A pro-Israel case against Israel

0:00Rahm Emanuel:When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kid's pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like...

0:12Astead Herndon:Ooh, and room service to feel like... Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like... Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton. For this day. Hi, and welcome to Today Explained Saturday. This week, we talk with Rahm Emanuel, former congressman, White House chief of staff under President Obama, two-term mayor of Chicago, and the former ambassador to Japan under President Biden. Now, why talk with Rahm? Well, first, very few people have operated at every level of power in American politics like he has. Also, Emanuel has a specific lens when it comes to the growing conflict in Iran.

0:56Astead Herndon:He was one of the people who upnegotiate peace agreements alongside President Clinton in the 1990s. Emmanuel was also in the Obama White House as they took the first steps toward the Iran nuclear deal. Emmanuel also has a long and testy history with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who's at the center of this conflict and is increasingly a controversial figure in domestic politics. But my first question to Rahm Emanuel was pretty simple. What should we call the guy? Ambassador? Mayor? Congressman? Let's dig in.

1:36Astead Herndon:We thank you for joining us. And it's a particularly newsy time. I know that you're someone who has led the Democratic, has been a big part of shaping the Democratic Party over the last 20 years. I want to start there. If you were in Congress right now with, you know, I'm sure you followed Congressman Ro Khanna's war powers resolution that he's that he's tried to put on the floor along with Congressman Thomas Massey. I was wondering if, you know, what do you think about that War of Powers resolution? And would you vote for the president to have to come to Congress for approving the Iran strikes that we saw?

2:07Rahm Emanuel:Short answer is yes, but let me fill in the blanks because I think it's important. One is the Congress is a day late and a dollar short. You knew this and they should have been forcing this issue and debating it. You didn't even need to get a vote. They should have been debating this. Second piece, and the reason I'm a yes, is A, the president in his eight-minute video over the weekend uses the term war. So once he says that, it triggers it. You could argue through the merits of this. But we're going to go after the nukes. We're going to go after the ballistic missiles. We're going to go after the capabilities, the proxies, and left it in the strategic or military area.

2:41Rahm Emanuel:I'm not sure based on history, and that includes both Democrat and Republican president, you would do that. But once he says war and once he says regime change and moves it into the political column, then you absolutely have to have that vote and you have to have that debate.

2:55Astead Herndon:I mean, I think that makes a clear point about the process. I also want to ask about the substance. The White House has given contradictory, varying reasons for this. It's like a la carte.

3:04Rahm Emanuel:You can pick whatever you want from the salad bar. Absolutely.

3:06Astead Herndon:From every interview he's given, he said everything from this isn't regime change, this maybe is regime change, to this is kind of punishment for years long anti-American crimes. But let's try to take the reasoning that White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt said that this was about permanently decapitating Iran's nuclear capability and punishing a regime that was fundamentally anti-American. If President Trump, hypothetically, would have made that case in front of Congress and you were there, would you have voted to authorize the stress?

3:33Rahm Emanuel:So let me again, let me go back a second here. First of all, the administration is silent to a fault when they start. Literally, not only the president is silent, his cabinet isn't even out trying to explain it to the country on Sunday morning. So you've gone from silent to multiple choice. And I took note of this. You had the secretary of state, secretary of defense. The two individuals that sit on either side of the president in the cabinet room based on ranking in the cabinet, et cetera. Secretary of Defense Hegseth walks the president's comments over the weekend back to more of a strategic.

4:06Mm-hmm.

4:06Rahm Emanuel:Secretary Rubio implies other things that the United States got led into this. Yep. And the president of the United States says all of it and above and more, et cetera. So to me, that is a real challenge. The second thing is, and I do think, you know, my guess is if it was left to the strategic, the president of the United States has latitude. Doesn't mean we don't have a debate as a country about it. The political component of this is what has hurt the cause, because at this point, the president, if he had stuck in the administration to not only more limited, you could have argued the country would back it.

4:40Rahm Emanuel:Second, he'd be at the point right now of serious success versus, you know, you're not going to decapitate. In 15 months, this president has taken military action against eight countries. I just just in 50. Now, we got three more years to go in 15 months. I ran twice, but you have Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Venezuela. Now I'm losing Nigeria. Now they may have said, this could be a calculation. Intelligence gives the president a briefing and say, look, if you don't move now, in a year from now, or just say six months from now, here's where our thought is both on nuclear startup and on ballistic missiles.

