate him too. So I say this, my life would have been so much easier if I just left those kids wallowing in a school that year after year was failing. Number two, parents were pulling their kids out of schools. Parents, those friends and classmates were leaving. We had a high school Chicago built for 800 kids, had 75 kids in it. Okay. So this was not like built for 800 and you had 670. You had shrinking populations and consecutive years of failure. So I thought, kids don’t get a do over, and that’s why I did it. Now, again, I want to be really clear. Education not your priority, I ain’t your candidate. You want somebody else to talk problem, vote for him or her. I made a tough decision. I’m not the one that’s accepted 50% of our kids can’t read at grade level. I feel like I’m Paul Revere around here. You got 50% of our kids can’t read at grade level, and you have a president united states that could tell you more about windmills and he’s never commented on the reading scores. So did I make a tough decision? Yeah, I did. If you want somebody that will [inaudible] their political capital and never spend it on kids. Vote for somebody else. I took on failure. If it was easy, somebody else would have done it. It was hard. It was very hard. It was hard on me. It was hard on my kids. It was hard on the kids I did it. It was hard on the community. End of the story.

We went from a 56% graduation rate to an 84%. We went from not tracking kids going to college to 67% of our kids go into college or community college. Not only that, we had reading scores and math scores that were growing to the point that Sean Reardon, the leading demographer of Education at Stanford, called Chicago the number one public school of the top 100 in America. And we have 83% of our kids came from poverty. Every one of those little Harvard snot nose little punks would tell you, oh, not those kids, not that background, not from that family, not that zip coded neighborhood. So I did a tough thing. I don’t back up from it, but I’ll tell you one thing. Everybody says, oh, Rob did this. I’m going to reverse the question. Go ask the people that kept schools closed during Covid longer than they needed to be and lacked the political will. Everybody ran around during Covid, follow the science. Follow the science. Within five months we knew kids did not have then anywhere the mortality rate of adults on covid. We knew that and nobody had the political will to say, open up the schools. Okay, so did I do what I did? I own it. I have the results to show it. Now, go ask the people that kept schools a year and a half closed longer than they should have been when the data told you not needed, and they left them there because they’re timid souls. Now, I will tell you, quoting Teddy Roosevelt, if you think you’re going to turn around education and get that 50% that can’t read a grade level down to zero, I ain’t your guy. Because it’s going to take a lot of work, and it’s going to take everything you got every five year in your body. I know that from Chicago, and tough things require tough leaders.

Sarah 28:30

Yeah, here’s the tough thing that also kind of keeps me up at night as a mother because I would like to gift my children a world better than we left it. And we’re talking about I’m not worried about education. I don’t think that’s a big piece of the federal budget, but I do think we have some problems here as far as the percentage of our GDP that’s going to... Interest rate payments and our deficit. I’m a Democrat. I’m not used to talking about like this. This is a new skill I have developed. But I’m worried. I’m really worried. I’m worried about that no one wants to say the tough, top, hard things to people that we’ve got a problem. We have to find either more income or spend less and or both probably. And I wonder how you think about that when you’re prioritizing and you’re thinking about the federal government because this problem is knocking at the door, and it is definitely going to require some tough choices.

Rahm Emanuel 29:18

Let me knock down one of your assumptions.

Sarah 29:20

Okay, please.

Rahm Emanuel 29:22

You’re not going to solve the fiscal piece. You’re going to have to raise taxes. You’re going to have to cap spending. But if you don’t have a growing economy, those first two things are going to be harder, and you’re not going to have a growing economy if people can’t do reading and math at grade level.

Sarah 29:39

Yeah, I’m not worried about making any hard choices around education. I’m definitely all about that investment. I just wonder about the other tough choices.

Rahm Emanuel 29:45

Let’s just go back through this, okay? President of United States wants to spend $35 billion on detention centers. Redirect the money to the community colleges and education. You’re going to get more bank for your buck than a big prison system. All right, so that’s an example, but there’s a larger thing. You’re not wrong about-- and I think both parties are wrong. I reject the crony capitalism under this president. That who you know and how you pay gets you what you want. And his he’s all about his kids, Witkoff’s kids and let Nick’s kids make the money. This president’s $40 billion richer than the day he walked into office. That ain’t public service. That’s private gain. Now, on the other hand, our party’s all about redistributing income. I want to have a growth strategy. I’m tired of a country that’s the only thing that it grows is pot. I want to grow jobs. I’m against that we have a national strategy for growing pot; we don’t have a national strategy for growing jobs. So there’s five components. Education, which we’ve taken about a half hour to talk about, and we got another 40 hours to go. Number two, immigration. I endorse a Dignity Act that has 23 Republicans, 23 Democrats. You don’t get that around any issue like that, and it stays true to two principles. We’re a nation of laws must be abided by, and we’re a nation of immigrants, and must be respectful of. Third which I laid out, we got to double the size of our research and technology investments.

