Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel gave his thoughts Thursday on a potential presidential bid by Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-TX), who is still popular among Democrats despite losing his Texas Senate bid against incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) in the midterm elections. He also backed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s bid for Speaker of the House.
“Nancy Pelosi led the Democratic Party for the last two years from a really bad election in 2016. I'm from Chicago, maybe I'm really old school, but to the victor go the spoils," Emanuel said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Thursday.
He then explained that Democrats need a veteran and a winner to lead both the House of Representatives and run for president in 2020.
"If Beto O'Rourke wants to go and run for president, God bless him, he should put his hat in and make his case,” he said. “But, he lost. You don’t usually promote a loser to the top of party and then take a winner and say, 'We’re going to cut your knees off.'”
"Everybody in our party always says the Republicans are so much tougher, so much stronger," he added. "Do you think they would take somebody that won and say, 'You know what your reward is? We're going to cut your knees off."'
“That’s not how you play politics to win,” he emphasized.
O’Rourke recently said that he hasn’t ruled out a potential presidential run in 2020.
Remarkably, despite his loss in the midterms, Beto recently polled in the top three among Democratic voters as a potential 2020 nominee, coming behind former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).