Nancy Pelosi may be on her way out of political relevance, but she’s still got one eye on the chessboard — and according to her, the next Democratic presidential contender might not be who anyone expected. In a Friday interview with The Free Press, Pelosi suggested that longtime political hitman and former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is gearing up for a run at the White House in 2028.
“I think he’s going to run,” Pelosi told reporter Peter Savodnik bluntly. For once, the San Francisco Democrat may be right.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is predicting that Democrat power player Rahm Emanuel will launch a bid for the White House — and he hasn't ruled that out yet himself. https://t.co/9pG6MzxItH
— NEWSMAX (@NEWSMAX) May 24, 2025
Emanuel, who served as Barack Obama’s first chief of staff and most recently as Joe Biden’s Ambassador to Japan, hasn’t confirmed his intentions — but he hasn’t denied them either. What he has done is drop a few carefully crafted zingers meant to highlight the obvious: he’s healthy, sharp, and itching for a return to the political battlefield. “I don’t have prostate cancer,” Emanuel quipped when asked how he was doing — a not-so-subtle jab at Joe Biden’s recent diagnosis, which was allegedly hidden from the public for years.
His brother Zeke, a medical doctor and former Biden advisor, didn’t help matters by going on MSNBC to casually admit that Biden likely had prostate cancer since the beginning of his presidency. Combine that with the ongoing cognitive questions and the embarrassment of the 2024 dropout debacle, and it’s no wonder Democrats are looking for a fresh face — or at least one that still has his faculties.
Rahm isn’t pretending to be that face of change. He’s pitching himself as the adult in the room — someone who knows how to wield power and isn’t afraid to take on entrenched interests. “We can’t look weak and woke,” he said, a pointed swipe at the Squad, DEI obsessives, and the culture-war antics dragging his party into a political ditch.
He hasn’t officially declared, but he’s sounding more like a candidate than not. “Before I make a decision, I want to know that I have an answer to what I think ails our country, ails our politics, and ails the party,” he told The Free Press. But let’s be honest — he already knows what he wants to do. “We’ve got to get ready to fight for America—and that’s what I’m going to do,” Emanuel said before wrapping up a two-hour lunch with Savodnik.
If Rahm takes the plunge, he’ll be one of the few Democrats in the race with actual executive experience and a willingness to call out the nonsense strangling his own party. And if he doesn’t run for president? Watch for him to make a move on retiring Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat in Illinois — unless, of course, Rod Blagojevich swoops in to make it interesting.
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