Rahm Emanuel, a onetime congressman and former chief of staff to President Barack Obama, is proposing to bar federal employees and their families from betting on prediction markets, arguing the practice risks fueling conflicts of interest inside the U.S. government. Emanuel, who shared the proposal with The Associated Press, said the goal is to call attention to what he described as a culture of corruption in politics and to rein in conduct he believes reflects a broader breakdown in norms.
Emanuel’s proposal would apply to “leaders and employees across the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the federal government,” he told the AP. He also said that if elected President, he would establish a division within the Justice Department to investigate betting by federal employees.
In describing what pushed him to focus on prediction-market betting, Emanuel pointed to concerns that people with inside information about national security plans may have profited from bets placed ahead of recent military action involving Venezuela and Iran. Emanuel said that “Somebody clearly with inside information inside the government was making bets, made money,” arguing that federal workers who “volunteer to serve the interests of this country and its national security” should not be competing against others placing bets from private settings.
Emanuel framed the proposal as part of a larger push he said is aimed at Washington’s political environment in the Trump era. He told the AP that “Washington needs a good power washing,” adding that “All of Washington has become so accustomed to this amorality and immorality and nobody says anything.”
The prediction-market ban arrives as Emanuel considers a White House bid for 2028 and seeks to distinguish himself early in the Democratic field. The AP reported that several Democratic governors, including Gavin Newsom of California and Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, have received significant attention, while Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear has been traveling to Vice President JD Vance’s home county in Ohio for a public critique.
Emanuel has also previously floated other proposals that he said address issues central to Democratic debate, including a mandatory retirement age of 75 and a proposal to ban children under 16 from most social media. The AP reported that he has been pitching those ideas in communities “from Michigan to Mississippi,” frequently taking them to places where potential presidential hopefuls do not always concentrate.
Emanuel said he would seek congressional action to enact the predictive-betting ban, but he indicated he would consider executive action if Congress did not move. He also rejected the idea that the proposal is only a campaign messaging tactic, telling the AP he intended it to “shock Washington into returning to the norms that long governed politics.”
In his pitch to voters, Emanuel said he put the idea forward because, in his view, others in Washington are not treating the problem as urgent. “I put this out there because everybody else is walking around sleepwalking,” he told the AP.