So I’ve called for a 10% tax on all online sporting gaming and the Polymarket and Kalshi and all these predictive markets. And double up National Institute of Health so we win the cancer war. Double up the National Science Foundation so we win fusion war. We use the quantum computing war. We use the AI war. I’m not conceding this to China. They’re raising their budgets. Our president’s cutting. We’re not going to win by cutting, so double. The fourth component to this, and I’ll be laying it out soon, is around the energy and infrastructure and the capacity of the United States to have a 21st Century foundation for a 21st Century economy. And then the fifth, which is your right, which is both a sustainable fiscal picture with also the revenue to meet it. You’re not going to cut your way there. And our tax code today is built around preserving wealth, not about creating wealth. It is ridiculous. You have people this thing called step upward basis, literally, you pass from one generation to another. My kids got two things that Amy and I said, you’re going to get a loving home and a good education. The rest is up to you. But today, the tax code incentivize you to pass on a generation of wealth. I’m passing on an education and love. That’s all you’re getting. So all five of those are about growing the economy and growing jobs. The training, the immigration, the science and technology, the energy and infrastructure to have an economy prosper and then a sustainable fiscal picture that invests in America’s future. Now, I don’t agree with redistribution is somehow how you’re going to get from here to there. And I definitely don’t agree with crony capitalism over there, so that’s how you got to do it. And education, I’m sorry, is a core component to economic growth.

Beth 33:29

You have laid out a number of proposals that I would call like medium ideas. They sound like things that people talk about at barbecues. We should do this. We should just do this. We should put age limits on our elected officials.

Rahm Emanuel 33:41

Well, you must go to a different barbecue than I go.

Beth 33:41

I have really good barbecue and good friends here and there.

Rahm Emanuel 33:41

I like mine mild and spicy.

Beth 33:41

But you know what I mean?

Sarah 33:48

The age limits is a normie idea that all Americans are on, right?

Beth 33:52

Just like 90% kind of ideas. How’s that happening for you? Because we are accustomed to presidential campaigns from Democrats starting with a big, esoteric health plan and a lot of lofty proposals. This all feels pretty different to me.

Sarah 34:11

No, first it starts with a memoir, Beth. First it starts with a memoir and their their life story. Then maybe we get to the ideas at some point.

Rahm Emanuel 34:19

I’ve written two books, Nation City, one about cities, and the other one was a big plan, big ideas for Democrats in 2005. I’m not interested in my biography. My brother’s written too a book called Brothers Emmanuel. Never read it. I’ve never read a single book about President Clinton’s presidency or President Obama. I lived it. I’m not interested in it. I don’t want to read it. I’ve been in a manual. I’m self-aware. I don’t need to read about it. I’m not interested, nor are you. You shouldn’t be. I’m interested in the American people. I’m not interested in my story. I’m interested in your story. That’s the story I want to talk about. I’m not interested in mine. You got a lot of other people think about here, let me tell you about how I grew up or whatever. I’m not interested in my story.

Sarah 35:09

Are you going in these small rooms and you’re testing ideas like a stand up comic and then see what’s landing? That’s what it feels like to me.

