Rahm Emanuel in Sunday Political Talk Show interviews during 2013-2015

On Education: Expanded graduation rate at city colleges from 7% to 14%

EMANUEL: To the larger economy, the biggest thing that is happening is a skills deficit that inhibits us from doing what we need to do. Having a four-year college degree or better is key. I am not for this [smiles mischievously], but B.P. in Indiana is expanding a huuuuuge refinery. They are bringing in people from Alabama and Kentucky because we don't have enough pipefitters up here

Q: This isn't an issue where you seem angry, yelling that Wall Street needs to pay.

EMANUEL: Look, I am not defending Wall Street. Wall Street has screwed up enough. But let me answer it this way: Wall Street is not to blame that we had a 7% graduation rate in city community colleges. I fixed it--it is now 14%. I doubled it in two years. Wall Street is not responsible for that. We allowed the colleges to deteriorate.

On Environment: Let every child have 10-minute walk to park or playground

EMANUEL: One you can actually run, and the other you don't have a chance.

Q: Is it easier to set goals as mayor than in Washington?

EMANUEL: Let me give an example. We are redoing every playground in the city of Chicago. It is all paid for. All new equipment. Done. [Claps hands.] I believe in parks as a dramatic improvement in the quality of life in the city. We are adding parks everywhere. We are trying to get the Interior Department to designate a local park to be a national designation, and it is like a 3-year process. They have interest in doing it, but my God. In Chicago, I wanted to make sure every child in four years time was a ten- minute walk from a new park or playground. It's done. We are going to get there one year ahead of time.

Q: You don't have a Congress that prohibits you from passing the smallest thing.

EMANUEL: We have 50 aldermen but we do have a...can-do spirit.

On Environment: Gentrification can be done right, with active zooming laws

EMANUEL: There is an area called Fulton Market. You would think it was a typical area that is on fire. Google is moving in. But there are restaurants in that neighborhood. It has exploded. It is one of the hottest areas in the country from a real estate perspective. We designed it in a way to protect the manufacturing, too. I know there are a lot of bad connotations. High rents and people being forced out who have been there for years. And there is a reason it has that connotation. But if we are smarter about it, we can do things that allow improvements.

Q: What is the role for government in dealing with these issues? How active should the city be?

EMANUEL: Very active. Zoning laws, land use, all kinds of things. It can't be the Wild West.

Q: Are you putting any pressure on the president to move his library here?

EMANUEL: Chicago is where he started his career in public life, and I think it is only fitting that it should be here

On Government Reform: My position on term limits is called elections

Q: Your predecessor Mayor Richard Daley was in office for 22 years. What was it like taking over a city when one man had so much control for so long?

EMANUEL: He was a great mayor. There are things he did that I would do differently. He acknowledged the public was ready for a change.

Q: Do you think someone should be able to be mayor for that long?

EMANUEL: I don't know. My position on term limits is called elections.

Q: Bill Clinton would still be president.

EMANUEL: Well, that is true.

On Health Care: I was charged to produce ObamaCare; and it happened

EMANUEL: I was chief of staff. I was charged with trying to produce a health care bill that hadn't been done in 100 years. And I will say, it happened.

Q: When the ObamaCare website wasn't working properly, did you want to be in Washington trying to fix it?

EMANUEL: You gotta be kidding. You get a freebie question for the ridiculousness of that question.

Q: I was asking about your competitive instinct. You say you like to fix things.

EMANUEL: That goes down as one of the more intriguing questions I have ever had. Did I wish I was in Washington to fix a website? Let me answer that. I have a single-word answer. No. Please do not edit out the sarcasm of that answer.

Q: Don't worry, it is staying.

EMANUEL: I don't want it to be missed on your readers.

On Principles & Values: Politicians are usually gray; I am not

EMANUEL: Yeah, so? What are you wondering?

Q: Do you pursue this style and image because it has advantages in governing?

EMANUEL: The assumption is that I only have one gear. I have more than one gear. Here is what I think about you guys.

Q: The media?

EMANUEL: Look, politicians are usually gray. I am not. So little things stand out because they are magnified against that backdrop. I will say this. I am driven to fulfill the responsibility I have. I owe the people who voted to fulfill the pledges I made.

Q: The portrait of you in your brother Zeke's new book made it seem as if you care about getting things done no matter the details. In one scene, doctors bring up malpractice reform and you sort of say, 'Screw this.'

EMANUEL: You asked me about style. Now you are asking me a different question.

Q: Yes.

EMANUEL: Don't mix the answers with the questions.

Q: I promise not to.

On Principles & Values: Washington is not broken; the GOP is broken

EMANUEL: It has been going downhill. Washington is not broken. The GOP is broken. They need a Bill Clinton moment with someone to figure things out. If George W. Bush had never gotten in the disastrous Iraq war, he was trying to modernize the party on a series of fronts. But on tax and foreign policy, everything cratered.

Q: Chris Christie was going to be the savior.

EMANUEL: He "was." You said it in past tense.

Q: Do you think it is past tense?

EMANUEL: I do. Nothing is ever absolute in politics, but I am willing to go out on a limb and join you. It may take more than an immediate time frame for him to recover, and he doesn't have more than that.

On War & Peace: Israel/Palestine framework deal easier than a final deal

EMANUEL: I am uncharacteristically optimistic, just on the optimism side of 50%.

Q: Why now?

EMANUEL: I think it is a framework deal, which is different and easier than a final deal. And I think the parties have enough in common about the framework, which they have known for ten years.

Q: But why is there the will now?

EMANUEL: Hamas is as weak as it's going to be. Abbas is ready to work with Israel. Israel has a security concern involving geography. But geography does not have the same value it did in 1967. And I want to say that there is nothing I just said that major figures in the national security apparatus of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] and Israel haven't said publicly. Nothing! It is not my business. I don't really care. But Israel's national security apparatus has concluded what I have observed.

On Welfare & Poverty: Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit

EMANUEL: We are getting to a point where we can make a pension payment or pave a road but we can't do both. I am not tough on pensions. I am realistic. There is a difference. It is also realistic from a fiscal side that, if all we do is make no changes, I would have to raise taxes at a level that would harm the economy.

Q: Are we seeing cleavages within the Democratic Party? On pensions? Negotiation with the unions?

EMANUEL: There are divisions, or I would call them differences. Too much of the debate in Washington is about ideological gradations. I have a piece today [in the Chicago Sun-Times] about the Earned Income Tax Credit. I have negotiated to expand it. Now, is that considered left or right?

Q: Uh--

EMANUEL: I consider myself a progressive. I have a passion for people who work. To me, this is about forward versus backward looking. Ideological gradations are the wrong way to look at it.