不过今年8月，台湾三立新闻曾报道称，美国乔治梅森大学沙尔政策与政府学院（George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government）根据台湾国防部6月送交立法院的“美对台军售案执行情形”报告研究发现，美国积欠台湾的军火价值高达215.4亿美元，其中仅2成已开始交付，但尚未执行完成。包括56枚AGM-154C滑翔炸弹，原定2023年就要交付，却被美方以产能不足为由拖延3年，预计2026才可能交运。意味着该军售案从2017年送出立法院后，耗时8年都没能完成。
Rahm Emanuel returns to ChinaTalk with a characteristically blunt assessment of U.S.-China relations and verdict on year one of Trump 2.0.
We discuss:
The “Fear Factor” in Asia: Why Japan and South Korea are ramping up defense spending not because of Trump’s strength, but because his unpredictability and isolationism have forced them to buy “insurance policies” against a U.S. exit,
Corruption and “Own Goals”: How “draining the swamp” has turned into institutional degradation — and why the Trump family’s entanglement of personal business interests with foreign policy damages U.S. credibility and strategic leverage,
Adversary, Not Competitor: Why the U.S. needs to stop viewing China as a strategic competitor and start treating it as a strategic adversary — one whose win-lose economic model is designed to hollow out global industrial bases,
Education as National Security: Why tariffs are a distraction and the only real way to beat China is a massive domestic push for workforce training,
AI and Inequality: Rahm’s evolving thinking on artificial intelligence — why he’s still learning and why a technology that boosts productivity but widens inequality is a political and social risk.
Plus: why Ari Emanuel’s UFC US-China robot rumble is sound policy, Rahm’s case that he’s now the real free-market capitalist in the room, and rapid-fire takes on J.D. Vance, Marco Rubio, and the 2028 Republican field.
Jordan Schneider: Rahm Emanuel, welcome back to ChinaTalk. What a year for US-Asia policy it has been.
Rahm Emanuel: That is the understatement of the year.
Jordan Schneider:In our 2024 show we started out with me asking you questions about, “Oh, look at all this nice stuff you guys did. Rebuilding alliances. Japan and South Korea are friends again.” And now we’ve got all this.
Rahm Emanuel: How did we go downhill so quickly? Is that what you’re asking?
Jordan Schneider: We now have a year-long sample size of “Trump II” taking a very different take from both Biden and Trump I. Really, it’s a departure from the past 70-plus years of US foreign policy when it comes to relations with our treaty allies. What has it been like watching this, Rahm?
Rahm Emanuel: It’s depressing. It’s infuriating. There are a lot of other emotions. Look, it starts from a premise. China’s view is that they are the rising power. America is receding. Their message is, “Either get in line, or we will give you our full China coercion policy.”
Our message is that we’re a permanent Pacific power and presence and you can bet long on the United States. Unfortunately, everything President Trump’s doing is underscoring China’s message with a bunch of exclamation points because of the way we’re behaving.
When President Biden and his team walked in in 2020, China was on their front foot. When we left, they were on their back heel. They were angry at being isolated and it took a strategy of flipping the script. Rather than them isolating Japan or the Philippines, we isolated the isolator through the United States, Japan, Korea, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and India. They knew it on a political, military, and strategic level.
All our military exercises were multinational. Japan was the number one foreign direct investor in the United States and is a long pole of our policy there. We built an alliance that China thought could never be done — and part of their strategy relied on it not being done — between the United States, Japan, and Korea. This culminated in what we accomplished at Camp David. That was, and remains, China’s worst nightmare. Trump basically took it off the page.
We then extended it to Japan, the United States, and the Philippines. If you look at where the Philippine islands are and where the Okinawa islands are, China’s strategy to quarantine Taiwan becomes much more difficult to achieve.
Rahm Emanuel as U.S. Ambassador to Japan meeting with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi. February 2022. Source.
It had a strategic, political, and military level that was unprecedented. Then we had the Quad. We doubled down on the Quad, which Trump had actually pushed along in his first term to his credit. But now he has taken a 35-year project of bringing India into our orbit and totally expelled them for Pakistan’s vanity. It looks like it was done for Pakistan’s economic gifts to the Trump family, the Witkoff family, and the Lutnick family. Specifically to the Trump boys. That’s what it looks like.
China has been trying to force Japan into submission through economic coercion — which they haven’t done since 2010. It took the United States almost two weeks from the get-go to finally do a B-52 air surveillance run with Japan’s F-35s. Crazy. We should have been there immediately to send a direct message, but we didn’t.
At every level, this administration has made America weaker and more vulnerable. It has actually played into China’s message to all the countries we were attempting to pull into the US gravitational pull.
Jordan Schneider: The MAGA retort would be, “Look, we said some mean things, and defense spending in all these countries is going up. What’s not to like about that?”
Rahm Emanuel: First of all, not Japan. Let’s just deal with that. Japan increased their defense budget from the ninth largest to the third largest when I was there. To their credit — I don’t deserve it, and the Biden administration doesn’t deserve it — they did it early on, even before I got there. That wasn’t due to President Trump. They committed to 2% and did it in five years. They were well on their way before President Trump ever put his right hand on the Bible. So that’s calling offsides for what was not true.
Second, they have done things in that defense budget regarding counterstrike capability that pre-date Donald Trump. They just concluded a sale of ships to Australia. They did things they were constitutionally prohibited from doing, also pre-Trump. If anything, their willingness to go above 2% of GDP in defense spending is probably more out of fear of Donald Trump’s failure to show up than it is because of prodding by the Trump administration.
That has also been true to the credit of the new Korean president. His first set of conversations were with the Japanese because of their fear that the United States is AWOL. The facts just don’t bear out.
Plus, I’m right about India. The Trump administration totally punted on a bipartisan project that was succeeding in making China very nervous. Go look at what they were doing in the Himalayas. They haven’t shown up as it relates to the Philippines and the South China Sea islands.
Then last week, the Trump administration validated the AUKUS submarine project between the United States, Great Britain, and Australia. That all predates them as well. If that’s their argument, they better get some facts to back it up because nothing across six different countries adds up to that argument.
Jordan Schneider: There is a part of this that is downstream of this MAGA worldview that America just isn’t up for it anymore. What do you think about this whole idea of defining down what America can accomplish on the global stage?
Rahm Emanuel: I don’t buy it. A superpower doesn’t pick geographies, which is what they’re trying to do. They failed with Canada, they failed with Panama, they failed with Greenland. We’ll see what happens in Venezuela. The only place you could say they had a success was a $40 billion pledge to Argentina in the middle of cutting healthcare for the United States. I don’t think it should be hemispheric.
As a superpower, does that mean they are going to pull up stakes on the Middle East where Russia has now been kicked out and China is a bit player? That is an important geographic, strategic, and resource-rich area. Dumbing down or strategically pulling back only makes the world more dangerous.
Now, there are reforms that should be made to the alliances. But as you and I are talking about this, for 40 years the United States was telling Europe, “Don’t get economically energy-dependent on Russia.” Now the President of the United States is begging Europe to become more of a vassal energy-wise to Russia. This is in direct competition with our own energy policy and interests.
I’m a former ballet dancer, so I’m proud of being flexible. But these guys redefine flexibility. Here you are saying maybe we should dumb down or restrict ourselves, yet you’re telling Europe to get more dependent on Russia — and less dependent on Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Wyoming, and Colorado. I can’t think of anything more stupid than that.
Rahm Emanuel during his ballet days — still not as flexible as the Trump administration. Source.
Also, in the Mideast, Russia has been kicked out of Syria. China has no play. It’s a major geographic area strategically. It’s a major purchaser of defense weapons. It’s a major investor in America’s economy. We have an ally both in Israel and in the Gulf countries, and also in the immediate Arab world. That is to our strategic advantage. Pulling back from that would make America more vulnerable politically, economically, and strategically. It’s foolish without even touching the rest of the world.
