“Former Chicago mayor and longtime Democratic operative Rahm Emanuel will join boutique investment bank Centerview Partners LLC, bringing a Rolodex built over a 30-year political career,” the Wall Street Journal reports.
Just dropped · Trial Balloon · Ep. 194
What Just Happened?
Trial Balloon · Ep. 194: What Just Happened?
Emanuel Dismisses Beto O’Rourke for President
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) dismissed the possibility of Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) running for president in 2020 in an interview on MSNBC.
Said Emanuel: “If Beto O’Rourke wants to go and run for president, God bless him, he should put his hat in and make his case. But, he lost. You don’t usually promote a loser to the top of party.”
Rahm Emanuel Looks for TV Gig
“Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel may finally get paid for a job he’s been doing for free for years: offering opinions on national politics,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Emanuel announced in September that he wouldn’t seek reelection as mayor and has since been largely mum about his post-mayoral plans. But he has attended meetings in New York with top executives at MSNBC and CNN in recent weeks, and discussed a potential future as a cable news pundit.”
Emanuel Plans to Write a Book
Outgoing Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) “already is making plans for after he leaves City Hall, including a deal to write a book about his theories on the increasing importance of cities in a country and world where federal government paralysis has forced municipalities to rely more on themselves,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
Alfred A. Knopf will publish The Nation City: Why Mayors Run the World in spring 2020.
Why Rahm Emanuel Bailed on Re-Election
Politico: “His polling numbers were sliding, and had even bottomed out in some city wards. With Chicagoans weary of the violence playing out in their neighborhoods, frustrated with a struggling school system and blaming him for a series of tax and fee hikes, Rahm Emanuel faced a long, painful reelection slog with an uncertain payoff.”
“Still, the city was stunned when the brash Chicago mayor, who has never lost an election, announced Tuesday that he was throwing in the towel… In the end, Emanuel concluded the daily battle would be too punishing, said one top Illinois Democrat with knowledge of the decision. There were too many political variables outside of his control. Even if he were victorious next spring, he’d emerge bloodied and politically weakened, only to stare down the barrel of four years of financial instability.”
Rahm Emanuel Will Not Seek Re-Election
“In a stunning decision, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Tuesday morning that he will no longer seek a third term in office, signaling the end to what has been a tumultuous – and at times transformative – eight years in office,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
Said Emanuel: “I’ve decided not to seek re-election. This has been the job of a lifetime, but it is not a job for a lifetime.”
Emanuel Is Deeply Unpopular In Chicago
A new New York Times/Kaiser poll in Chicago finds that 62% of residents said they disapproved of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s job performance, and only a quarter approved. Among blacks, his disapproval rating is 70%.
Big Majority Think Emanuel Is Lying
A new Chicago Tribune poll found that 83% of Chicagoans don’t believe Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) is telling them the truth about what he knew about the Laquan McDonald shooting.
In addition, 59% of city residents say Emanuel is not honest and trustworthy and a record 63% disapprove of the job he’s doing as mayor.
Top Emanuel Aides Knew of Shooting Video
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel “has said he didn’t understand the gravity of Laquan McDonald’s shooting death at the hands of a Chicago police officer until just before the city settled with the teen’s family last spring, and that he wasn’t aware other officers may have falsified reports about the shooting until just after the video was released to the public,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
“But interviews, official city calendars and emails show in both cases the mayor’s closest aides and City Hall attorneys knew much earlier than that.”
Chicago Lawyers Tried to Keep Video Secret
“City of Chicago lawyers, after meeting with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, demanded the Laquan McDonald family bury the video showing the killing of their son by a police officer,” the Daily Beast reports.
“Emanuel has maintained since McDonald’s death that he has never seen the dashcam video, but the emails prove the mayor knew exactly what the footage showed when city lawyers negotiated a deal that would at least delay the video’s release.”
