The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

by Chris Whipple

Emanuel was convinced that health-care reform should wait; it was too heavy a lift after the big stimulus package. “It was my belief that we should go first with financial reform and get it done,” he says. “I gave the reasons why politically and policy-wise.” But Obama was unmoved. What was his political capital for, if not passing the most important part of his domestic agenda? “I didn’t come here to put my popularity up on a shelf and admire it,” the president said. And then he told them, “Come on, isn’t anybody else feeling lucky? I’m feeling lucky.” Emanuel got the message. “The president made his call, he went with health care first. And I made my argument why I would do it differently. I had been through some health-care battles of my own. And he listened to them, asked me again, and made his judgment.” Emanuel still carried scars from the fiery crash of Hillary Clinton’s bill twenty years earlier. But like a good soldier, he saluted—and prepared to carry out the president’s agenda. “I executed his wishes because I even came in from my son’s bar mitzvah to round up votes on that weekend.”