Rahm Emanuel leaned into speculation about a 2028 presidential run on Wednesday.

After hosts of ABC’s “The View” told him he sounded like a presidential contender, the former two-term Chicago mayor didn’t exactly deny it.

“I am training — I don’t know if I’ll make the Olympics,” said Emanuel, who served in both former presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s administrations.

Emanuel — a longtime critic of President Donald Trump — has said he wants to return to elected office and is said to have eyes on the presidency. But it’s not just the Oval Office he’s been linked to.

In recent months, Emanuel hasn’t ruled out runs for just about every top job in Illinois — including the governor’s mansion in 2026, Sen. Dick Durbin’s seat and Chicago mayor in 2027. But his recent remark suggests he may be zeroing in on the White House.

Leading up to the moment, Emanuel laid out what sounded like a campaign stump speech.

“The American dream is unaffordable. The American dream is inaccessible,” Emanuel said during the interview. “And that should be unacceptable to all of us … Everybody in this audience, they just want one thing — for their kids to have a shot and the problem is Washington has given them the shaft and that is wrong.”

He also took a swing at Trump’s recent decision to accept a swanky new jet from Qatar.

“The White House has a ‘For Sale’ sign on the front lawn — and everybody knows it,” Emanuel said.

Emanuel’s resume is long: U.S. ambassador to Japan under Biden, Obama’s chief of staff, two-term mayor and congressman. His brash speaking style has drawn comparisons to Trump, though Emanuel’s politics are decidedly establishment Democrat.

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Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy said there’s “no doubt” that former President Joe Biden suffered cognitive decline in office and that it would have been better for the party if he hadn’t run for reelection.

“There’s no doubt about it,” said the Connecticut senator when asked by POLITICO if Biden experienced cognitive decline as president. “The debate is whether it was enough that it compromised his ability to act as chief executive.”

Murphy, who is widely viewed as a potential 2028 presidential contender, also said that it would have been helpful to Democrats if Biden had declined to mount a 2024 bid.

“I mean, isn’t that self-evident? We lost,” he quipped. “Obviously, in retrospect, we should have done something different. The likelihood is the odds were pretty stacked against us no matter what, but clearly people were looking for change and neither Biden nor Harris were going to be able to offer a real message of change.”

Few elected Democrats have so far been as direct about attacking Biden’s cognitive abilities publicly. Former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Tuesday that “maybe” Democrats would have been better off had the former president not run for reelection, while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said if he wasn’t going to run he needed to drop out before the Democratic primary because the amount of time former Vice President Kamala Harris was left with was insufficient for her to “introduce herself” to the public.

Democrats have been confronted with questions about Biden’s age as the former president has reemerged on the national stage, sitting down for an interview with “The View” last week and with a pair of high-profile journalists slated to release a book about what the authors describe as the former president’s deterioration while in office.

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A top campaign aide to former Vice President Kamala Harris blames former President Joe Biden for Harris’ loss, saying “it’s all Biden” in a new book about the former commander in chief’s apparent deterioration during the 2024 race.

The perspective shared by David Plouffe, who worked on Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign, underscores a frustration held by some Democrats: that Biden’s reluctance to remove himself earlier from the White House race sealed the fate of Harris’ election bid.

Discussing the impact Biden’s withdrawal in July of last year had on Harris’ chances, Plouffe described the then-vice president’s less than three-month bid for the White House as a “fucking nightmare.”

“And it’s all Biden…He totally fucked us,” Plouffe, who was also manager of former President Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign and a senior adviser in his White House, told the authors of the report.

First reported on by The Guardian and Axios, “Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again” — a new book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’ Alex Thompson — provides accounts from interviews with over 200 people about what the authors describe as the then-president’s physical and mental deterioration and the White House’s quiet campaign to conceal it. The book will be released May 20.

A Biden spokesperson did not immediately respond to POLITICO’s request for comment on Plouffe’s statements.

The book goes on to detail how Plouffe would receive calls for donors concerned about Biden’s mental acuity and energy on the campaign trail. Plouffe said he tried to question the White House and Democratic Party about if they were confident Biden could win another election and was assured Biden was equipped to score a second term.

Despite ongoing concerns from the public and other lawmakers about his physical condition and mental acuity, Biden, White House officials and his family members held firm on their stance that Biden could defeat President Donald Trump throughout the former president’s since-collapsed reelection campaign.

But Biden and his team reached a fork in the road after his poor debate performance last June against Trump, which immediately sparked calls from top Democrats for Biden to withdraw from the race. Biden stepped aside a few weeks after the televised event.