Would I say that Latin America and Central America in American foreign policy over the years have been stepchildren? 100%. Focusing on it is the right thing to do, but not at the expense of other regions. America can walk, chew gum, and be a superpower that brings a strategic presence to our policies in the Indo-Pacific, as an example.
Flooding the Swamp
Jordan Schneider: When I was reading that national strategy document, I was trying to make sense of it. You try to get in their worldview and think about how serious it is. But at the same time, you got everyone’s children making billions of dollars on the side. I really think this is a new thing in American history. It makes it very hard to take this new grand vision of how they want America to play in the world all that seriously.
Rahm Emanuel: Well look, I saw this today — it’s a pivot. When they had the big signing in the Sinai and around this ceasefire in Gaza, the Indonesian president says to Trump, “I need to talk to Donald.” The two boys are very upfront about it — they got caught on tape. In the midst of a tariff negotiation, we are mixing our strategic vision with President Trump’s checkbook. They’re not one and the same.
When I got to Congress, I set up a blind trust. First member to do it. Kept it as Chief of Staff. I had to re-up it and change it to meet the executive branch requirements. As Mayor, I filled out massive financial forms. In fact, I got an email about four months after I left saying, “You have to do your exit financial form.” I said, “You guys must be really lonely because you’re chasing me after I’ve left where I have no conflict.”
Meanwhile, you got a bunch of people who just left prison and are now investors. Crazy. Okay? I don’t know if you noticed, but they just left prison.
But you can go through the country. There was an announcement the other day. A startup company on one of the private equity funds from — I’m not sure which of the sons of Donald Trump — won a $700 million contract out of the Pentagon. A startup.
I wrote about this in the Wall Street Journal. The theory of “Broken Windows”is that small crimes create conditions for big crimes. That’s exactly what’s been happening. It’s not just about streets — it’s also about the corporate suite. The kids of Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce Witkoff, the special advisor for everything and anything, and Donald Trump’s kids — their checkbook is bigger today and yours is smaller today because they’re conducting themselves to enrich themselves.
The only envy Donald Trump has of Putin is that that is their business model, and he would like it to be America’s model. He has to work around some legal boundaries, of which the Supreme Court continues to remove for him. It is unbelievable to me what goes on here, having spent a lot of money with lawyers and accountants.
One of the things I’m proud about, starting from Bill Clinton forward, is that I’ve never hired a lawyer for anything I did when I was in public service. What these guys are doing makes me feel like I was a schmuck. I’ve never seen anything like this, and nor has America in American history. We have a lot of competition — and I’m from the city of Chicago — for corruption. But they have not only corrupted in the sense of the money they’re making in public policy, but they’ve corrupted the process of doing it.
Jordan Schneider: There’s big 17th or 18th-century European aristocracy energy here — like the princes marrying each other and doing deals on the side. [Neo-royalism!]
Rahm Emanuel: Here’s the thing. In the last 48 hours, two people were caught — ethics reports for not selling stock or whatever. Who’s going to investigate them? The FTC? The SEC? The Antitrust Division of the Justice Department? The Supreme Court — John Roberts and the rest of those hacks — gave him a carte blanche to go steal.
You basically can appoint members, fire all the Inspector Generals, and appoint or fire whoever you want at these independent agencies. You have a Justice Department and FBI which is a bunch of Keystone Kops. So of course people are going to break the law. You told them they get to write the law for themselves and nobody will enforce it. That’s what John Roberts did — the genius that he isn’t.
Jordan Schneider: I’m old enough to remember, “Drain the swamp”. And it won an election.
Rahm Emanuel: And what they decided was just to make the swamp a little bigger. Take India and Pakistan and the strategic point here, because there are other things relating to the American family’s checkbook being smaller than the Trump family’s. One is getting bigger and one is shrinking.
We have had a project from George Herbert Walker Bush to Bill Clinton to George Bush to Barack Obama to Donald Trump One to Joe Biden — bring India into a closer strategic alliance. Because Modi did not want to play stooge to Donald Trump, he made peace. Trump gets angry. Pakistan waves a bunch of contracts. The Financial Times has a great story about this regarding crypto and mining for the Trump kids.
We’ve abandoned a 35-plus-year project of America’s strategic interest just so the two Trump boys can have a little gold coin. That is what happened. And I stand by it.
Jordan Schneider: I would be remiss not to bring up Hunter’s pardon.
Rahm Emanuel: Bring it up. It was wrong.
Jordan Schneider: I thought it was really gross. It was really disappointing. I actually thought he wouldn’t do it.
Rahm Emanuel: If you want me to live in a glass house before I throw a stone, I ain’t doing it. But I’m going to say this, I never hired a lawyer for something I did. I believe in what Kennedy said about public service. That is not the virtue of this White House. They are stealing in broad daylight and getting away with it because John Roberts gave him a “get out of jail” card.
Who’s the Socialist?
Jordan Schneider: Let’s talk US-China. We had Liberation Day, we had Liberation Day v2. We had rare earths thrown on the table twice. Then the Trump administration backing off. What’s your read on all this, Rahm?
Rahm Emanuel: The whole “Tariffs and Liberation Day” was about drugs one day, then manufacturing the next — whatever the moving target was based on the day. I don’t disagree with the desire to build America’s industrial capacity, but three points of fact illustrate the issue.
When the President walked in, there were 50,000 manufacturing jobs with “Help Wanted” signs that nobody could fill. We would be 50,000 manufacturing jobs ahead today if we had focused on the training side — getting Americans ready to do those jobs. Instead, we’ve lost jobs under Trump.
Number two — this went unnoticed, but two weeks ago, the CEO of Ford said he has thousands of empty jobs today paying six figures because people don’t have the skills — mechanics, electricians, etc. These are not in the corporate suite. They’re on the shop floor, and he cannot fill them. He says it’s only going to grow.
There was a story about China being ahead of us on energy production. One of the big problems for us to compete with China on AI and transmission is that we are short 200,000 electricians. Every one of those is a six-figure job with healthcare and retirement. The Merchant Marines — which are key to building up both economic and security capacity — are short 200,000 jobs over the next decade.
If we had focused on the problem analysis — that you need industrial capacity and a base in the United States to compete — that part is true. But tariffs and looking weak? Of the top five choices, that was number ten. We have Americans looking for work, the ability to buy a home, and a way toward economic independence. We have jobs that would give you a start on that independence — six figures — and every one of those companies is short workers.
Nobody covered what the CEO of Ford said. It was treated like a little thing that happened on the side. If the President had dropped 50,000 “Help Wanted” signs on manufacturing the day he walked in, we’d be a hell of a lot farther ahead on manufacturing than with tariffs — which he calls “the most beautiful word in the English language.”
Nearly half a million U.S. manufacturing job openings available as of October 2025. Source.
The President continues to do this. He analyzes a problem not entirely wrong — not always right, but not wrong — but then his solution is far worse than the problem he started to try to solve. It didn’t work against China, it made us look weaker, it divided us from our allies, and he is telling Europe to buy oil and gas from Russia, not from us.
In fact, the oil and gas industry in America has fewer wells today — which means fewer people working, drilling, and transporting — than when he walked in. Even his “drill baby drill” strategy is failing. I find this immensely frustrating from an economic renaissance perspective because we have a challenge that is actually an opportunity and our politics, and specifically how this administration is failing America and Americans, is the issue.
Jordan Schneider: So, forward-looking — we’ve had this rare earths saga. It is clear that big parts of the US economy have — and probably will for the foreseeable future — large dependencies. The economic coercion playbook that China has is significant. What is the international strategy to handle them? And also, how do you spend that money to start to ameliorate those vulnerabilities at home?
Rahm Emanuel: Having been Ambassador to Japan, I recall the first critical minerals economic coercion playbook China started was in 2010 against Japan around the Senkaku Islands. We knew about the old playbook and didn’t do squat — both parties. Then, when it came to COVID, they withheld basic medical gloves, masks, etc. That was economic coercion up front, though more for their own self-preservation than just for punishing everyone else. This has been part of their playbook.
