Rahm Emanuel wants Democrats to see him as the grown-up in the room heading into 2028.
So he sat down with Sean Hannity and slammed the door on the socialists.
But one answer he gave about a key Senate race tells a very different story.
Rahm Emanuel Slams the Door on the Socialists in Hannity’s Studio
Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel has spent the better part of two years auditioning for the 2028 Democrat Presidential nomination.
He writes a column for the Wall Street Journal. He shows up on CNN so often they ought to give him a parking spot. And he works the podcast circuit like a man running for county commissioner in a district with no paved roads.
His latest stop landed him across the table from Sean Hannity on Hang Out with Sean Hannity, the Fox News podcast. The two covered a lot of ground, from past administrations to public safety to the sorry state of American schools.
But the moment that made the rounds involved the Democratic Socialists of America. Emanuel told Hannity that DSA candidates belong to a “separate party,” according to Fox News’ description of the exchange.
That line probably sounded familiar to anyone paying attention. Emanuel has been taking it on the road for weeks.
“I don’t consider democratic socialists part of the Democratic Party,” Emanuel said during a television appearance in late August. He told the socialists to go run their own party and pointed out that the group held its own convention in Chicago that same month.
“The Democratic Party is not open to be taken over,” he added.
At the Texas Tribune Festival in Austin, he dug in again with Fox News Digital. “Democratic Socialists are a separate party. I’ll see you in November,” Emanuel said.
Then he went after the socialist wish list by name.
“You think people wanna support defunding the police? You think they wanna support open borders, open prisons? Run on it. I don’t, and that’s not the party’s position,” Emanuel said.
Tough talk. Hannity’s audience probably nodded along for a minute or two.
One Michigan Answer Knocked Rahm Emanuel’s Line in the Sand Sideways
But elections don’t happen inside a podcast studio. They happen in places like Michigan.
Abdul El-Sayed won the Democrat Senate primary there, and the socialist left treats him like family. US Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the two biggest names in the movement, rallied behind his campaign. El-Sayed, for his part, insists he isn’t a socialist himself.
Fox News Digital asked Emanuel point-blank whether he supports El-Sayed. Emanuel tap-danced at first.
“Look, I mean, it doesn’t matter what I do . . . it matters what the Michigan voters think,” he said. “And that’s what’s gonna determine this in this effort. And I support the Democrats winning the Senate.”
The reporter didn’t let him off the hook and followed up: “So, in effect, you do hope that he wins that race for Democrats.”
Emanuel needed exactly one word. “Yeah.”
So the “separate party” stays separate right up until a Senate majority hangs in the balance. Then the candidate Bernie and AOC went to bat for turns into just another Democrat worth rooting for.
And that so-called separate party keeps winning Democrat primaries. Three candidates New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed won Democrat congressional primaries in the Big Apple. Democratic socialists Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania and Melat Kiros in Colorado won theirs too, along with Florida Senate hopeful Angie Dixon.
A truly separate party doesn’t usually go around winning the other guy’s nominations.
Chicago’s Old Boss Is Peddling a Familiar Democrat Brand
Emanuel likes to call himself a pragmatist. His record shows what that word means once he gets his hands on the controls.
He ran Barack Obama’s White House as chief of staff when Obama signed the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, the biggest power grab over American health insurance in a generation. And if he runs in 2028, he has said he would push universal health care coverage, according to the Washington Times. Coming from a Democrat, “universal” tends to mean a federal bureaucrat gets a vote on which doctor a patient sees and how long the patient waits.
Then there’s Chicago. Hannity pressed him on that record, and it’s easy to see why.
Emanuel ran City Hall from 2011 to 2019. His administration shut down roughly 50 government schools in 2013, one of the largest mass closings in American history. Chicago recorded more than 750 homicides in 2016. His approval rating had already sunk into the low 20s by late 2015 amid a string of scandals. And he chose not to seek a third term.
Maybe that’s a little unfair. Plenty of big-city mayors struggled with crime in those years. But Emanuel doesn’t pitch himself as just another big-city mayor. He pitches himself as the guy who knows how to fix things, the self-described “wartime general,” to borrow his own phrase.
The people of Chicago got eight years of that general. Folks can judge the results for themselves.
Rahm Emanuel’s ‘Separate Party’ Talk Comes With an Expiration Date
Here’s the part Emanuel would rather nobody think about too hard.
The Democratic Socialists of America didn’t sneak in through a basement window. The openly Marxist outfit grew up inside the Democrat Party, ran in Democrat primaries, and sent its stars to Congress on Democrat ballot lines. Socialism has a track record everywhere it has been tried, from empty grocery shelves to a vanishing middle class, and none of it ends well for working people.
But Emanuel spent his entire career inside that same party machine. He raised money for Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign. He chaired the House Democrat campaign arm in 2006. He served Obama. The defund-the-police push he now mocks came roaring out of his own party’s activist wing in 2020, and plenty of Democrat officeholders cheered it on at the time.
That’s the standard pattern for self-described moderate Democrats. They wait until the far left becomes a political liability, then discover their backbone right around the time a Presidential campaign needs a hook.
And Emanuel already gave the game away in Austin. “Now, we will have healthy debate among progressive and pragmatic wing of the party. That’s what a coalition party looks like,” he said.
Read that twice. The socialists are a “separate party” in one breath and a wing of the coalition in the next.
Emanuel isn’t exactly lighting up the scoreboard, either. Axios reported that national polls during the spring of 2026 had his support at less than 1%. A candidate stuck at that number can’t afford to turn away anybody, least of all the energized activists who flood Democrat primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire.
So watch what happens if the DSA crowd wins seats in November. Those members will caucus with Democrats, vote for Democrat leadership, and show up to Democrat primaries in 2028. The “separate party” will suddenly look a whole lot like coalition partners Emanuel needs.
“Swing voters in swing states swing presidential elections,” Emanuel told Fox News Digital.
He’s right about that much. And swing voters in Michigan just heard which candidate he’s hoping wins.
Sources: Fox News, “Hannity Presses Rahm Emanuel on 2028 and Chicago Record,” Hang Out with Sean Hannity; Fox News, “Rahm Emanuel reveals his political plans”; Hannity.com, “NEW EPISODE: Hannity Presses Rahm Emanuel on 2028 and Chicago Record”; Fox News Digital, “Rahm Emanuel expresses support for Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan Senate race”; The Washington Times, “Rahm Emanuel, potential 2028 candidate, says democratic socialists aren’t part of Democratic Party”; Washington Examiner, “Rahm Emanuel shuts socialists out of Democratic tent: ‘Run as a separate party'”; Axios via Yahoo News, “Emanuel loads up on 2028 plans. Anyone listening?”