5:23Rahm Emanuel:Then you have a case in a situation which is either this window closes and you don't act and they're just you think and that's probably true given the Iranian history. They're not really negotiating with you. They're acting like they're negotiating with you. And what goes into the Oval Office and now do I think that they had a thorough discussion sitting around the Situation Room the way the President Obama had 14 separate meetings about Afghanistan? No. I think he decided down in Mar-a-Lago, last person to talk to him, and there he goes, which has been the history.

5:53Astead Herndon:Yes, it has. I wanted to ask about that. You mentioned your years in Obama's White House as chief of staff. You worked with him as he helped to warcraft the Iran nuclear deal. Obviously, Trump pulled out of that, but there was an opportunity for the Biden White House maybe to rejoin that deal in early 2021. They chose not to, based on trying to negotiate a stronger deal that never really came together. I wanted to know if you thought that was a mistake.

6:15Rahm Emanuel:So, again, each of these are not yes or no. Sure. Let me look thinking. I supported, first of all, I was mayor when the, we started earlier, but I was mayor when the agreement came. I was for it. It's a 51-49 decision. The criticism of it, I was for it, and here's the bet. Look, I always joke, but I mean this. What comes into the Oval Office is bad and worse. And so when you're sitting down in the situation, you're trying to weigh equities and trying to look around the corner. I think that's why I had my own kind of indigestion. But in the end of the day, as mayor, I supported that agreement because I thought the equities slightly tilted over the liabilities.

7:00Rahm Emanuel:I do think given the six years blind, you just don't hit reset. There's no reset. I have been there eight years. So does President Biden want to engage in something else to improve, given what we have missed? He should have because Iran wasn't standing still. More with Rahm Emanuel in a minute.

7:38Astead Herndon:markets, where should we begin with Esther Perel, and the special live taping of Today Explained, hosted by yours truly. The Vox Media podcast stage will also feature sessions from Brene Brown and Adam Grant, Marcus Brownlee, Keith Lee, Vivian Tu, Robin Arzon, and more. Visit voxmedia.com slash southbysouthwest to pre-register and get a special discount on your South by Southwest Innovation Badge. That's voxmedia.com slash South by Southwest. Hope to see you there.

8:15Astead Herndon:We're back. It's Today Explained Saturday, and we're talking to Rahm Emanuel. You know, Secretary Marco Rubio recently said that the administration, his justification, Secretary Marco Rubio gave his own justification for what happened over the weekend.

8:27Rahm Emanuel:Separate from the rest of the administration.

8:28Astead Herndon:Separate from the rest of the administration, saying that Israel, he said the administration knew Israel was going to strike Iran, And that would trigger retaliation against American forces. And so the administration decided to act preemptively. Now, you dealt with Netanyahu directly when you were in the White House. I wanted to know your view of this situation. When you look at the kind of chain of events that led to Saturday, do you see a White House that got rolled by Netanyahu?

8:51Rahm Emanuel:Well, I don't because there's so much meetings of coordination. The idea that if you look at Netanyahu, and I, as you know, because we talked about it beforehand, I mean, in 2009, he publicly calls me a self-hating Jew. The only person he attacks in his book is me. We go all the—we'll go— Yeah, yeah.

9:11Astead Herndon:Tell me some of those stories about you all's relationship.

9:13Rahm Emanuel:Well, it gets down to is having spent my time with President Clinton on the two-state solution, Oslo Accords, why plantation agreement, et cetera, and believing like Yitzhak Rabin did and like many elements of the Israeli defense and national security apparatus, the best way forward is a two-state solution. I saw what he was doing on housing as what would break the foundation of that two-state solution and set it to his face. Unlike others who may have whispered it behind their back, I didn't need a war to know in 2009 this prime minister was committed to doing something that I think would undermine not only the state of Israel, but undermine America's national security interests in that region.

9:54Rahm Emanuel:And we just went at it to the point that, I mean, President Obama had to basically separate us verbally.

10:00Astead Herndon:This is where?

10:02Rahm Emanuel:Well, we had a big fight in the Oval Office. We also, there was a famous phone call. The president's talking to the prime minister, and the prime minister's going on and on about me. And finally, President Obama says, look, Rahm doesn't hate you, but you should know calling him a self-hating Jew probably didn't help you either. Okay? That's what President Obama relayed to me the next day. There will never be a river to the sea, and there will never be a greater Israel. Both are heads and tails of the same coin. They're both basically wrong, in my view. That said, to the question as it relates here, Prime Minister Netanyahu never went against a president.