You have to look across the system. I wrote a piece in the Washington Post about how we’ve had five helter-skelter national industrial policies. The auto bailout was a national industrial policy. What we did on CHIPS and the IRA under Biden was a national industrial policy. What we did during Warp Speed and COVID was an industrial policy. Some elements of policy are successful and others aren’t.
You quoted the National Security Council producing the NSS. I would have the National Economic Council produce an economic blueprint at the beginning of every administration — that looks out over the horizon. Here are our strengths, here are our weaknesses, here are our vulnerabilities. Today, it’s obviously critical minerals and magnet production. Four years ago it was — and still is — semiconductors and the production of chips, which was the impetus for the CHIPS Act and IRA coming out of the chip wars. Look through the strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities, and then develop a strategy around that.
China has decided that on quantum, AI, life sciences, fusion, and alternative energy, they’re going to kick our ass. They’re not going to compete with America; they’re going to try to beat it. You saw after COVID their vaccine was a debacle. They made a decision that would be the last time. Now, five years later, they are competing, if not superseding us in certain areas, on life sciences and new drugs. You can look at what they did on chips and what they’re doing on alternative energy.
This attack on America’s research foundation, the university system, is an “own goal” of the worst kind. You won’t see the pain today — you’ll see the pain for the next decade. Donald Trump is leaving America far worse off. We should not concede any one of those areas. I spent time as an ambassador helping on quantum computing for America’s competitiveness between the University of Tokyo and the University of Chicago, bringing IBM and Google in to fund that at $150 million.
Pick the areas, compete, and win. Our scientists and our funding mechanism, while not great, keep us at the top of the game. We should not be trying to strangle MIT, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan, or the University of Illinois in competing and winning the innovation war against China. That’s number one.
Number two, the brawn behind the brains. We should be in a massive education push, whether it’s electricians, mechanics, or in jets, so we have the capacity to compete. China’s AI is getting more competitive not because of innovation, but because their electricity is 50% cheaper than ours — because our transmission and energy production are way behind.
Third, related to regulatory reform, there is a place for consensus on legal immigration. We should be very clear about bringing the best scientists, the best engineers, and the best-educated to the United States of America. Each one requires drilling down deeper, but at 10,000 feet, that’s what I would do.
Jordan Schneider: At a principle level, it’s been very interesting to watch. In 2009 and 2010, you guys got screamed at for being socialists for saving GM and Ford. Now we have a Republican administration taking equity bites. We’re doing “national champions” now, I guess. What’s your read on that? And broadly, how far should the government go to mess with these private sector dynamics?
Rahm Emanuel: You have golden shares in Nippon buying US Steel as an example. You have the Intel 10%. I disagreed with Senator Romney on this — then a presidential candidate. He talked about GM and Chrysler going bankrupt. We spent political and financial capital saving the auto industry for a reason. Yes, we were called socialists. We were also called socialists on healthcare. It’s a normal card. I suppose, if you keep playing it, one day you may be right.
Jordan Schneider: We’ll see how many companies Zohran ends up buying.
Rahm Emanuel: What China has done is outright intellectual property theft — some of it explicit, some corrupt. But they invest in certain new technologies and they refuse to let those companies raise money so they can bankrupt them, and then steal all the patents or take them back to China. That is their national strategy. They can’t replicate the beauty of America’s research, innovation, and entrepreneurship, so they steal it through the front door, the back door, and the kitchen window. That’s what’s going on right now.
To me, that’s where we’ve got to sharpen up. To your point about socialism — Solyndra. We invested in this new solar firm and everyone’s like, “Oh my God, oh my God!”, and here are these guys investing in and putting public money in companies with zero operating capacity.
I believe I’m more of a capitalist and a free marketer than the Trump administration and the Republican Party. The Democrats would never take economic stakes in a company. Let me say this — we did bail out GM and Chrysler to save the jobs and the communities that depend on them. We got our money back, plus profit. But the goal was to get out, not to stay in and increase ownership. We did it with AIG, got out, and made a profit.
The goal was not to get in, stay in, and increase your stake. The Secretary of Commerce says we want royalties for our public dollar investments now. I think there’s a way you could pay a system that funds greater research, but what he’s thinking about is ownership — which is the last thing you need. I love politics, but that’s not the type of politics I want.
Jordan Schneider: Here’s a blast from the past. I was a press office intern in the Biden administration. It was during Solyndra, I think it was summer 2012. And what you guys ended up doing was letting journalists see every single email that was sent about it. I had to sit in a room minding all these Politico journalists. We’ve gone from that level of transparency to, like, if Sasha and Malia were on the board of Solyndra or something.
Rahm Emanuel: Let me just be really clear. You had us investing in a startup to jumpstart a technology in America and that was called socialism. Today, you have the United States investing and owning pieces of companies. Back then you had journalists who actually cared about what was going on. Today, if you did that, you’d get fired from your corporate leadership because you were “offensive” to the President. So the world’s gone full circle. You’re not crazy. It’s just gone upside down.
“We’re Now Adversaries”
Jordan Schneider: So let’s do the US-China piece a little bit. This idea of America losing escalation dominance — we had a Biden administration that was able to slowly start to boil the frog when it came to a lot of these technology controls without necessarily having China snap back in an aggressive fashion that would affect America’s economy. And now that dynamic has shifted. So what happens next, Rahm? What’s the smart play here?
Rahm Emanuel: Look, I’d just be forthright and honest. I would tell China: “You wanted to be strategic competitors, but you have decided you want to be a strategic adversary. You have decided to go into our entire infrastructure — our utilities, our waters, and our systems. You’re also in our software, in our government agencies. That’s not a competitor — that’s an adversary. So if you want to go back to the competitive era, I’m ready. Everything you’ve done to endanger America — get out of here. We’ll compete, but we’re gonna go to a different level if you want to be adversaries.”
In this challenge, we don’t have an American to waste or a community to overlook. We made a mistake in 2012 thinking that Battle Creek can battle Beijing on their own. It’s going to take an all-country effort. I’m talking about what Ford said. I talked to you about other industries that have job openings and nobody there to fill them. We have thousands of young men and women looking for purpose and looking for economic independence, and every one of these jobs they can do. So I would go on a massive training push.
And I would be clear both on a technological level and a strategic level to our allies — “We have a certain period of time we have to buy. Our allies can play a bigger role in that effort so we can get to a point of competitiveness and a point of making China as deterred as they have done to us under President Trump.”
Don’t lose sight of Liberation Day and how we backed off. How much degradation to our deterrence posture was created when the President — after his talk with Xi, which he does first—then calls the Prime Minister of Japan (our number one ally) and never mentions Taiwan? And then for two weeks, while China is intimidating Japan, we don’t do anything. How much does that deterrence get degraded?
And while it’s being done to Japan, if you’re in the Blue House in Korea, you’re in Melbourne in Australia, you’re in New Delhi in India, you’re in Manila in the Philippines — you’re looking at what the United States doesn’t do with Japan and you’re saying, “There I go but for the grace of God.” So you bet you start to buy your insurance policy. You start to say — “Okay, the United States can’t be trusted. So what do I do?” That’s what’s dangerous here.
Jordan Schneider: The nuclear proliferation arc, which we haven’t quite seen yet, but I mean it’s coming, right?
Rahm Emanuel: When I got back early in February, I wrote this — if you think non-proliferation was expensive, wait till you see the bill for proliferation.
We spent a good time — not me directly, but in the region — convincing South Korea not to go independent on a nuclear weapon. We made a lot of assurances, too. You look at what’s happening now; it’s going to be hard to convince South Korea, given North Korea and China, to stay nuclear-free much longer. Not saying it’s not possible, but they’re going to look around. Part of their strategic overview is a nuclear and military guarantee and support from the United States. You look at what’s been going on in the last year, you’re going to sit there in the Blue House in Seoul and say, “Well, we can’t keep it like this now.”