Biden recently held himself accountable for Trump’s win during an interview on “The View” last week.

“Look, I was in charge and he won, so I take responsibility,” he said.

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A Democratic National Committee panel on Monday recommended a new election for the post held by Vice Chair David Hogg, whose effort to challenge “asleep at the wheel” Democrats sparked a firestorm in the national party.

While the panel’s move was based on a procedural complaint unrelated to the broader controversy surrounding Hogg, the committee is giving DNC members another option to squeeze the vice chair after he promised to spend $20 million in Democratic primaries against incumbent House members in safe blue districts.

Hogg and DNC chair Ken Martin have been dueling over Hogg’s plans. Most recently, Martin said Hogg should either sign a neutrality pledge or step down from his post.

On Monday, the DNC Credentials Committee committee heard a complaint that alleged the body bungled its own rules when Hogg and Malcolm Kenyatta were elected as vice chairs in February. To move forward, the full national body would have to sign off on the resolution the committee approved. If it does, it would call for a new election for the two vice chair posts in question and therefore would remove Hogg and Kenyatta from their posts.

In a statement, Hogg said it’s “impossible to ignore the broader context of my work to reform the party which loomed large over this vote.”

“The DNC has pledged to remove me, and this vote has provided an avenue to fast-track that effort,” Hogg said.

The challenge was brought by Oklahoma DNC member Kalyn Free, who argued that the party violated its own rules and made it harder for a woman to be elected vice chair.

Her complaint was filed well before Hogg promised to challenge fellow Democrats.

The committee voted 13-2 on Monday evening after about more than three hours of discussion.

The party’s rules state that the DNC’s governing body should achieve gender parity or get as close to it as is possible. Free argued, according to her initial complaint, which was shared with POLITICO, that Kenyatta and Hogg had access to more votes than Free and two other women running for the slot because the DNC’s rules were not properly followed and “made it impossible” for any woman to win the race.

“I have always known that the Democratic Party is the party of free and fair elections. Today, the credentials committee of the DNC confirmed that correcting mistakes in process, and protecting democracy is more important than saving face,” Free said in a statement after the vote.

Earlier this month, Free told POLITICO her challenge was “about fairness,” and added that her challenge had nothing to do with Hogg’s group funding primary challenges.

“This other thing — $20 million — that’s David’s issue,” she said.

In a statement, Martin said he was “disappointed to learn that before I became Chair, there was a procedural error in the February Vice Chair elections.”

“The Credentials Committee has issued their recommendation, and I trust that the DNC Members will carefully review the Committee’s resolution and resolve this matter fairly,” he said.

In the hearing on Monday, Free’s lawyers called in Hofstra professor Daniel Seabold, an expert in parliamentary procedure, to give testimony on Free’s behalf, and his expertise seemed to sway some members of the committee.

“I’m gonna take the guy who wrote the book,” said former Oklahoma Gov. David Walters, a committee member.

The full DNC could opt to hold a virtual vote ahead of the meeting later this summer. Otherwise it will take the issue up during its August meeting.

Elena Schneider contributed to this report. 

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Joe Biden’s return to the spotlight this week is igniting anger among Democrats who wish the former president would ride off into retirement and stay there.

In a wide-ranging interview on “The View” with former First Lady Jill Biden on Thursday, Biden owned up to his role in Donald Trump’s return to power even as he defended his decision to stay in the race as long as he did last year. But if he was expecting a warm reception, he’s not getting it. Many in his party are desperate to turn the page on Biden’s presidency, craving new leaders and fresh faces as Democrats look to find a way out of the political wilderness.

“It’s time for Joe Biden to go away with all due respect and let the next generation of Democrats take the mantle,” said Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha. “Every time he appears on a show or says something, it’s just another week or a month that we have to defend him and remind everybody that we got beat by Donald Trump, again.”

“For those of us trying to rebuild the brand, it does no good when you’re constantly reminded about the old brand that won’t go away,” Rocha said, adding that the only good thing about the interview is that it was quickly overtaken by news of the selection of a new pope.

Biden’s reemergence comes as the Democratic Party works to move beyond its current predicament — shut out of power in Washington and embroiled in a fierce debate about the party’s direction and strategy against Trump.

However unwelcome for many Democrats, Biden is an unavoidable subject.