10:37Rahm Emanuel:Never. Now, he wanted Obama to take this action. He wanted Joe Biden to take this action. He's got a misconception. Yep. He never took it, pulled the trigger solo without a president of the United States or United States backing. So the idea that he was going to unilaterally – now, I'm not a fan, but he was going to unilaterally do this and the United States had to get ahead of him, I don't buy. just based on history. That's number one. Number two, I'm not giving a pass to the White House like they have no agency. Right. Forget about it. Right. Think of this and no. Just not only no,

11:08Astead Herndon:you could have stuffed him like every other president. Now, as I was looking this up, I was seeing some quotes from you talking about your relationship with Netanyahu. And you said, I don't think he would use

11:16Rahm Emanuel:the word relationship.

11:17Astead Herndon:Well, you know, you're back and forth with the prime minister. And you said that you felt that he was leading Jews, quote, back into the ghetto. That felt like a strong statement to me. I'm going to let you explain that yourself. Yeah, look.

11:32Rahm Emanuel:Today, Israelis are saying they can't travel to Europe. You have Israelis that cannot participate in scientific conferences. You have cultural institutions out of Israel cannot participate or go perform other places. You are being denied entry. I'm using that metaphorically as well as symbolically as well as literally into other countries because one of the desires is to be, as Ben-Gurion said, the founding father, to be a nation among nations. And literally, Jews, and more specifically Israelis, are being cut off from participating intellectually, culturally, academically, go down the list sports-wise, talent-wise, you know, in parts of the world community that your own people want.

12:15Rahm Emanuel:Second, there's been more people leaving than coming. So I think the prime minister, and I never thought a prime minister would lead the Jewish people into what I said, and I mean it both literally but more symbolically, into a ghetto where they're not permitted out. And that has been the consequences of his decisions. Never has Israel been more strategically secure and never has it been more politically isolated and vulnerable. In the 80 years of history.

12:45Astead Herndon:There's also been obviously a political backlash in the United States. It's polling shows that for the first time, Americans see this conflict and sympathize with Palestinians over Israelis. And among Democrats, that number has shifted dramatically, specifically as a perception shift driven by the response to the attacks on October 7th. I wanted to know for you, 70 ,000 people were killed in Gaza, according to the Red Cross. More than 70 percent of Democrats think a genocide occurred. I wanted to put that question in front of you. Do you think that the military actions constituted a genocide?

13:15Rahm Emanuel:No, look, here's what I think. One is a number of prime ministers have said that. That is a legal, that is a firm legal question. I think this, Israel... Isn't it also a moral question? Yes, but when you say it's a genocide, there is a legal. For sure. And I'm not a lawyer and you're not a lawyer, but that is a legal definition. I hear you. There's a great book called East West Street about that term and the crimes against humanity, but how those two terms come to be post-World War II. So my own view is Israel has a right to self-defense. What the prime minister did and how they pursued this war of self-defense and what they did, way dramatic.

13:55Rahm Emanuel:The amount of Palestinian deaths was not necessary for Israel's security or reestablishing deterrence. So never again does 1 ,200 people not only get killed but raped and children are shot in front of their parents and parents are shot in front of their kids and sexually abused. And 250 people taken hostage. That deterrence was accomplished way earlier than you were. As I said, I'm using this figuratively. You're telling me the difference between 40 ,000 and 70 ,000 Palestinians that made Israel more secure? But I also think Israel has, as I said, more strategically secure and more politically isolated than ever before.

14:32Astead Herndon:Last question on this front. Earlier this week, Gavin Newsom compared Israel to an apartheid state and said that the U.S. has no choice but to reconsider military support. It stuck out to me because that felt like maybe a signal of the shifting media and democratic position on this front. Can I go one thing back?

14:48Rahm Emanuel:Yeah, sure, for sure. So one is it's a generational thing if you look at it. Yes, it's more intense among Democrats, but it's basically 30 and younger regardless of party affiliation. That is definitely true. Okay, second. Thanks for that.

15:01Astead Herndon:And movement among independents, movement among Republicans all across the board.

15:04Rahm Emanuel:Second, I said this to other places. I want to repeat this point. I said it to a Mideast group of both Israeli and Arabs. I said, look, when President Obama runs for president in 08, in 07, he goes to Israel. He goes and makes sure that he's wearing a yarmulke. He goes to the Wailing Wall. There will be no Democratic nominee or candidate, rather, in 2028 who's going to the Wailing Wall. You don't think so? Nope. And if you think they're going to Jerusalem, it's to get gas on their way to Ramallah. Okay? So just get ready for this because of what the prime minister has done. And he is paying a consequence on this.