If South Korea were to go nuclear, other countries like Japan would sit there and go, “Wait a second.” You have China building up nuclear capacity massively. North Korea, we know. And India and Pakistan. What if you add in South Korea and Japan? What could go wrong with six nations in a small geographic space — all who have 800 years of history and animosities — what could possibly go wrong? This is insane at every level.
Jordan Schneider: Well, we haven’t even talked about Iran, Saudi, UAE...
Rahm Emanuel: Can I say one thing that’s underappreciated in the strategic world and doesn’t get a lot of coverage unless you’re like a weirdo like me and read it? Iran is going through one of the biggest social-cultural revolutions since the Ayatollah walked into Tehran in 1979. They’re allowing concerts because they can’t control the youth. Women are openly totally disregarding the cultural norms of the ruling government. Because of a water shortage and corruption, they’re thinking of moving the capital out of Tehran.
I get Tehran has a strategic vision of themselves in that Shiite arc from Tehran to Beirut. There is a slow-boil implosion happening in Tehran right now. I don’t know how it manifests itself, I don’t know where the ball bounces, but there’s a cultural revolution going on — and I use “revolution” with a small ’r,’ not big. Given the demographics of the country — it’s dominated by people aged 30 and younger who so much want to be part of the rest of the world and believe the ruling class is holding them back economically, politically, and culturally.
There’s something going on in Iran and in a year from now, or maybe two —I’m going to look prescient saying what I just said. Something is happening there that we’re not seeing. And one day we’re going to wake up and say, “Who knew?” But you can’t have a ruling class all of a sudden — because of political vulnerability — say to the kids, “Right. You want to have all these concerts and go out and do all this that are not part of the norms? Go ahead.” Once you do that, that genie’s out of the bottle. If that genie’s out of the bottle, there’s going to be another genie out of the bottle. That’s the one thing we know from cultural history.
Jordan Schneider: One more foreign policy one for you. Let’s do a little bureaucratic reform talk. Someone’s going to have to rebuild the civil service. Say you’re Secretary of State 2029. What do you do with the place?
Rahm Emanuel: You know, it’s interesting you say this. I was down in Austin about three weeks ago, and I grabbed lunch with two very, very good top national security former generals. I don’t want to use their names — I don’t want to get them in any trouble if they’re doing any kind of advisory board for the government. Very smart people that I’ve worked with who rose to the highest levels in their roles out of the national security institution.
And I asked this question, “Okay, you got all this chaos. We all operated in this. If we have the opportunity here — you got a clean legal path — how would you reorganize this?” I was thinking, you know, move this here, move that there, which is the thrust behind your question. Basically, I was in the same kind of zeitgeist you are.
Their response was interesting. I’m not saying they’re right, but it was actually interesting and not what I expected. They said, “You hire good people at the top. It does two things — lifts morale and brings the talent that’s left back in. If you start changing things and moving furniture around, it’s just all this energy on something else, when the immediate thing you have to do for the next couple of years is get the intellectual capacity back in. That means the top of the org chart. No B’s, no B-minuses, no B-pluses. You got to get A’s. They’ll get the morale up, and they’ll get talent to come back in and do public service.”
I gotta be honest, I was surprised because I thought, “Oh God, it’s a clean slate. We could do this.” But they said, from a capacity to run while you’re fixing something in chaos, talent is the number one goal. They said some other things which are true, like the intel operation capacity over the State Department, and the anti-terrorism financial end of the Treasury — both underappreciated in the intelligence world and swinging way above their weight class and they should be at the big boys’ table, not at the kids’ table anymore.
Those were just two observations from the national security side that I thought were persuasive. So I posit that that’s how I would approach it. Go with a talent at the top, get morale up, and make it a magnet for other types of talent to come back in.
Jordan Schneider: All right, rapid fire round. Selling chips to China?.
Rahm Emanuel: No.
He is the worst negotiator. I’m going to give you a story. We’re negotiating a balanced budget. It’s Erskine Bowles, myself, Gene Sperling, Bruce Reed, John Podesta, Sylvia Mathews, and I’m senior advisor. So one day in the morning I go to the Oval Office and I said, “Mr. President, every night Gingrich is calling you and you’re giving away the store. We spend the first three hours clawing back stuff you’ve given away. I’m just going to tell you, if you’re negotiating, Rule One is the other side has to know that you can live with the ‘No.’ You want to get to a ‘Yes.’ Everything you do is to convince the other side you are very comfortable with a ‘No’ as much as you are with a ‘Yes.’” I said, “We cannot have you doing this. We’re going to get to a balanced budget agreement. We have the upper hand here, but we are giving it away and diminishing it.”
Rahm Emanuel in the Oval Office with President Bill Clinton. 1993. Source.
Anyway, the lesson here is Donald Trump is so solicitous of trying to get a deal that he’s selling the family jewels to get it, and the Chinese know it. He’s going to run around on some soybean deal — which is his problem — or fentanyl and a couple other things. I’m not disregarding the fentanyl issue, but he’s so hungry for a deal, the Chinese are going to play him. And they’re playing him now — and they haven’t even gotten to a deal yet. And you can see it.
He just gave away the chips for what? What’d you get? He gave away something he could have gotten at the table for something else. What did we get? They just did a military exercise with Russia around Japan, your ally, forcing you to come out of the closet and finally do your B-52 covers with the F-35s. What did you get for that chip deal? Bupkis. As my grandmother used to say, “Bupkis”. The worst negotiators I’ve ever seen.
China’s Win-Lose Model
Jordan Schneider: Where is the Democratic Party on China?
Rahm Emanuel: There’s no uniformity. Having spent some time on this, I’ve come to the conclusion that we have a fundamental problem. They’re not strategic competitors — they’re strategic adversaries. They’re trying to bury us. Your competitors don’t get buried into the infrastructure, technology, and systems to destroy this country. God forbid we ever get to something kinetic. We don’t steal private information from government officials like they do, or steal from Google. We’re not stealing Huawei’s IP.
Second, we believe(d) — until Trump — in the rule of law. As part of their business model, they’re open to economic espionage and intellectual property theft. It’s very hard to have two economic models integrated where one believes in the rules and one believes the law doesn’t apply.
Third, our economy, even with the tariffs and Liberation Day, is integrated. The world is dependent on America. Their economic model is that the world becomes dependent on China, and China becomes independent of the world. That is why they’re exporting and crushing every other country’s industrial base — developed or developing world — whether it’s steel, toys, or EV cars.
It’s very hard to have an integrated model where destroying the other side is the goal. It’s one thing if you want to trade and it’s one thing if you want to compete. It’s another thing if the goal is “I win, you lose.” There has never been a “win-win” in China’s model. I don’t say that because I’m angry at them. That’s a fact.
Now we have to figure out where we’re going to go from here. They just passed a trillion dollars in trade, and their imports from other countries are down. South Korea’s only steel plant closed. Chile’s only steel plant closed — 20,000 jobs. That’s not the United States. That’s China. They’re doing it across the board. If Europe doesn’t protect itself, its auto industry will be destroyed.
We’re on a win-win model. Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. They’re on a win-lose model based on economic espionage and intellectual property theft. There’s a case where they were stealing AI secrets from Google and from ASML, which is Dutch. They were caught stealing intellectual property.
I have not seen our companies that are into chip manufacturing stealing intellectual property from companies of other countries. I’m willing to stand corrected and say I’m wrong if there are suits on patents, but not outright government-sanctioned, government-sponsored intellectual property theft. As an example, Tokyo Electron, which makes chip manufacturing machinery, competes against ASML. Neither one has been found cheating and stealing IP from the other. China has been caught stealing and cheating from both of those companies.
Jordan Schneider: Rahm, your brother’s got a role to play in all this. Ari pitched the UFC on having an event in China, and they took him to a robot demo. He said this on a podcast — maybe we should have American and Chinese robots fight in a cage. America needs to see our robots getting their asses handed to them because right now, it’s not salient just how good China is getting at all these emerging technologies. You don’t see the cars on the road, you’re not really using the AI models. It just shows up in trade numbers and in factories closing. Having that as a primetime thing on Paramount Plus — there’s something to this, Rahm.