Rauner Would Back Efforts to Recall Emanuel
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner (R) “started off the new year swinging, offering vague criticism of Mayor Rahm Emanuel over his handling of police-involved shootings and vowing to sign legislation that would allow voters to recall Chicago mayors in the unlikely event the measure reaches his desk,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
Rauner said his longtime friend and former business associate “inherited a mess” but has done little in the way to overhaul how the city operates.
Behind the Sudden Fall of Rahm Emanuel
Rick Perlstein: “Now the sins of Emanuel are finally catching up with him. Lucky for him, however, the compounding police-shooting scandal has erased from the news a peccadillo from this past November: the mayor’s press team was eavesdropping and recording reporters while they interviewed aldermen critical of the mayor. A spokesman responded to the press by saying that their only intent was also ‘to make sure reporters have what you need, which is exactly what you have here.’ That made no sense. But then so much of the legend of Rahm Emanuel’s brilliant career makes little sense. The bigger question, perhaps, is what this says about a political party and the political press that bought the legend in the first place.”
Emanuel Faces Growing Pressure to Resign
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) said he would “cut his family vacation in Cuba short to address the fatal shooting of two more black residents by a city police department already under federal investigation over its use of deadly force,” Reuters reports.
“The decision comes after activists stepped up calls for Emanuel’s resignation over his handling of policing in the nation’s third-largest city.”
Rahm Emanuel in the Hot Seat
New York Times: “Since the release last month of video showing a white Chicago police officer firing 16 shots into a black teenager named Laquan McDonald, Mr. Emanuel has been a mayor under siege. A debate over race and policing has swept through many cities this year, but its arrival here has pointed an especially strong spotlight on City Hall. And the fatal shooting of two people by the police Saturday morning, one of them a 19-year-old man with possible mental health problems and the other a 55-year-old bystander, intensified the scrutiny.”
“Even before this, Mr. Emanuel had a complicated, uncertain relationship with some of Chicago’s black residents over the closing of nearly 50 schools and a struggle to slow gang-related gun violence. Those issues helped force him into a difficult runoff election this year as he sought a second term as mayor.”
GQ named Emanuel to its list of “The Worst People of 2015.”
Emanuel Apologizes for Police Cover Up
Fighting for his political life, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) apologized for the “systematic breakdown” that culminated in the “totally avoidable” police shooting of Laquan McDonald and acknowledged the “code of silence” in the Chicago Police Department he once tried to keep out of a court record, the Chicago Sun Times reports.
“The cathartic speech before aldermen, who offered their own apology, did nothing to silence demands for Emanuel’s resignation.”
Emanuel Rips Reporter Over Leaked Vacation Plans
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel unleashed on Politico‘s Mike Allen this morning after he reported a private conversation they had before going on stage.
Brad Phillips: “Emanuel later threatened to give Allen’s cell phone number to his wife so that Allen could explain to her directly why he had broken their secret vacation plans. When Allen tried to apologize, Emanuel—who looked like he could barely contain his rage—snapped: ‘I don’t know if you know this, it’s not gonna work.'”
Emanuel Spent Nearly $23 Million on Re-Election Bid
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel “and a supportive political action committee spent more than $22.8 million in the preliminary and runoff elections en route to the mayor winning a second term,” the Chicago Tribune reports.
“By contrast, challenger Jesus ‘Chuy’ Garcia and his union allies spent at least $4.6 million, far behind Emanuel, who collected 56 percent of the vote last week.”
Will Runoff Humble Rahm Emanuel?
“By some measure, everything ended just as it had begun. After an unexpected and unprecedented runoff election in the nation’s third-largest city, Chicago’s brash mayor, Rahm Emanuel, was still Chicago’s mayor,” the New York Times reports.
“Yet the fallout for Mr. Emanuel from the past six weeks — a period of frenetic campaigning and humbling public self-examination — will be lasting. A tangible bloc of dissent has loudly made its case in a city where Mr. Emanuel and the mayors before him had often governed with little effective opposition and most aldermen in lock step.”
Politico: How Rahm almost blew it
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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