Former Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel said on Sunday that listening to presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) discuss policy is "like we're studying for our midterm exam."
"There's two Elizabeth Warrens. Elizabeth Warren about Oklahoma is unbelievably powerful. The Elizabeth Warren about the policy is like we're studying for our midterm exam every day," Emanuel said on ABC's This Week. "And I think if she can do more Oklahoma as part of what her ideas are and why what motivates her for that, then she's a powerful person."
"The risk you said which was appropriate and it measures up is health care is the single issue that Democrats have a 35 point advantage on," Emanuel added later. "President Trump is trying to do everything he can to narrow that down."
The former chief of staff under President Obama continued to describe the Democratic proposals of eliminating private insurance plans through a Medicare for All bill and providing health insurance to illegal immigrants as "untenable" in the general election.
Rahm mentioned how he had recently traveled through Wisconsin and Michigan, two key states for the 2020 election.
"No one in a diner ran at me and said, 'take my health care away.' Nobody," Rahm said. "You don't have to take this position to win the primary, and you're literally hindering yourself for the general election."
A recent poll found that 65 percent of Democratic voters would be more likely to support a candidate who wants to institute single-payer health care. Fifty-three percent of overall voters said they support Medicare for All.
Current Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden pushed back against calls to implement Medicare for All, by saying he would build on the Affordable Care Act instead of totally eliminating private insurance.
Last month, Biden unveiled a campaign advertisement that described health care as "deeply personal" to him.
This ad wasn’t easy for me to record.
Health care is personal to me. Deeply personal. pic.twitter.com/a8UNsnkLhI
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 27, 2019