Rahm Emanuel: Let me just say this. Since I usually tell Ari and Zeke at family meals and holidays to just shut up, I’ll let Ari know that you think he has a good policy idea. But it will not come from me complimenting him, because there’s very little space I’ll give Ari in the policy world. The worst thing to do is tell somebody in Hollywood they have a good idea because they think they’re brilliant.
Jordan Schneider: Unless you’re George Clooney.
Rahm Emanuel: Yeah.
AI and Education
Jordan Schneider: Ok, domestic politics of AI. This dog hasn’t really started biting yet. But by 2028, it’s gotta be one of the top three things just from an education, social change, and job displacement perspective alone. You just pitched that we should be banning social media for kids under 16. What’s your take on all this?
Rahm Emanuel: You wanna talk about kids, poverty — I’ve got ideas. I’m learning about AI. I had a lunch today with somebody I consider very, very smart who discussed the confusion between OpenAI and open weights, and how the real challenge is in open weights where there are no firm protocols.
I want to be clear: I don’t have the answer. I know it’s important. I’m learning as we go. I’m trying to figure out who really knows their stuff.
While AI is important to the future and productivity, I have two cautionary notes. One, we have to figure out our energy production in the United States. China adopted the Obama “all of the above” strategy. We walked away from it in 2016 under “Drill Baby Drill.” We’re now paying the price because our electricity costs are two times China’s. They decided to go with an “all-in” approach, and we decided to go with a singular approach. Full stop.
Two, we’re short of the workforce to build out that energy capacity, to build out this chip capacity, and to build out the AI language capacity because we don’t have the workforce we need — from brawn to brain. Energy is going to be essential to the success, not just how small the chip is, but how much energy you produce.
Third, regarding AI, there is a cautionary note from the last 30 years. While globalization and technology worked, they didn’t work across the board. They worked for you, they worked for me, but they didn’t work for everybody. If you want a new technology to benefit society, it has to benefit everybody in the society. If it doesn’t, then you have to figure out ways to ensure there’s a better level playing field.
And we did. That doesn’t mean you could have stopped the clock and said “no Internet, no trade.” The question is, if you’re going to go forward — to quote President Clinton — how does everybody cross the bridge to the 21st century? You don’t have a queue where just some people make it and other people stand in line. That’s my cautionary note about AI — it will have an impact on productivity, and it will also have an impact on the people that lose their jobs because of that productivity.
What’s the strategy behind that technology to keep America competitive while ensuring all Americans are part of that? I don’t have it figured out yet. If I told you I did, I’d be full of crap. I know what the opportunities are. I know what the challenges are. I know how we have to start to think about it. Who has got the best thoughts on it? I don’t know.
Jordan Schneider: Two pitches for you on that. The education adoption side is the piece I’m most worried about. The productivity diffusion — the free market is going to figure out how to make workers more impactful, do their jobs better and faster. But the promise of having the greatest tutor that humanity has ever invented tailored to every single child, exactly where they are in their learning journey, is a world-historic opportunity. You’re talking about the haves and have-nots here. You fought teachers’ unions in the House. There’s going to be a lot of mess, a lot of hesitancy, and a lot of fear.
Rahm Emanuel: There’s a lot of fear. That’s not illegitimate. When I was mayor, we had the shortest school day and the shortest school year in the entire United States of America. I said, “What are we fighting about? You have great teachers. I want more time with the kids with the great teachers.”
We had no kindergarten, no Pre-K, no recess, no lunchtime, no gym time, and no arts class. I said, “What are you talking about here? It’s the shortest school day. Kids are being cheated.” I said to the head of the union, “I can’t believe we’re arguing about this. We have no recess, no arts education, reading is down to 40 minutes a day. We have no money for kindergarten, no money for Pre-K.” All the things that we eventually took care of. I said, “You believe in this? Why are we arguing? This makes no sense to me.”
Jordan Schneider: When we did our first show, my wife was five months pregnant. We now have a one-and-a-half-year-old. We spent this morning at preschool interviews for twos programs. I came out a little nauseated because, you’re right, Rahm, I have resources that not everyone has in this city. Walking through this incredible place — which is, again, a twos program — Pre-K starts for free in the US when your kid is four. They have the paints and ceramics, and literally, the ceramics are from the nicest ceramic store that you’d find in a $10 million apartment. I’m sitting here thinking, “This is gross.” It’s going to be the same for middle and high school, but it’s going to be an even bigger deal because they’re going to have access to $20,000-a-month AI tutors.
Rahm Emanuel: When I became mayor, there was no universal kindergarten and no Pre-K. We made every five-year-old get a full day across the city and every four-year-old get a full day across the city. But the biggest accomplishment was on the other end, in high school.
We did three things in high school that we haven’t changed since we first brought it along.
One, if you get a B average in high school, we made community college free — tuition, books, and transportation.
Two, we brought college into high school. 50% of our kids were graduating with college credit so they didn’t have to pay for it later on, and they got the confidence they could do college-level work.
Three — the most important thing we did — to receive your high school diploma, you had to have shown us a letter of acceptance from a college, community college, a branch of the armed forces, or a vocational school. It was a requirement. 97.8% of our kids met that requirement. When you walked on graduation day, you had to be able to show us where you were walking to.
Not just your child who is young. Mine are all grown up past those years. Two are in the military — one full time, one reserve. They all went to college. They knew where they were going. I don’t really care whether you’re going to Michigan, or to be a bricklayer, an electrician, the Air Force, or Harold Washington Community College. I don’t care. But you are not stopping when you’re 17. And that to me made my time in public life worth it.
Stanford said that the Chicago public school system was the best of the big 100 — the best. When I walked in, William Bennett had called it to the worst. But what Dr. Janice Jackson and I did in reforming the high school years was fundamental to the trajectory of these kids’ lives. 20,000 went to community college for free.
Jordan Schneider: I got one more pitch and then a final question. You talked about banning social media. The other thing to watch is AI companions. Everyone’s saying these AI are going to be better friends than people. That is a whole different thing from what Instagram was.
Rahm Emanuel: I will keep my eye on it, but I’m going to stake my battle on what I know. Chicago, under my tenure, had the most restrictive policies on tobacco sales to teens, and we took teen smoking down to single digits. As I told you, we did the same with Pre-K and kindergarten. When I was Senior Advisor to President Clinton, I negotiated the Children’s Health Insurance Program for 10 million children whose parents worked but didn’t have health care.
If it relates to kids and teens, that’s where I’m going to put my energy. It’s the future. My dad was a pediatrician — that may be my own desire regarding what I think is important. I’m not saying other issues aren’t important, but that’s where I’m going to spend my time. Given what Australia is doing, and given what I think you can do technologically to turn the algorithm into an ally rather than an adversary, that’s where I’m going to spend my time. I’m not saying the issue you raised isn’t important, but I’m not diffusing my energy.
Hot Takes on the GOP Field
Jordan Schneider: Everyone on all these other podcasts asks you if you’re running, and they ask you about all the other Dem candidates. I want to talk about the Republican ones. We’re going to just go down the list. Kalshi has J.D. Vance at 50% to be the Republican nominee. What’s your take?
Rahm Emanuel: Politics is crazy these days, but it is very hard to knock off a sitting Vice President. My guess is it’s probably right.
Jordan Schneider: Aside from electability, what do you think of him as a politician?
Rahm Emanuel: Likability is an important factor, and I think that’s a vulnerability for him. That’s all I’ll say.
Jordan Schneider: Rubio, 9% right now.
Rahm Emanuel: Part of leadership, in my view — and I’ve said this repeatedly — is you got to know why you’re doing what you’re doing and have the strength to get it done. You can infer from that anything you want.
Jordan Schneider: DeSantis, 4%.
