On Background

White House Officials Trash Rahm

The three problems with his approach.

Should he run for mayor of Chicago, it seems Rahm Emanuel won’t necessarily be missed: The Financial Times points to three problems with Rahm’s tenure as chief of staff—and backs them up with anonymous trash-talking. “Rahm cannot keep his thoughts focused for more than 10 minutes,” says one former official. “If he spent as much time planning strategy as he does trying to win the news cycle then things might have gone differently.” Another complaint is that, as the chief White House negotiator, he consistently made concessions with Republicans just to see them go on to obstruct the White House’s legislation anyway. “Rahm’s approach helped create the impression that the Obama White House had no principles–it was simply transactional,” says one Democratic observer. The third complaint is that Rahm managed Obama’s inner circle—the president, David Axelrod, Robert Gibbs, and Valerie Jarrett—while treating the rest of the White House with disdain.