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Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Democrats lost touch with the American public by fixating on trans rights instead of issues like housing costs and education.
Emanuel got into a polite-but-passionate exchange with The New Yorker editor David Remnick on the magazine’s Tuesday podcast. The ex-mayor said he supports trans issues, but argued it should not be one of the main topics Democrats campaign on.
“You have to prioritize what’s an A and a B [issue],” he said. “I’m gonna make sure children feel accepted, and the best way to make sure they feel accepted is they know reading, math, and high school graduation [are essential].”
Remnick started the segment by pointing to Emanuel recently saying he was “done with the discussion of bathrooms” and locker rooms.
“You’d like Democrats to be done with that, but Republican clearly aren’t,” Remnick said. “Should Democrats really be silent in response to attacks on trans people? It just seems that this line is clever, but it doesn’t do service to some human beings who want their rights.”
Emanuel started off by saying he passed an ordinance in 2016 allowing trans men and women to use whichever bathroom they wanted, so he was more focused on education now.
“Why can’t you do both?” Remnick asked.
Emanuel answered:
Because you have an issue in which coming out of Covid also is a lightening rod that distracted. I didn’t take Abraham Lincoln’s name off a school in San Francisco, I didn’t ask for defunding the police, I didn’t get yourselves wrapped around the axel on the term ‘Latinx,’ which nobody identifies with.
It was an example, David, not just of this particular issue, of a party when people’s backs are against the wall — they’re holding onto that window sill and they can’t make a college payment, they can’t make a home mortgage payment, their healthcare is now being denied to them — they expect us Democrats to show up.
And we’re showing up talking about bathroom access, sporting events, who gets to participate?
Remnick responded that in the past, “groups didn’t have their rights and they were told to be patient,” and added that Emanuel’s comment on bathrooms sounded like “a tag line to differentiate” himself.
“It’s not just a tagline!” Emanuel shot back.
He then pointed again to his trans bathroom ordinance, saying, “I made sure kids had access to a bathroom, I just didn’t let it distract from reading, math, or graduation rates.”
Watch above.
Jason Cohen contributed to this story.
The post Rahm Emanuel Clashes with The New Yorker’s David Remnick Over Whether Democrats Should ‘Prioritize’ Trans Issues first appeared on Mediaite.
