Rahm Emanuel Says He Confronted Mamdani To His Face. Top Staffer Hits Back

Former Chicago Mayor and Obama White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said he confronted Democratic Socialist New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani over his anti-Israel views in a heated exchange. Mamdani’s communications director later said it never happened.

Rahm Emanuel sat down with Zohran Mamdani for 90 minutes. 75 of them were about being a mayor. This is the other 15. #unholypodcast #rahmemanuel #mamdani #israel #uspolitics pic.twitter.com/GwKc9nJYZE
— Unholy Podcast (@2jewsonthenews) July 29, 2026

Emanuel spent the majority of the time discussing what it was like to be mayor. The other 15 minutes, Emanuel said, were spent calling out Mamdani for focusing much of his time as a mayor on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“When you’re mayor, time goes faster, and you’ve got to make choices: what’s an ‘A,’ what’s a ‘B,’” Emanuel said he told Mamdani as the conversation shifted to the Middle East.

“‘Look, you are your father’s son. I’m my father’s son,’” he allegedly told the first-generation immigrant from Uganda and Shia Muslim mayor. “’You chant ‘a river to the sea,’ that means there will never be a Jewish homeland for Jews who had faced the Holocaust.’”

“‘I want you to hear this,’” Emanuel said he told Mamdani. “’Over my dead body.’”