A CNN interview on why progressives are unhappy with Joe Biden’s possible cabinet picks was cut less than a minute after it began, as the guest pointed out that one of the candidates had covered up a murder while in office.
Rahm Emanuel, a star Democratic fundraiser and the former mayor of Chicago, was floated this week as a potential secretary of transport for Biden. After the suggestion was met with a tsunami of anger from the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, rumor had it that a “less visible” position would be offered to him instead.
Following progressive backlash against reports that Rahm Emanuel was being considered for transportation secretary, Joe Biden may now be considering the former Chicago mayor for the somewhat less visible position of U.S. trade representative. https://t.co/MfB98diSYG
On Tuesday, CNN invited Jamaal Bowman, a progressive New York politician who earlier this year unseated 16-term congressman Eliot Engel in a primary landslide victory, to discuss Biden’s transition and whether there was a “progressive enough” candidate to get his endorsement.
Bowman, who is black, started saying it was “incredibly alarming” that they were considering a person who tried to cover up a murder of a black 17-year-old by a white cop, when the broadcast suddenly froze mid-sentence and was replaced with the CNN logo.
Most important, it appears CNN never had him back on after the “technical difficulty”/censoring of Jamaal Bowman’s comments on Rahm Emanuel in the below video. https://t.co/IbewOmM2p0
Emanuel is accused of standing in the way of an investigation into the murder of Laquan McDonald. The black teen was gunned down by a Chicago police officer in October 2014, just as Emanuel was fighting an uphill battle for his second term as mayor. Only months after his reelection, a judge forced the release of dashcam footage which became key evidence in the murder trial and conviction of the officer responsible for McDonald’s death. Before its release, no charges had been made in the case.
Leaked emails later showed how the mayor’s office tried to keep the damning video confidential as part of a settlement with the victim’s family. They also indicated that Emanuel was more concerned with his campaign than in serving justice for McDonald.
There is a laundry list of other reasons why progressives hate the idea of Emanuel joining Biden’s administration. To name a few, he pushed for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), mass deportations and the 1994 crime bill, lobbied for bailing out the “too big to fail” banks during the 2008 financial crisis, and shut down dozens of public schools in Chicago’s poorest neighborhoods.
Some even suspect that floating his candidacy was meant as a distraction: whichever bland centrist eventually gets the position will be perceived by the progressives as being at least not as awful as Emanuel.
I strongly suspect that Rahm is generating most of this copy himself, and team Biden is happy to have Rahm hanging out there so his other picks get less scrutiny. https://t.co/P0uoeR1mFZ
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