You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.
-Rahm Emanuel
The person who takes the oath of office in the next four months will shape not just the next four years, but the next forty years of our nation. In these next four years, we need proven leadership, proven judgment and proven values. America needs four more years of President Barack Obama.
-Rahm Emanuel
We have work to do, and Tuesday Americans sent Washington a clear message – get the job done.
-Rahm Emanuel
While Mayor Daley surprised me today with his decision to not run for reelection, I have never been surprised by his leadership, dedication and work on behalf of the city and the people of Chicago.
-Rahm Emanuel
We invoke the sacrifices of our fallen heroes in the abstract, but we seldom take time to thank them individually.
-Rahm Emanuel
I wake up some mornings hating me too.
-Rahm Emanuel
I still believe the Lewinsky investigation was way off from the focus of what Whitewater was, which turned out to be nothing at the end of the process. And I think that there were people who were determined as political opponents to not allow his presidency to succeed.
-Rahm Emanuel
President Obama made the right choice, over one million Americans are still working today. The American auto industry is not just surviving. It is thriving. Where Mitt Romney was willing to turn his back on Akron, Dayton and Toledo, Ohio, the president said, ‘I’ve got your back.’
-Rahm Emanuel
A strong economy depends on a strong middle class, but George Bush has put the middle class in a hole, and John McCain has a plan to keep digging that hole with George Bush’s shovel.
-Rahm Emanuel
As individuals, we will be judged in our lives by the totality of our actions. Not one thing will stand out. And I think that’s how we get judged by our colleagues and that’s how we get judged by the good lord.
-Rahm Emanuel
When President Obama entered the White House, the economy was in a free-fall. The auto industry: on its back. The banks: frozen up. More than three million Americans had already lost their jobs. And America’s bravest, our men and women in uniform, were fighting what would soon be the longest wars in our history.
-Rahm Emanuel
There was no blueprint or how-to manual for fixing a global financial meltdown, an auto crisis, two wars and a great recession, all at the same time.
-Rahm Emanuel
Because of the president’s leadership, every American will have access to affordable, quality health care.
-Rahm Emanuel
The American people… want change. They want big ideas, big reform.
-Rahm Emanuel
I saw the president make the tough calls in the Situation Room – and today, our troops in Iraq have finally come home so America can do some nation building here at home. That was the change that we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.
-Rahm Emanuel
In the White House, you can be on the pitcher’s mound or you can be in the catcher’s position. Put points on the board. Show people you can govern. Deliver on what you said you were going to deliver on.
-Rahm Emanuel
Banks are slowly but surely lending again, and never again will taxpayers foot the bill for Wall Street’s excesses. In case we forgot, that was the change we believed in. That was the change we fought for. That was the change President Obama delivered.
-Rahm Emanuel
I don’t want to go negative on Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but he didn’t pass an economic deal in the first 100 days. We have passed the largest Recovery Act in the history of the country.
-Rahm Emanuel
What is more comforting to the terrorists around the world: the failure to pass the 9/11 legislation because we lacked ‘a majority of the majority,’ or putting aside partisan politics to enact tough new legislation with America’s security foremost in mind?
-Rahm Emanuel
Whose leadership, whose judgment, whose values do you want in the White House when that crisis lands like a thud on the Oval Office desk?
-Rahm Emanuel
Things happened there that I don’t think are the finest hours for anybody, whether it was a journalist, the legal system or, in that case of the political system, who would say that was an example of when Washington worked best.
-Rahm Emanuel
I sometimes joke, Paula, even paranoid people have enemies.
-Rahm Emanuel
I would like to run for the mayor of the city of Chicago. That has always been an aspiration of mine even when I was in the House of Representatives.
-Rahm Emanuel
I’ve never been in a place where winning has hurt the ability to do anything.
-Rahm Emanuel
Everybody knows they’re on the Obama team: There isn’t vice presidential vs. presidential division, there’s not a generational pull. People have internalized that this is a real moment in history.
