Politico reporter Mike Allen started the week with a semi-apology to his readers, and things went further downhill for him at a Wednesday event, when Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel scolded him for publicly revealing his upcoming vacation plans.
The tense moment came during a live interview hosted Wednesday by Politico in Chicago, where Emanuel’s administration is under scrutiny for allegedly covering up racially charged police misconduct.
Allen mentioned during the event that Emanuel told him “backstage” that he was taking his family on a trip abroad for the holidays. “You’re headed these holidays to Cuba, why?” he said.
After a pause, Emanuel said, “Well, first of all, thanks for telling everybody what I’m going to do with my family. You just had a private conversation with me and now you’ve decided to make that public. I really don’t appreciate that. I really don’t.”
After some crosstalk, during which Allen seemed ready to apologize, Emanuel continued. “No, you asked me what I’m going to do this year, so I’m expressing to you now publicly, my displeasure. My family’s trips are my family.”
In an email to the Washington Examiner’s media desk, Allen said that the conversation backstage “wasn’t off the record.” Emanuel previously worked in the Obama administration and frequently dealt with the national media, which operate on strict rules that tilt in favor of every public official’s words being on the record, unless otherwise stated.
Emanuel did, however, explain during his answer that he and his wife strive to expose their children to cultures throughout the world. He ended by telling Allen, “Can you give me your cell number because I’d like you to listen to [wife] Amy?”
Allen then offered an apology to which Emanuel said it’s “not going to work.”
It was the second slip up Allen suffered this week. On Monday, he told readers of his widely read newsletter, “My bad!” after emails were made public that showed him in 2013 courting Chelsea Clinton for an interview that would be “relaxed” and involve “no risk.” But instead of apologizing, Allen said Politico doesn’t allow him to make cushy interview offers, and said he never did that, even though his offer to Clinton seemed to fall into that category.