Rahm Emanuel: That’s generous.
Jordan Schneider: Tucker, also at 4%.
Rahm Emanuel: That’s overly generous.
Jordan Schneider: And how about Donald Jr. rounding out our top five, also at 3%?
Rahm Emanuel: I can’t wait for him to do the financial disclosure form.
Jordan Schneider: Rahm Emanuel, it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for being a part of ChinaTalk.
Rahm Emanuel: Can I say one thing?
Jordan Schneider: Yeah, of course.
Rahm Emanuel: I have three kids — 28, 27, and 25. You’re about to experience the greatest journey of life with a lot of hits and a lot of misses. But you have two parents who are role models. You’re going to be great at it, and it’s going to be a great journey. Mazel Tov. Thank you so much.
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Teachers will be given training to spot the signs of misogyny and tackle it in the classroom as part of the government's long-awaited strategy to halve violence against women and girls within the next decade.
Pupils will be taught about issues such as consent, the dangers of sharing intimate images, how to identify positive role models and to challenge unhealthy myths about women and relationships.
The £20m package will also include a new helpline for teenagers to get support for concerns about abuse in their own relationships.
The government hopes that by tackling the early roots of misogyny, it will prevent young men from becoming violent abusers.
Under the new plans, schools will send high-risk students to get extra care and support, including behavioural courses to tackle their prejudice against women and girls.
"Every parent should be able to trust that their daughter is safe at school, online and in her relationships, but too often, toxic ideas are taking hold early and going unchallenged," Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said about the new measures.
"This government is stepping in sooner - backing teachers, calling out misogyny, and intervening when warning signs appear to stop harm before it starts."
The taxpayer will foot £16m of the bill, while the government says it is working closely with philanthropists and other partners on an innovation fund for the remaining £4m.
Nearly 40% of teenagers in relationships are victims of abuse, domestic abuse charity Reducing the Risk has said.
Online influencers are partly blamed for feeding this, with nearly one in five boys aged 13 to 15 said to hold a positive view of the self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate, according to a YouGov poll.
In response to the government plans, some teachers said schools are already doing the kind of work the measures outline.
"While we welcome any initiative that prioritises healthy relationships and consent education, it's important to recognise that schools like Beacon Hill Academy in Dudley have been delivering this work effectively for years," Principal Sukhjot Dhami said.
"The challenge isn't starting from scratch: it's ensuring that this £20m pounds is spent wisely and in partnership with schools already leading the way."
Paul Whiteman, general secretary of school leaders' union NAHT, said it was positive the government was recognising the importance of training and support for school staff.
Whiteman said "schools are just part of the solution", with government, health, social care, police and parents all having a "significant contribution to make too".
Pepe Di'Iasio, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, welcomed the government's focus, but added it was also essential that the government "introduces effective measures to prevent at source the spread of online misogynistic content which is served up to young people by social media algorithms".
Nicola Mclafferty, a domestic abuse survivor, is calling for more people to talk to children about their experiences
Nicola Mclafferty, 42, is a victim of domestic violence and said more needs to be done to teach children about abuse.
"Survivors of domestic abuse, men or women, should go into assemblies and speak to the children about it, tell them a bit of your lived experience, enough that it's not going to scare them but be quite factual.
"There needs to be more people talking and they need to know."
The government has already announced a raft of measures in its strategy, including the introduction of specialist investigators to every police force to oversee rape and sexual offence cases.
It says staff will have the right training to understand the mindset of abusers and victims.
Also announced is a roll-out of domestic abuse protection orders, which have been trialled across England and Wales over the past year.
The court-issued orders mean individuals can be banned from contacting a victim, visiting their home or posting harmful content online, and can also be used in cases involving coercive or controlling behaviour. Breaching an order is a criminal offence.
Other measures include better NHS support for child and adult survivors of abuse, and a funding boost for councils to provide safe housing for domestic abuse survivors.
Two television adverts will also be launched on Saturday featuring a string of sports personalities and celebrities calling for the end of violence against women and girls.
Domestic abuse commissioner for England and Wales, Dame Nicole Jacobs, said the commitments "do not go far enough" to see the number of people experiencing abuse start to fall.
She added: "Today's strategy rightly recognises the scale of this challenge and the need to address the misogynistic attitudes that underpin it, but the level of investment to achieve this falls seriously short."
The Prince and Princess of Wales have released a new family portrait which features on the couple's 2025 Christmas card.
The image shows William and Catherine sitting on lush grass surrounded by spring daffodils, alongside by their children Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
A post shared by the couple on on social media reads: "Wishing everyone a very Happy Christmas."
The family snap was taken by photographer Josh Shinner in Norfolk in April.
The photos appear to be from the same shoot used to capture photos for George's 12th and Louis' seventh birthdays.
Last year, the couple revealed a Christmas card with a personal significance, using a picture taken from the video released when Catherine announced the end of her chemotherapy.
William and Catherine are spending the festive season together and are expected to be joining the King and rest of the royal family at Sandringham in Norfolk on Christmas Day.
Earlier this month, King Charles and Queen Camilla released their own Christmas card, showing themselves taken in Rome.
The photograph, taken in April during their state visit to Italy, shows the smiling couple standing side by side on a garden path.
Diane Abbott is among those warning the prime minister
Nearly 40 Labour MPs have warned the prime minister they are not prepared to support proposals to limit jury trials.
In a letter to Sir Keir Starmer, the MPs, largely but not wholly from the left of the party, say the plans are "not a silver bullet" to reducing the backlog in trials.
"To limit a fundamental right for what will make a marginal difference to the backlog, if any, is madness and will cause more problems than it solves," they write.
Sir Keir has previously answered concerns from MPs about the plans by telling them that jury trials already make up only a small proportion of trials in the criminal courts system.
In the Commons last week, he told Karl Turner - who organised the letter - that "juries will remain a cornerstone of our justice system for the most serious cases".
The 39 MPs include prominent figures such as Diane Abbott, former whip and leading member of the Tribune group of Labour Vicky Foxcroft and Dan Carden, who leads the Blue Labour group of backbenchers.
They suggest a number of other ways to reduce the courts backlog, including increasing sitting days, hiring more barristers as part-time judges called Recorders and asking the Crown Prosecution Service to consider bringing some cases in the backlog on a lower charge.
The Justice Secretary, David Lammy, announced the measure on 3 December. It scraps jury trials in England and Wales for crimes that carry a likely sentence of less than three years, removing the right for defendants to ask for a jury trial where a case can be dealt with by either magistrates or a new form of judge-only Crown Court.
The measure came after retired Court of Appeal judge Sir Brian Leveson was asked by the Lord Chancellor to come up with a series of proposals to reduce the backlog in the courts.
The process started in December 2024. In July of this year, Sir Brian said "fundamental" reforms were needed to "reduce the risk of total system collapse". His proposals also included more out-of-court settlements like cautions.
Announcing the jury trial measure, Lammy said it was necessary as current projections have Crown Court case loads reaching 100,000 by 2028, from the current backlog of almost 78,000.
This means that a suspect being charged with an offence today may not reach trial until 2030. Among the impacts of this are that six out of 10 victims of rape are said to be withdrawing from prosecutions because of delays.
Frédéric Péchier faces a minimum of 22 years behind bars
A former anaesthetist has been jailed for life for intentionally poisoning 30 patients, including 12 who died.
A court in the city of Besançon in eastern France found Frédéric Péchier guilty of contaminating infusion bags with substances that caused cardiac arrest or hemorrhaging.
Péchier was first placed under investigation eight years ago, when he was suspected of poisoning patients at two clinics in Besançon between 2008 and 2017.
"You are Doctor Death, a poisoner, a murderer. You bring shame on all doctors," said prosecutors last week. "You have turned this clinic into a graveyard."
Péchier, who has always denied any wrongdoing, now has 10 days to lodge an appeal.