-Rahm Emanuel
I believe the record I was allowed to help establish by the side of the president was important.
-Rahm Emanuel
The fact is, Bush’s war policy has failed. It’s failed! Who better to say so than Jack Murtha?
-Rahm Emanuel
There’s no safe Republican district. You can run, but you cannot hide.
-Rahm Emanuel
When people told me ‘It’s great to be here’, they meant at the house, not with me.
-Rahm Emanuel
Rather than doing the kind of fact-checking that normally goes with a story, you ran with certain stories for not wanting to get beat. There’s a pressure that exists in your profession. I would be surprised in any honest exchange that you say that doesn’t exist.
-Rahm Emanuel
Today, because of President Obama’s courage, kids can stay on their parent’s plan until they are 26. Insurers cannot kick you off your policy because you have hit your limit. They will not be able to deny you because you have a pre-existing condition.
-Rahm Emanuel
When it comes to federal elections law, Tom DeLay and his special-interest friends live by one set of rules, and everyone else lives by a very different set.
-Rahm Emanuel
We’re getting at best an impressionistic sense of what’s going on in the economy. Major policy decisions are being made based on data that is inadequate to the task.
-Rahm Emanuel
When the Speaker’s gavel comes down, it’s intended to open the People’s House, and lately it’s looking like the Auction House, … Whether it’s an energy bill that gives more $8 billion to the oil and gas interests while oil’s at $64 a barrel, whether it’s a corporate tax bill solving a $5 billion problem with a $150 billion solution, whether it’s a pharmaceutical, prescription drug bill where the industry gave $132 million and walked away with $135 billion in additional profits.
-Rahm Emanuel
If they think they can go forward as if nothing’s changed, they do not understand what the rest of America has witnessed over the past week.
-Rahm Emanuel
He has to get off his mountain bike and back to work.
-Rahm Emanuel
Here in Illinois it’s known as Kid Care, and I talked about expanding it to family care. So if you work full- time, you get health care.
-Rahm Emanuel
I think there’s a lot of anger and we’re gaining because of that. We could blow it. They can gain ground they’ve lost, but there’s a big shift going on.
-Rahm Emanuel
Our voters, going into the midterm elections, are mobilized and energized; theirs are despondent, … Virginia is a bright, bright red state -Rahm Emanuel
Will the division have an effect on the election of 2006? We’ll know that pretty quickly.
-Rahm Emanuel
We’re at the very beginning stages of this, not at the end,
-Rahm Emanuel
We’ve come to this historical opportunity and this historical time to get a balanced budget and a targeted tax cut, … Fox News Sunday.
-Rahm Emanuel
The president wants to get the information that the grand jury needs,
-Rahm Emanuel
the president wanted an open and honest discussion …. the full transcript will be made available.
-Rahm Emanuel
Both Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter got elected because they were comfortable with their faith, which enabled them to reach voters of faith.
-Rahm Emanuel
At the very time our country yearns for national unity in the wake of hurricane Katrina, these comments reflect a spirit of hate and division.
-Rahm Emanuel
There’s no safe district. You can run but you can’t hide.
-Rahm Emanuel
The schedule speaks volumes — he’s persona non grata around the country, … Challengers and incumbents can’t be seen with him. But at the Capitol, he’s a powerful force. This Congress is his domain. The interests he supports continue to reign.
-Rahm Emanuel
This is not a mystery anymore. We know what needs to be done, … The Great Lakes has gotten nine studies in four years from this administration, and Iraq has gotten $4.5 billion. Give Iraq the studies, and we’ll take the money.
-Rahm Emanuel
They ended up spending a total, their campaign plus the independent, about 1.3 million. I only ended up spending about — not only, but I spent about 2 million. But I had no intention of doing that until I was attacked with a negative ad by an independent group.
-Rahm Emanuel
Instead of a State of the Union address, the president kicked off his re-election campaign. His speech was long on rhetoric and short on resources.
-Rahm Emanuel
You could make progress on this in a New York minute, … We’re getting very close here.
-Rahm Emanuel