Rahm Emanuel calls for mandatory retirement age of 75 for people in public office

Former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a potential White House hopeful for 2028, said on Wednesday that he wants a mandatory retirement age of 75 for the president and people holding office in other branches of government.

“You’re 75 years old: done,” Emanuel, a Democrat, said at a Center for American Progress event. “And that would be in the legislative branch, it’d be in the executive branch — including the Cabinet — and it’d also be in the Supreme Court, and all the federal courts.”

Emanuel, 66, acknowledged that he would be affected by this proposal if he happens to be elected president in 2028 and seeks re-election, as he would be 73 at the start of a potential second term.

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“I know where I am in my age. Of course it would apply to me,” Emanuel told Politico. “You can’t say ‘here’s what I want to do to change Washington, one of the things I want to do’ — but I get an exemption because I bought it beforehand.”

The proposal would make President Donald Trump, 79, ineligible to continue serving and would have prevented former President Joe Biden, now 83, from serving his term in the White House.

In Congress, 17 senators and 45 House members are currently 75 or older and would be impacted by the standard.

Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas, 77, and Samuel Alito, 75, would also be barred from continuing to serve on the bench, while Justices Sonia Sotomayor, 71, and John Roberts, 70, are nearing Emanuel’s mandatory retirement age.

“You can’t serve in the armed forces, you can’t serve in private sector jobs,” Emanuel told reporters on Wednesday. “Go work on your golf swing, it’s not that good to begin with.”

Emanuel, who served as ambassador to Japan under Biden and chief of staff under former President Barack Obama, is reigniting a topic that was hot during the last presidential election.

Biden, then 81, and Trump, then 78, were both campaigning for a second term ahead of the 2024 election while facing questions surrounding repeated gaffes. Biden ultimately dropped out of the race amid pressure to end his campaign over his mental and physical fitness.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley, who ran in the GOP primary in the last presidential election, proposed mandatory mental competency tests for politicians over the age of 75 during her campaign.

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Emanuel, also a former House member, said he would push for legislation to set the limit instead of attempting a constitutional amendment. It is unclear whether that proposed legislation would be constitutional, and could be difficult to receive support in a Congress where the median age for senators is 64.

He said the age limit would be part of a broader demand for “comprehensive ethics, lobbying [and] anti-corruption reform” across the federal government that he said would include a crackdown on lawmakers and judges accepting and stock trading. He wants the Democratic Party to push that proposal as part of a midterms message that also includes raising the minimum wage.

“You have a president of the United States, in my view, that has expanded, deepened the swamp. Our job is to drain the swamp as Democrats,” Emanuel said. “There’s not a day that goes by that you don’t read a story about either his family, [Commerce Secretary Howard] Lutnick’s family or [Special Envoy Steve] Witkoff’s family making money.”