The former president’s allies are bracing for the potential release of audio of Biden’s interview with Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s handling of classified documents and raised questions about his mental acuity. That’s in addition to an upcoming book by two high-profile journalists that promises to shed light on Biden’s decision to run for reelection “despite evidence of his serious decline” mentally, according to promotional copy for Original Sin, set for release on May 20.

For many Democrats, both events are dredging up past problems— not just around Biden’s age, but also inflation and the party’s handling of cultural issues.

“Every interview that Biden does drags us backwards and reminds people of the older generation of Democrats that got us into this mess — when attention is our scarcest resource, we need to prioritize hearing from the next generation of leaders who could excite and rebuild the party,” said Amanda Litman, co-founder of Run For Something, a progressive group that helps young people run for office.

Some Democrats saw value in Biden’s reemergence, even if they said he needed to be more thoughtful about how to present his message.

“I think this is an incredible inflection point as a nation, as a world and people like Joe Biden add value to the conversation — when [he’s focused] on being constructive,” said Democratic strategist Ashley Etienne, who served as a senior advisor to Biden, as well as to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“I do believe we’ve got to reconcile what actually happened, be honest about it, confront it and move past it. I think central to that … would be an autopsy from the party,” Ettiene added. “Absent that, then you got all these books that are going to fill in the gaps and the holes and it’s going to keep perpetuating the problem and deepening the wound.”

A Biden adviser granted anonymity to speak freely said he had no immediate public events in the coming weeks.

At least some Democrats would welcome hearing more from him. Noting that Biden is the only person to ever beat Trump, Erica Loewe, who served as special assistant to Biden during his presidency, said that as the party tries to rebuild following its November losses, “there’s no reason why Joe Biden should not be a part of this conversation.”

“There’s no question that Democrats as a whole have a messaging problem,” she said, “but that can’t solely be blamed on Joe Biden.”

Biden said in his interview that he’s working on his own book and offered his own assessment of Kamala Harris’ loss to Trump, saying Republicans took “the sexist route” But he acknowledged his contribution to Trump’s victory, saying, “Look, I was in charge and he won, so I take responsibility.”

Some Democrats appreciated his willingness to say that publicly.

“I think people have wanted to hear him acknowledge some sense of responsibility,” said longtime Democratic strategist Karen Finney, who worked on HIllary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign. She also said many Democrats were more upset that Biden, who had cast himself as a transitional figure, ran for reelection anyway.

That, she said, “goes back to his initial promise, where he said that he would only serve for one term.”

Relitigating the most painful parts of the Biden presidency has been especially frustrating for Democrats who see the party finally showing signs of life. Democrats got their preferred candidate elected statewide in a Wisconsin Supreme Court race in April, and Trump’s handling of the economy — which had once been a strength — is quickly becoming a liability.

And though Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate are slim as they face a deeply unfavorable map, the picture is looking brighter for them than it once did, with popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia passing on a Senate bid against Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and former Republican Gov. Chris Sununu forgoing a run for an open Senate seat in New Hampshire.

For some Democrats, Biden’s return only pulled attention away from that string of good news for the party.

“Most Democrats … are tired of the distractions,” said Georgia-based Democratic strategist Andrew Heaton. “The last thing we want is anything that’s going to feed it to the naysayers who are going to point to see: ‘once again, it was a big cover up in the party.’”

Heaton likened Democrats’ current situation to a wildfire. At some point, he said, it will be important to understand how it started. But for now, he said, “Digging into the machinations of the Biden reelect is not something that I think a lot of folks are focused on right now.”

He said, “Like, can we just move on?”

Adam Wren, Elena Schneider and Liz Crampton contributed to this report.

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BUCKS COUNTY, Pennsylvania — Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego said Republicans are trying to pull John Fetterman to the right and argued Democrats should keep the Pennsylvania senator in their corner as he faces mounting questions over his health and shifting political persona.

“There needs to be space for Fetterman and for other senators in our caucus,” he said in an interview Saturday. “He still is a senator that fights for working-class people. We may not be 100 percent in agreement a lot of times in a lot of areas, but we don’t have to be.”

While some Democrats have distanced themselves from Fetterman, top Republicans have rallied around him in the wake of news reports that his current and former staffers are concerned about his mental and physical health. Several GOP senators, including Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), have come to Fetterman’s defense on social media.

“The radical left is smearing him with dishonest, vicious attacks because he’s pro-Israel and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians,” Cotton said.

Asked if Republicans are trying to tug Fetterman to the GOP, Gallego said “of course.”