Rahm Emanuel 35:19

I did a bunch of town halls and a bunch in Mississippi Water Valley. I went to a county Donald Trump won by 21%. I went in Des Moines, 400 people in a picnic outside on a front yard. I did it in New Hampshire. I did it in Milwaukee. I’ve done it in La Crosse, Wisconsin. I’ve done it in South Carolina, all over. I’d rather talk to people, or rather about your story. My story is I think I’ve won the lottery ticket of life. I’m an American. I do. I told my kids that. You’re an American. You won the lottery of life. Now give something back. Two of our three kids went into the armed forces. Zach after UCLA, went into the Navy Intel. He’s now a reservist after full time six years. Alana’s a Navy reservist. But I’m into we won the lottery of life, and you are to give something back to this great country. Your story is what I’m interested in. Writing your chapter. I’m not interested in my chapter. I’ve had the gift of love from my mom and dad and my family and an education. Now the other thing is, you say, normie. Look, the one thing, I think the biggest thing that we have to work on, we can stoke this anger or try to restore some calm. It’s not hard to stoke anger. I’m sorry we have a president United States doesn’t wake up a moment of his day that’s not trying to figure out how to pit one American against another. Now I’m going to flip into Japan. China is betting on us having a civil war over here, that’s their bet. So we can keep doing this and thinking our politics is a bunch of hunger game and I’m going to wear blue and red and we’re going to divide up, or we can get focused on working together. Now I happen to think I’ve never run into a parent anywhere I’ve been in the country that says, you know what my kid is missing, more screen time. They don’t want it. Get that Facebook and Tik Tok out of that kid’s hands and get them focused on the teacher. I’m also of the view I’m tired of people betting against America. Why don’t they bet on America?

Double up our science and technology. I want the entrepreneur to win. I don’t want the gambler. You have other people who want to figure out how much they can grow pot. I want to grow jobs. And the one thing I’ll tell you this funny story, it’s always stuck with me. Two anecdotes. So I’m done being mayor. The next morning, I got on a bike, and I’m riding around Lake Michigan, through Indiana, through Michigan, Wisconsin, back home here in Illinois. Two anecdotes. One, I say this jokingly, but somewhat true, the worst of cell phone server is, the nicer people are. There was a direct-- the worse the network system was, the better and nicer kind. I ran in a woman, I knocked on the door at a coffee shop that said open at 11:00, I said, it’s 10:00, she goes, come on in. I’ll throw a pot on. I’ll give you a cup of coffee. That’s America. Then the other thing is, we’re all the way at that-- Me and my buddy-- at the top, north of Traverse City, not Upper Peninsula, but right up there. And we’re at a bar. We had ridden 65 miles. I’m tired. I’m having a big ass burger, beer, fries, but I burnt 4000 calories. I deserve a hamburger, whatever I want. And this guy’s wearing an NRA hat, National Rifle Association. He’s looking over at me, looking over across the bar, and my stomach is just tightening up, and he starts to walk towards me, and I’m like, oh, boy. He pulls up a chair, and he goes, “You mind if I pull up a chair?” I said, “Hey, I got no problem here.” So I said, “Let me buy you a beer.” And we start talking because he knows that I passed for Clinton the assault weapon ban and the Brady bill five day waiting peri Now, after 45 minutes, I did not convince him of the merit of the assault weapon ban, and he did not convince me of the merit of letting anybody buy whatever gun they want, but we had an honest discussion, shared views. He paid the tip. I paid the two beers. That’s where we are. And I’ll also be honest with you, we all got to work on empathy. I got to do. We all do. That’s a skill. That’s something we as a country. Now I can disagree with you, and you can disagree with me, and we can be really passionate about this. It’s okay to be passionate if it’s about a principle etc. But you’re not my enemy. You’re not my opponent. You’re just a person with a different view. And I think about this, I remember being with President Clinton when Oklahoma City bombed.

Rahm Emanuel 40:13

I went back and looked at this because I’m like, because when I went to Mississippi areas, overall, I went to a red state. Here you have the worst bombing under American soil, domestic terrorism. Nobody reported that President Clinton was going to a red state. He’s going to Oklahoma City to help heal the city.

Sarah 40:35

We didn’t talk about states like that back in the 90s. That’s a new invention.

Rahm Emanuel 40:39

9/11 George Bush goes to New York City. Remember, this is not far from when we didn’t believe he was a legitimate president because of Florida and the time nobody said he’s going to a blue city. We have adopted a false paradigm about ourselves. We are doing China’s work for them. So I’m going to lay ideas out. They’re going to be hard. But the one thing I’ve always told my kids, what is leadership? Knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing, and then having the guts to get it done. And if you look at great presidents, you look at great governors, you look at great mayors, they had both of those. This is going to take a lot of work.

Sarah 41:20

Yeah, that tees up our next question perfectly. So we’re kind of having this own debate among ourselves, I think, and we want to hear what you think because the idea is we have no beef with. Like, every time you come up with a new one, we’re like, yeah, that sounds right. But here’s what I worry about.

Rahm Emanuel 41:35

Maybe you guys should go see a therapist or something. That’s a problem.

