Former Obama White House chief of staff and U.S. Ambassador Rahm Emanuel sharply criticized former President Joe Biden’s recent public remarks, saying they do more harm than good for Democrats.
Appearing on The View, Emanuel criticized Biden’s decision to speak publicly about his dropping out of the 2024 presidential election and to push back on concerns about cognitive decline, calling the move unhelpful and misguided.
“He took some responsibility for Trump being reelected and pushed back on cognitive decline and reiterated he thinks he would have won. You worked for President Biden. Do you think it’s helpful for him to be speaking out right now?” co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin asked, referring to Biden’s interview on The View last week.
“No. Nada. Never,” Emanuel responded. “I grew up under Bill Clinton’s politics — never stop thinking about tomorrow. That’s backward, not forward.”
Emanuel argued that the Democratic Party should prioritize everyday concerns that resonate with voters — like healthcare, education, and the rising cost of living — rather than internal debates or revisiting the 2024 election.
“I want the focus to be on the 10 million kids whose parents work full-time but still can’t afford healthcare,” he said. “This shouldn’t be about what Joe Biden did or didn’t do—that’s in the past. We need to talk about what matters to the American people: healthcare, the cost of groceries, and their children’s future. I understand the president’s desire to speak out, but that’s not where the party needs to be right now, given the challenges we face.”
The former Chicago mayor also addressed broader concerns about Democratic messaging and policy direction.
In a March appearance on HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, Emanuel criticized the permissiveness and cultural drift within Democratic politics.
“We’ve gone through five years where people became way too permissive as a culture,” Emanuel said. “Which is why everything is locked up at CVS and Walgreens—that’s a disaster. I don’t want to hear another word about the locker room, I don’t want to hear another word about the bathroom. You better start focusing on the classroom. In seventh grade, if I had known I could have said ‘they’ and got in the girls’ bathroom, I would have done it.”
Emanuel’s blunt response reflected growing frustrations with Democratic leadership and echoed his ongoing call for the party to refocus on core kitchen-table issues.
During The View segment Wednesday, Emanuel candidly responded to reports about Biden failing to recognize actor George Clooney at a 2024 fundraising event. He reiterated that he had privately advised against Biden seeking reelection in 2024.
“How was it received when you said he shouldn’t run?” Griffin asked.
“Does this look subtle or shocked?” he replied dryly. “I’ve told them [both Presidents Clinton and Obama] things they didn’t want to hear. At the end of the day, it’s a decision one person makes. … It has caused real consequences.”
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Emanuel ended with a pointed contrast between Democrats and President Donald Trump, whom he accused of using public office for personal gain.
“I’m not interested in the price of Greenland. I’m interested in the price of groceries,” Emanuel said. “We have a person [Trump] using his time in the White House to line his pockets.”