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Lina Chernykh tells the BBC her niece Matilda was a joyous child who spread love everywhere she went
The family of the Bondi shooting's youngest victim Matilda urged the community to not let her death fuel anger, as they said a final goodbye to the 10-year-old on Thursday.
Matilda was among 15 people who were shot dead when two gunmen opened fire on an event marking the start of Hannukah at Sydney's Bondi Beach on Sunday.
Speaking to the BBC at Matilda's funeral, her aunt Lina Chernykh said the Jewish community is right to want more action to stamp out antisemitism – she does too.
But she said Matilda was a joyous child who spread love everywhere she went, and urged the community to do the same in her honour.
"Take your anger and… just spread happiness and love and memory for my lovely niece," Ms Chernykh said.
"I hope maybe she's an angel now. Maybe she [will] send some good vibes to the world."
Jewish community leaders have in recent days suggested the tragedy was an inevitable result of Australia struggling to address rising antisemitism.
The attack on Sunday, which targeted the Jewish community at an event celebrating the first night of Hanukkah, was the country's deadliest incident since 1996, when a gunman killed 35 people during the Port Arthur massacre.
Ahead of Matilda's funeral on Thursday, Ms Chernykh said the family was devastated.
"I look at their faces [and] I don't know if they will be ever happy again," she said of Matilda's parents.
Matilda's younger sister, from whom she was "inseparable", is shattered and confused, she said.
"She doesn't have enough tears to cry."
At a flower memorial on Tuesday, Matilda's mother Valentyna told mourners that the family came to Australia from Ukraine more than a decade ago, thinking it would be a safe place for them.
"I couldn't imagine I'd lose my daughter here... It's just a nightmare," she said.
Ms Chernykh told the BBC she too has struggled to make sense of what is happening.
She was gardening at her home on the Gold Coast when Matilda's mother called on Sunday.
"Truly, I was thinking something happened to my father because he's 84 years old... and she says Matilda was shot," she recalled.
"How [could] someone in Australia understand, if someone tells you your kid was shot… I couldn't understand it. I was thinking I have bad reception. I asked a few times what I'm [hearing]."
Police have designated the attack a terrorist incident, with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese saying it appears to have been "motivated by Islamic State" group ideology.
Police allege that the two gunmen were a father and son. Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead at the scene, while his son Naveed, 24, has been charged with 59 offences, including 15 counts of murder and one of committing a terrorist act.
Australia on Thursday announced it would strengthen laws to crack down on hate - including by introducing powers to cancel or refuse visas on grounds of antisemitism.
Theo Rose was "misled" into accepting a sanction by West Midlands Police, a review has found
The son of a former police officer was "misled" by a force into accepting a community resolution for violence he did not admit to, an investigation has found.
Theo Rose reported being a victim of an assault at school to West Midlands Police (WMP) but was himself given a sanction over the incident instead.
A report by the Office of the West Midlands Police and Crime Commissioner (OPCC) expressed "concern" the teenager might have agreed to accept it under "false pretences" - even if they were unintended - and was "misinformed" about the potential consequences.
The force rescinded the community resolution in February and apologised to Theo the following month, in a letter seen by the BBC.
Theo, with the help of his then police officer father, Rod Rose, lodged a complaint against the force
Theo made the initial report to Halesowen police station in December 2023 claiming that he had been twice attacked by a fellow student at his sixth form college.
The then-18-year-old said he had been advised to do so on the advice of a lecturer, who had seen the attack, and told officers he had been kicked and punched.
Police asked him to return to the station the following February and the OPCC found in an interview that day, Theo was "misled" into accepting a community resolution for affray - the use or threatening of unlawful violence towards another person.
Theo said it was only afterwards, when he spoke to his parents, that he realised he had potentially been unfairly treated and the sanction could affect his job prospects.
"I was quite fearful for my future," said Theo, from Halesowen.
'I still didn't understand'
His father Rod Rose, a serving detective chief inspector with the force at the time, helped Theo lodge a complaint with its professional standards department.
That investigation found officers told the teenager there was "overwhelming and contradictory evidence" against him.
A further review of the complaint by the OPCC included bodycam footage which showed Theo telling police: "I didn't use or threaten violence towards [the other teenager]".
It also found the "most relevant" witness statement backed up Theo's account.
Theo, now 19, told the BBC he didn't know what affray was and had asked the handling officer.
"He explained it to me and I still didn't really understand," he said.
According to the professional standards department, officers later reclassified the affray as two assaults - one with Theo as a victim and one as an offender - which he did not know and had not admitted to.
The OPCC raised the question as to whether Theo would therefore have been entitled to use "reasonable force" to defend himself.
Its report said: "Although it appears unintended, [we] remain concerned that the document may have been signed under false pretences... It appears that Mr Rose had agreed to a resolution for one crime but it turned out to be another."
Former Det Con Insp Rod Rose worked at Halesowen station, where his son made his initial report
Community resolution orders allow police to deal with low-level offences without going through the courts.
They're usually aimed at first-time offenders but guidelines state there must be a clear admission of guilt and they must have the victim's agreement.
They do not show up on a criminal record but do appear on enhanced Disclosure and Barring service (DBS) checks, which are required by certain jobs and can therefore affect a person's future career options.
According to the OPCC report, officers "misinformed" Theo about the consequences of accepting the sanction.
He told the BBC he asked for assurance several times and only accepted it because he feared being taken to court.
"That was the only reason why I was more than happy to accept a community resolution," Theo said.
'What have you admitted to?'
Mr Rose, who is now retired, was working at Halesowen station at the time and had previously worked in the out-of-court disposals department that dealt with community resolutions.
He realised officers had not followed procedure during the handling of Theo's case.
"My first words were, what have you admitted to Theo? And he said, 'uh, I don't know'," said Mr Rose.
"I was angry because it seemed like they [had] interviewed [Theo] without letting him know they [were] interviewing him and not giving him an opportunity to seek advice."
Following the investigation and OPCC review, which made recommendations, WMP rescinded the community resolution, accepting that "it would appear on review you [Theo] did not take responsibility for the offence of affray or assault".
Theo said "no justice has been served" as his original complaint as a victim of assault had not been resolved.
"My trust in the police has just been diminished," said Mr Rose.
Rod Rose
Mr Rose received a commendation for courage and bravery in 2002
Mr Rose said he was "disheartened" by Theo's experience and said it was the first time in his 30-year career he had "seen this side of policing".
"It's going to take a lot for Theo to have any sort of trust and confidence back in the police. And if he doesn't, he's going to tell his children, don't trust the police because of my experiences."
Two days before his retirement last year, Mr Rose was served gross misconduct papers by the force, the timing of which he described as "malicious".
It was alleged he abused his role over Theo's sanction but the force's professional standards department found there was no case to answer in January.
"I was just a parent supporting and defending my son," he said.
'Decisions can be reviewed'
When asked by the BBC, the force did not comment on Mr Rose's claims about the timing of the misconduct allegations.
A police spokesperson added: "Community resolutions enable officers to make decisions about how to deal proportionately with lower-level crime but interventions agreed within them are voluntary and not legally enforceable.
"As it is an informal disposal which does not create a formal criminal record, we would not confirm the details of any person issued with a community resolution.
"As with all disposal types, it is occasionally appropriate that decisions can be reviewed, and where necessary rescinded."
WMP issued 8,280 community resolutions in 2024, accounting for 77% of total out of court disposals - a 163% increase from 2019, when they accounted for only 47%.
National statistics from the Ministry of Justice for that year showed 164,000 community resolutions were issued, also accounting for 77% of total out of court disposals - a 56% increase on five years ago.
In a Freedom of Information request, the BBC asked WMP and other Midlands forces how many complaints they had received regarding community resolutions and how many had been rescinded.
Theysaidneither datasets were held in a retrievable way.
The National Police Chiefs' Council said out-of-court resolutions were a "highly effective" way of delivering justice.
Its deputy assistant commissioner, Dr Alison Heydari, added: "We regularly review the use of community resolutions and over the next few months will be updating our guidance to reflect several recent and forthcoming significant reports."