“In the Marines, we call these fuck-fuck games,” said Gallego, who traveled to Pennsylvania Saturday for a town hall.

Fetterman has said repeatedly that he will not change parties. But that isn’t stopping some conservatives from trying to push him to vote for their priorities — and perhaps more broadly come onto their side. The Club for Growth, a conservative group, is airing a TV ad in Pennsylvania this weekend praising Fetterman as “standing up for every working family in PA” and urging him to back President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

Fetterman has voted against the budget blueprint laying the groundwork for a massive package that would include the extension of Trump’s first-term tax cuts, and he said on Friday he remains opposed to the efforts. Gallego expressed confidence that Fetterman would continue to hold that position, saying “I think the last thing he’ll do is harming working-class families by voting for the reconciliation bill.”

While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said Fetterman is an “all-star” who is “doing a good job,” several House Democrats in Fetterman’s state have offered more chilly responses, saying that the recent reporting raises questions and voters should read it. Fetterman has also drawn criticism from some on the left over his hardline position on Israel and recent meeting with Trump.

During Gallego’s town hall, Gallego repeatedly stressed the need for Democrats to maintain a big tent. He was asked by a member of the audience why he did a fundraiser with Marc Andreessen, a pro-Trump businessperson. Gallego said he runs “the largest venture capital firm in Arizona.”

“We got so pure that we started kicking people out of the tent — it ends up there aren’t enough people in the tent to win elections,” he said to applause.

Gallego’s stop in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania, first reported by POLITICO, has drawn speculation that he is interested in a future presidential bid. When asked in an NBC News interview about the prospect of running for the White House, Gallego said, “Has it ever crossed my mind? Fucking of course, I’m an elected official, it crosses my mind. Am I thinking about it right now? Absolutely not.”

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Democratic National Convention Chair Ken Martin on Saturday doubled down on his ultimatum for rogue Vice Chair David Hogg: Take a neutrality pledge or step down.

“Party officers have one job: to be fair stewards of a process that invites every Democrat to the table — regardless of personal views or allegiances,” Martin said.

After weeks of infighting about how the hobbled party should move forward, Martin laid out his longstanding vision on Saturday in a post on X and called out Hogg, who caused an uproar last month after he told POLITICO that he would fund Democratic primaries for “ineffective, asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.

Following Hogg’s comments, Martin made it clear that as a party officer, you must remain neutral in Democratic primaries — and suggested Hogg should step down from his role if he can’t get on board.

The statement comes hours after it was reported by POLITICO that Hogg privately pitched a compromise to his party in recent days. He proposed a so-called internal firewall in which he would stay on as vice chair but be barred from accessing internal committee information about races as long as he was supporting challengers.

“Some critics have wrongly framed this as an effort to shut people out of the party or to discourage contested primaries,” Martin wrote. “Let me be unequivocally clear: That’s not only false, it’s the opposite of what I stand for.”

Martin, as many party officers in the past have argued, said that the pledge allows for a fairer process without interference from party leadership.

In the lengthy thread, Martin mentioned Hogg by name, saying he respects the 25-year-old activist-turned DNC vice chair.

“When I ran for DNC Chair, I ran on a platform of democratizing the party,” he wrote. “Those reforms weren’t about any one person, and they certainly aren’t about me versus David Hogg. … Long before David was ever involved in politics, I was pushing reforms within our Democratic Party.”

Martin added that when you lead the institution that calls “balls and strikes, you don’t get to also swing the bat.”

“I am more committed than ever to introduce the slate of structural reforms that enshrine these values into the official rules of the Democratic Party,” Martin said. “These reforms will require all party officers — including myself — to remain neutral in primaries.”

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Republican firebrand and ally of President Donald Trump, is passing on the Senate race in Georgia.

“I’m not running,” she said in a lengthy post on social media on Friday, citing her frustrations with the Senate as the main reason she didn’t want to run. “Even with a few good Republicans in the Senate, nothing changes.”

The two-term Georgia representative’s name had been floated as a potential Republican candidate after popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp passed on a bid this week to take on incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff. Greene’s decision loomed large over the race, with many Democrats salivating over the possibility she’d enter the contest in one of the swingiest of swing states in the nation.

Trump carried Georgia by about 2 percentage points last year, after Joe Biden became the first Democratic presidential nominee to win the state since former President Bill Clinton in 1992.

In passing on a run, Greene, a prolific fundraiser and darling of conservative media, nevertheless claimed she could have won.

