The laws of political journalism dictate that any profile of Rahm Emanuel—who is all but declaring a 2028 presidential run—must crackle with Rahm Anecdotes that capture the propulsive, relentless behavior of a man who’s slugged his way through the political Thunderdome for four decades.

For example: the dead fish he sent to a Democratic pollster he blamed for misjudging a House race, accompanied by a note that read: “It’s been awful working with you. Love, Rahm.” Or the celebratory dinner in Little Rock, Arkansas, after Bill Clinton’s 1992 victory, when Emanuel repeatedly stabbed the table with a steak knife as he named those who’d betrayed the campaign and decreed them, one after the other, “Dead! Dead! Dead!” Or the nameplate on his desk in the White House, when he was Barack Obama’s first chief of staff: Undersecretary for Go Fuck Yourself, a gift from his two brothers—Zeke, a prominent bioethicist, and Ari, a Hollywood superagent. (The nameplate was short-lived; Michelle Obama didn’t like it.)

But this profile, Emanuel informed me, will not be one of those profiles.

“One: Distinguish the caricature from the character,” he told me, reading from a scrap of paper with a short list of what I must understand about him. “I get all the caricature—I played into it or whatever—but there’s principle behind it. I don’t just fight for the sport of fight.”

I had arrived a few minutes early for our 8 a.m. breakfast at the Park Hyatt in Washington, D.C., but Emanuel, who hates being late, was already seated in his crisp white button-down and dark-blue jeans. He’d begun his day at 5:30 a.m. with 50 minutes on the hotel’s stationary bike, 20 minutes of weights, and now nearly seven minutes of instructing me on how to properly do my job.

Over black coffee and Greek yogurt with berries, he continued outlining what should be in my profile: He had helped vanquish many a Republican—particularly as chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee during the 2006 midterms—but Republicans still like him. As proof, he pulled up recent emails from two congressional Republicans, both committee chairmen, praising his potential 2028 bid. He would later show me another, from a Republican senator, complimenting his stint as ambassador to Japan. (Emanuel seemed to think that these private niceties forecast a broad appeal with voters.) He also noted that unaffiliated voters can cast ballots in the Democratic primary in New Hampshire, which could be the first state to pass judgment in 2028.

Finally, Emanuel ran through the ways in which he had been ahead of the rest of the country as mayor of Chicago, from 2011 to 2019. Under his leadership, he said, Chicago was among the first U.S. cities to sue pharmaceutical companies over opioids. It was a pioneer in universal prekindergarten and free community college. He made Chicago a top destination for corporate relocation, and traveled to Europe and Asia to drum up foreign investment in the city. And he devoted his second mayoral inaugural address, in 2015, to the plight of “lost and unconnected young men,” well before it became the topic du jour.

Although Emanuel says that he will not make a decision on running until next year, he is publicly and privately gearing up for a presidential campaign. You may have seen and heard more of Emanuel these past few months than you ever did when he was in elected or appointed office. He was on Megyn Kelly’s show, where he broke with progressives over transgender issues (“Can a man become a woman? … No.”). While testifying before a House committee on China, Emanuel said that, as Joe Biden’s ambassador to Japan, he strengthened ties among Tokyo, Washington, Manila, and Seoul, as a bulwark against China. And he appeared on so many podcasts—hosted by David Axelrod, Dana Bash, Hugh Hewitt, Hasan Minhaj, Gavin Newsom, Kara Swisher, Bari Weiss—that I began to wonder if Spotify should just add a Rahm Emanuel channel.

He’s clearly pitching himself to America as a politically incorrect, tell-it-like-it-is fighter. And over the course of several weeks this summer and early fall, he pitched himself to me as someone who can muscle the American dream back into reality for the middle class.

Having served all three living Democratic presidents, Emanuel has been a key player in nearly every major victory, defeat, negotiation, controversy, and innovation of the modern Democratic Party. But as he gears up for one final act, Democrats will have to ask themselves: Is Rahm Emanuel precisely what the party needs right now—as it flounders through the Donald Trump era—or is he exactly whom the party wants to leave behind?

He wound down his breakfast talking points in typ