WMP was placed in special measures by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services in November 2023 for four points, including "failure to carry out effective investigations leading to satisfactory results for victims".
Sir David Attenborough says London is a "city full of hidden natural wonders"
Lying on his side on a dark summer night earlier this year, Sir David Attenborough is watching a hedgehog snuffling around an urban garden.
"I think they're lovely things," he says softly, with a chuckle.
His voice blends boyish wonder with the wisdom of his 99 years - each in equal measure.
Considered by many as the most famous broadcaster and conservationist of our time, Sir David has circled the globe for 70 years to show us the brilliance of the natural world.
Now, in a new one-off documentary, he has come home - to London.
Sir David has lived in Richmond, south-west London, for seven decades. The borough's royal park, he tells us, has been a "refuge" and "source of inspiration". It is in Richmond he starts and ends his documentary Wild London.
Gaby Bastyra, executive producer at Passion Planet, which made the film, said Sir David "could live anywhere in the world… but he's always come home to London".
The programme, she says, is an "appreciation of his place - and he loves it".
Sir David says that when he used to get the Tube to work, "there was one animal that always brightened up my day"
Well, Wild London is abundant with animal curiosities: from pigeons hopping on to the Hammersmith and City line to a snake colony by a canal.
Sir David also draws our awareness to the dramas happening every day among and above us in this city of about nine million people.
In one scene, there are glimpses of a bullish, noisy beast through the summer leaves.
This is not a preying tiger in the Indian jungle - but a happily mooching Dalmatian dog in Dagnam Park, Romford, unknowingly closing in on a days-old fallow deer fawn.
David Mooney, chief executive of the London Wildlife Trust, which co-produced Wild London, said he was completely "enthralled" by that "juxtaposition".
"That's not to say that dogs are a problem. It's just wildlife is interacting with us at all times," he said.
"The raw experiences of nature are something that at London Wildlife Trust we've been talking about for a long time."
BBC/Passion Planet
Fallow deer are known to roam from Dagnam Park on to streets and front gardens in Harold Hill, Romford
Perhaps the most poignant moments in Wild London, broadcast months before Sir David turns 100 years old, are where he shows particular tenderness towards the animals he meets.
At the Houses of Parliament, he holds a peregrine falcon chick while it is ringed for identification.
It tips its head back to look up at him as he says to it softly: "Now we can recognise you anywhere - yes, yes you."
In Greenford, west London, Sir David gently cradles a tiny harvest mouse before releasing it into a meadow.
He encourages it to scramble on to a wildflower, with an affectionate: "Welcome to your new home - there you go."
It doesn't want to leave the safety of his cupped hands.
Joe Loncraine, director of Wild London, has worked with Sir David on several other nature documentaries.
He said: "There were some moments I think that deliver the kind of interactions with him and an animal that I hadn't seen in a while.
"There was something about the warmth that came across. And I think his enthusiasm for what was happening was so infectious."
BBC/Passion Planet
Sir David delights at the offspring of a peregrine falcon pair that has nested on the Houses of Parliament for a decade
Sir David was greatly impressed by The Ealing Beaver Project, which he says in the film, has had such a "positive impact" in west London.
He observes: "If someone had told me when I first moved here that one day I would be watching wild beavers in London, I would have thought they were mad. But there they are, right behind me."
He uses this as an example of us "securing a brighter future for both animals, and us, too" in our unique metropolis - the world's greenest major city.
Mr Mooney said: "His message is: people have to take note of it - if people notice it, they will begin to love it - if people love it, they'll want to protect it. And if people protect it, we'll be on a path to nature recovery."
Wild London, coming late in such a revered canon of nature documentaries, is Sir David's way of nudging us to marvel at the nature on our doorsteps, amidst the frenzy of daily life.
Mr Loncraine sums up: "We can be rushing about our jobs, commuting to work, picking the kids up from school, going to the shops - and not really notice.
"There can be really quite beautiful animals right there - so it's just about taking that moment to have a look."
The aunt of the youngest victim of the Bondi shooting says those who are angry should "plant a seed of happiness" in their heart in memory of her niece Matilda..
A rallying cry for Democrats taps into frustration over the inaccessibility of a modestly nice American existence — even for those with a decent income.
The president has tried to minimize their friendship, but documents and interviews reveal an intense and complicated relationship. Chasing women was a game of ego and dominance. Female bodies were currency.
Nick Reiner, charged with murdering his parents, Rob and Michele Singer Reiner, spent much of his life battling drug addiction, an affliction that millions of Americans face.
Dmitri N. Kozak had worked with President Vladimir V. Putin for three decades before quitting in September. His associates described his break with the Russian leader.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) wants Medicare for All back in the health care debate.
The former Congressional Progressive Caucus chair plans to present polling to her House Democratic colleagues next month as she argues for the electoral merits of Medicare for All — even in battleground districts the party must win to flip the House next fall. The research, paid for by Jayapal’s leadership PAC and shared first with POLITICO, found one in five Republicans support a “government-provided system,” as do most independents. Democrats back Medicare for All by 90 percent.
Two-thirds of voters said the federal government does “too little” to help people afford health care. Just 18 percent said the government does “too much.”
Jayapal’s Medicare for All push comes as Democrats have been largely unified on their health care messaging, pushing Republicans on the back foot about extending expiring Obamacare subsidies. Injecting Medicare for All back into the debate could also reopen a long-running intraparty fight that moderate Democrats aren’t keen to have.
In an interview, Jayapal described swing district voters’ openness to Medicare for All and a desire for “fundamental change” as a “significant shift” in recent years. She cited the rising costs of health care for making the current system less appealing to swing voters who “don't feel like they can afford health care right now” and “don't feel like they have a choice right now.”
“Whatever tropes they may have had about Medicare for all, those don't really exist today in the public's mind,” Jayapal said, arguing Democrats should now “put forward a very united and universal, comprehensive vision for health care in this country.”
Democrats are hoping to make health care a central midterm messaging — tying this fall’s federal government shutdown to a debate within the GOP over extending the Affordable Care Act subsidies. Jayapal hopes to nudge her party into not only pushing back on President Donald Trump’s cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and the ACA, but also “be ready with a proactive vision” for voters, she said.
Jayapal will undoubtedly face pushback from moderate Democrats over championing an issue that’s long divided the party. Medicare for All defined much of the ideological battle of the 2020 presidential primary, serving as the progressives’ flagship policy. After Joe Biden, who didn’t back it citing the price tag, won the primary, the policy largely fell out of the conversation.
Over the last five years, Medicare for All has remained popular among Democrats — and Jayapal argues her latest research shows that it’s increasingly intriguing to independents and Republicans, who are feeling the pinch of rising health care costs. Jayapal said she’ll pitch her polling to Republican members, too, though she declined to name them.
“There’s going to be some internal resistance [to Medicare for All] but it needs to be informed by polling, and in our survey, a majority of voters are in favor of it,” said David Walker, a pollster at GQR Research who conducted the survey. “We didn’t gild the lily [in the survey], we didn’t say it’d all be free.”
The poll described Medicare for All to participants as a “system [that] would still use the same doctors and hospitals as today, but take the profit motive out of health care by using a government-administered insurance system, like Medicare or Medicaid,” acknowledging “taxes will increase for many Americans,” but added, “those could be offset by not having to pay for health insurance premiums, co-pays or out-of-pocket costs.” The poll found 54 percent of voters nationally and 56 percent in battleground districts back Medicare for All.
Jaypal acknowledged confusion around the meaning of Medicare for All, and suggested adding “improved” to the slogan, as a nod to Americans’ frustrations with the existing Medicare program.
Jayapal said she intentionally used a polling firm that works closely with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee because “we wanted to make it clear this isn’t some fringe poll.” GQR surveyed 1,000 likely 2026 voters from Nov. 5 to Nov. 13, oversampling voters in battleground House seats. The margin of error is 3.1 percentage points.
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