Politics

Brandon Johnson Blasts Rahm Emanuel for Giving Trump ‘Script’ to Target Chicago

Mayor Brandon Johnson laid much of the blame for President Donald Trump’s rise on former Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday, telling reporters his predecessor gave the president “the script” he is using to dismantle public education and target Black and Brown Chicagoans.

Johnson told reporters during a news conference at City Hall that he was “incredibly bothered” by Emanuel’s “temerity” during a recent interview about how the Democrats can win back the White House, U.S. Senate and U.S. House after defeats in 2024.

“The playbook that Donald Trump is running is a playbook that Rahm Emanuel executed in this city,” Johnson said. “We didn’t get here because we just happened to have a tyrant in the White House. He got here because someone gave him the script. And the shutting of schools, the firing of Black women, privatizing our public education system, is why the system is as jacked up as it is today.”

Emanuel, who served as former President Joe Biden’s ambassador to Japan, has repeatedly criticized Democrats for focusing too much on cultural issues and not enough on improving education and reducing crime.

While Emanuel has yet to reveal a plan to return to elected office, he has repeatedly said he’s “not done with public service and I’m hoping public service is not done with me.”

A spokesperson for Emanuel could not be reached for comment.

Since declining to run for a third term as mayor, Emanuel refused to criticize former Mayor Lori Lightfoot and has never mentioned Johnson by name as part of his criticism of the Democratic Party.

When asked why a recent poll showed Johnson with an incredibly low approval rating, Emanuel said Democrats focused too much on the fight for transgender rights.

“We’ve gone through five years where people became way too permissive as a culture,” Emanuel said on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher” on Feb. 28. “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.”

Johnson has not focused on transgender rights as mayor of Chicago, although he frequently praises LGBTQ+ Chicagoans for their contributions to the city and vows to protect their rights.

Emanuel, who served two terms as Chicago mayor from 2011-2019, pursued what Johnson called a “neoliberal agenda” that “ultimately undermined” efforts to expand government services for the benefit of all people, regardless of their race, ethnicity or economic status. Johnson said his election was the result of “a long, sustained movement in this city” that rejected Emanuel’s approach.

“The Emanuel administration had immense disdain for public education, particularly for Black, Brown and poor children, and he was vocal about it,” Johnson said. “And now he is prancing around this country, asking people to reconsider him. It is not just frustrating. It is beyond offensive.”

Johnson said April 15 that Trump’s efforts to strip federal funding from cities like Chicago with laws on the books designed to protect undocumented immigrants amount to “terrorism.”

But Trump was not the only politician Johnson accused of terrorizing the people of Chicago, blasting Emanuel for closing 50 Chicago Public Schools in 2013. The backlash to that decision jumpstarted the political career of Johnson, a former organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union.

“Our challenges in Chicago did not start with Donald Trump,” Johnson said. “One of the greatest, I believe, acts of terror that was ever administered by an administration was the Emanuel administration.”

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

---