With Washington buzzing about White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel‘s exit strategy, Senior White House Adviser David Axelrod couldn’t escape talking about it when being interviewed Thursday by Brian Williams of “NBC Nightly News” at the Washington Ideas Festival.
When Williams asked Axelrod who the next mayor of Chicago would be, Axelrod tried out the non-answer.
“That’s up to the people of Chicago,” Axelrod said. “I am one of them,” he continued. (Come on, Axe, really?)
“But look, Rahm will announce his plans sometime soon and I will say this, I don’t know if he’s going to run or not,” he said. (Spoiler alert: He is.)
That being said, Axelrod praised his future former colleague, citing his own political experience working for mayors across the country.
“You have to be a larger-than-life figure to be an effective big city mayor,” Axelrod said, pointing to Mayor Mike Bloomberg, who spoke before him at the Ideas Festival, as an example. “Should Rahm decide to do that, he has all the tools to be a good mayor.”
Williams turned his focus to the future of the administration and asked about the possibility of working with a Speaker of the House John Boehner.
“Well, look, uhhh,” Axelrod stammered. “I think that is and hopefully will remain a theoretical question.”
Axelrod was joined by a number of big-name guests at the two-day forum at the Newseum. Other speakers included Bloomberg, Sen. Lindsey Graham, George Will, Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Spike Lee and Elizabeth Edwards, being interviewed by the likes of Chris Wallace, Greta Van Susteren and Andrea Mitchell.