Sarah 41:38

Whoever is next, whoever’s president, 2028, there’s this kind of tension between, we all know there’s going to need to be an enormous amount of just triage, just straight up triage. Like, pragmatic day to day putting some pieces back. But then there’s also this tension of, like, well, when things are torn down, there’s an opportunity to build something new. So, like, how do you think about that? What are we doing here? Are we just trying to get everybody to do some small things so people build trust in the institutions and we start rowing in the right direction because this administration has torn so many things apart, or are we coming in FDR style? Because that’s the other thing I worry about. We’re at the end of this unitary executive road. Well, God save us. I hope we’re at the end of it. I kind of want to hear somebody say, like, we got to put some power back in Congress. Like it’s going to be tempting because everything’s going to be such a mess to come in and lean into this power that he has blown up. But I think the next president really should say, like, hey, we can’t. We don’t want a king, remember, so we’re going to have to put some of this back in the checks and balances. And that’s a hard thing to do when you finally get your hands on the reins.

Rahm Emanuel 42:48

There’s two things. One, the one thing you didn’t mention, you’re not wrong. So there’s what you do to govern, etc., and there’s also the kind of spiritual sense. And what I mean by spirit is there’s a palpable anxiety in America about the future, about kids, your kids future, and that we’re not taking care of business here. And you go back in 2015 I get reelected, and my second inaugural as mayor was only about the alienated men of our city who’ve internalized a sense of failure, and there’s a spiritual component to this, whereas what Teddy Roosevelt said, there’s a bully pulpit that comes. So there is our homework assignment in front of us called education, investing in science and technology. But there’s also not just healing the divisions, but finding our common purpose, which is why could be one policy on that last six months of high school, universal national service, go clean up a river, go do tutoring, learn something about the neighbor next to you that you never do. Find the thing that binds us rather than divides us. Now, I think being a former congressman at you because and being in the legislative branch, I’m going to challenge you. You guys can keep doing what you’re doing, and I got all these tools that President Trump left me. I’m going to give you a chance to show up and do your job because all you’re doing is spending time on redistricting, fundraising, scoring political points. I’m not against scoring political points. I’ve done that good part of my life, but I’m at a point in my life either we get our homework done around here, or you ain’t going to be around here much longer, which is why I also called 75 you’re done. Across the government, courts, Congress, executive branch, you’re not hitting your stride at 78. You haven’t done it by 75 go teach. Get on TSA. Be pre clear man. Get out of here. But I’m serious about this, which is, you have been debating immigration since Ronald Reagan. Every president with chewing gum, super glue and some rubber bands trying to figure this out, it’s broken. Every mayor and governor is trying to figure it out, it’s broken. The reason I endorse the Dignity Act has 23 hours, 23 Ds, isn’t the bill I would write. No, it’s not the bill I would write. Does it hit the goal? We’re a nation of laws and we’re a nation of immigrants. Yes, it’s true to that. Now get moving. Now, if you don’t fix this in four months, I’m going solo, so I’m going to give you four months to show up as a letter changer and earn your pay. You get subsidies for housing when you live in DC, you get subsidies for security when you’re in DC, you get subsidies for food when you live in DC, and all you do is fundraise. Now show up and earn your pay like everybody else does. If not, you will continue to be an institution where only 9% of Americans have confidence in and I want to meet that 9% because I want to know what they what they see you doing, because right now, all I see you doing is picking up a paycheck, free health care, you get housing subsidies, food subsidies, security subsidies.

Sarah 42:48

Hey, don’t forget about the death gratuity that I just learned about that we pay them to die in office.

Rahm Emanuel 43:32

All right.

Beth 42:48

We always try to end with something Outside of Politics. So we heard from your team that you’re a swimmer and that you get a lot of your best ideas in the pool. Tell us about that.

Rahm Emanuel 43:32

Two things I’m going to do. I’m going to tell you that one other thing that you got to tell your husband, okay? I’ll start with that one. So we become empty nesters and personally in the morning I get I get up early, I bring coffee in bed to Amy, I say, Happy Mother’s Day. We’re free. We done it without killing each other and them. Yeah, we got three out of here. So she liked it so much every day. So every morning for the last seven years, she gets coffee in bed.

Sarah 47:22

Yes, I’ve been on my husband to start this.