“When I met with the NRSC a few weeks ago, they told me their internal polling shows any Republican can beat Ossoff,” she said in her post. “But now they’re pushing a public poll of just 800 people claiming only certain Republicans can win.”

The outspoken MAGA star’s lengthy statement left open the door for another statewide run. She did not rule out the possibility of running for governor to succeed Kemp, who is term-limited.

Should she decide to embark on a gubernatorial bid, many questions that hovered over her potential Senate run would remain. Georgia, with its demographic shifts, has become a purple state in recent years, now with two Democratic senators in Ossoff and Raphael Warnock.

While Republicans control the governor’s mansion and both chambers of the state legislature — and while Trump won in 2024 — the state is not considered a MAGA stronghold.

Georgia Republicans bucked the president in recent elections, including during the 2022 cycle when Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Rafensperger roundly defeated Trump-backed primary challengers after both men rejected efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state. They were able to cruise reelection victories in the general election.

Raffensperger has not signaled if he plans to run again for statewide office, but is likely to be a formidable candidate should he decide to run to succeed Kemp or challenge Ossoff for his seat.

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John Fetterman’s popularity is sinking among Democratic voters in his backyard, according to an internal poll obtained by POLITICO — one of the first major indications that the Pennsylvania senator is taking a hit with the very voters who elected him.

The poll is likely to take on new relevance as Democrats in Pennsylvania increasingly talk behind the scenes about the prospect of a primary challenge against Fetterman in 2028.

Fetterman, who lives just outside Pittsburgh, is underwater with likely Democratic voters in the city. Forty-nine percent said they have an unfavorable impression of him, while 46 percent said they have a favorable impression, according to the survey. By way of comparison, the poll showed 82 percent view Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro favorably, versus 13 percent unfavorably.

The poll, completed by a Democratic firm surveying the upcoming mayoral primary election in Pittsburgh, was conducted before New York magazine published an article reporting that staff are concerned about Fetterman’s mental and physical health.

It is a single poll, and runs counter to recent public surveys. Still, it has shocked some Democrats in the state.

“In Pittsburgh, this is a break-glass, freak-out moment for Fetterman,” said a Pittsburgh-based Democratic strategist who was granted anonymity to speak frankly.

The results suggest a real vulnerability for Fetterman, who has made his personal ties to the region a key part of his political brand. During his 2022 Senate campaign, his team gave supporters yellow, Fetterman-branded towels modeled after the Pittsburgh Steelers’ “Terrible Towel.” Fetterman frequently uses the term “yinzer,” slang for a Pittsburgh native, and talks up his love of the convenience store Sheetz.

In the 2022 Senate primary, Fetterman overwhelmingly won Allegheny County, where Pittsburgh is located, by 25 percentage points, outpacing his rivals then-Rep. Conor Lamb and state lawmaker Malcolm Kenyatta.

The poll of 500 likely Democratic primary voters in Pittsburgh was conducted from Feb. 6 to Feb. 11, through a mix of phone calls and text-to-online responses.

The survey’s results are a marked contrast from public polling that has shown Democratic voters in Pennsylvania sticking by Fetterman even as many on the left criticize him over his positions on Israel and meeting with President Donald Trump.

Recent Morning Consult surveys have found Fetterman’s popularity rising in Pennsylvania, the result of him improving his numbers among Republican voters while keeping steady support with Democratic ones. Polls of adults across the country have painted a different picture, with him sliding among national Democrats and independents while performing better among Republicans.

Some Democratic strategists in Pennsylvania have said that Fetterman’s shifting approach to Trump could weaken the senator among Democratic voters more than his hardline stance on Israel. Fetterman has voted to confirm a number of Trump’s top officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi. He said in January that he was meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago because he “will meet with and have a conversation with anyone if it helps me deliver for Pennsylvania and the nation.”

The internal survey found that Fetterman’s standing among progressives in Pittsburgh is in particular bottoming out. Seventy-four percent of self-identified progressive Democrats in the city gave him an unfavorable ranking, while only 22 percent gave him favorable marks. His approval rating was 52 percent favorable to 47 percent unfavorable among liberal Democrats and 65 percent favorable to 27 percent unfavorable among moderate and conservative Democrats.

Amid mounting questions about Fetterman’s health, some Democrats in the state have begun looking into the rules guiding what would happen if he stepped down and whispering about potential replacements. Fetterman has strongly denied that he is unfit to serve, called the New York article is “a one-source hit piece,” and has vowed to stay on through his term, which ends in 2029.

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Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

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