Rahm Emanuel 47:25

Okay. I get to her in a little cup, hot, whenever she wakes up, there’s a hot cup of coffee. You’re going to start the day on a good foot. The rest of the day, I’m an idiot. I know I’ve made a mistake and I’m stupid. Somehow, you marry me anyway, but you’re going to start first thing in the morning with a cup of coffee next to bed. Number two, so you don’t know this, but when I’m 17, I nearly die. Probably the most important thing that ever happened to me in my life about life was nearly dying. I spent seven weeks in a hospital. Had five blood infections, two bone infections, gangrene in the first 72-96 hours. I was in total ice packs with 105.4 fever. When I was in the hospital for those seven weeks, I lost three different roommates across the time, and they almost cut my arm off, and this nurse saved my life, saved my arm. Nurse Mona. Anyway, and the doctor said, if you weren’t in the physical condition, that’s when I was a dancer, you would have been a goner. And that just became a neurosis of mine. I mean it. So like this morning, I swam one mile, and I did an hour of weightlifting with my trainer. Tomorrow I will swim a mile, do an hour training with her, and later in the day, I’ll do an hour yoga. I do 10 exercises a week, an hour and a half every day. I’ve been doing this for 43 years. So rather than just 123, read something in the morning when I’m making the coffee and I’ll say, okay, this is what I want to think about.

Sarah 49:11

I love it. Well, here’s one more I got to ask you. It’d be it would be malpractice. I have three boys. I know you haven’t read your brother’s book, but we all know the brothers, very high achieving brothers. Anything I need to know to keep my boys close. And 16, 14, 11.

Rahm Emanuel 49:30

They’re going to be close anyway.

Sarah 49:32

Okay, good.

Rahm Emanuel 49:33

First of all, one or two things going to happen. Either they’re going to kill each other by the age of 18, or you’re going to kill them. I once said to Zach, I’m be 54 you’re going to be 15. One of us is going to make it one when I tell the judge why I’m getting off, okay? It’s going to be not one degree, not two degree, I’m getting off because the judge is going to agree with me. They’re going to be great. They got a loving home, a good education. The thing is my parents did one thing and this is really important. They did a lot of things. I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal, parenting. We don’t talk about it. Single most important thing. So down in our family room, my mom and dad put the purse that carried my grandmother, my two great aunts, passports. It was in a frame, and above it was another frame with their passports, my grandmother and my two great aunts. Grandma Sophie, Aunt kitty, and Aunt Ida. And on either side of that, there were nine pictures here, nine pictures here was the relatives of my mother and father that never made it to America. And every day you had those eyeballs on you. And my parents told us there was nothing subtle in a Jewish home. They couldn’t make it to America. You are not to waste this opportunity. There’s other things that I think my parents did. We did similar things, Amy and I, we did some tweaks to it, but everything is about we won the lottery of life being an American. Do something with your life. Don’t waste it. Second is I’m not into quality time. I’m into being present in your child’s life. So Amy, like, I was coming home when I was a mayor on the phone, and the kids come to the door, and I said, “Hold on, I got to finish.” She goes, “Stay out on the porch, you idiot. Finish the phone call when you walk in be present in their life.” When one of them had a big homework assignment or something, I would do my work on their bed where they were after dinner just so they could say something to me if they wanted if they didn’t want to say it in front of the kids, their siblings.

Beth 51:50

Thank you so much to Rham and his team, to Nikki, who helped set up our conversation this morning. We hope that you enjoyed this episode. We do hope that you’ll share it with others in your lives. You probably heard Sarah’s mention of our unsustainable debt load in this conversation; our plan is to talk about that more in detail on Tuesday. So we’ll see you back here then, until then, have the best weekend available to you.

Show Credits

Pantsuit Politics is hosted by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers. The show is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our Managing Director and Maggie Penton is our Director of Community Engagement.

Our theme music was composed by Xander Singh with inspiration from original work by Dante Lima.

Our show is listener-supported. The community of paid subscribers here on Substack makes everything we do possible. Special thanks to our Executive Producers, some of whose names you hear at the end of each show. To join our community of supporters, become a paid subscriber here on Substack.

To search past episodes of the main show or our premium content, check out our content archive.

This podcast and every episode of it are wholly owned by Pantsuit Politics LLC and are protected by US and international copyright, trademark, and other intellectual property laws. We hope you'll listen to it, love it, and share it with other people, but not with large language models or machines and not for commercial purposes. Thanks for keeping it nuanced with us.