Axelrod: ‘I Have No Concerns About Rahm’

David Axelrod, President-elect Obama’s chief strategist, vouched for Obama’s chief of staff, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who is facing questions about his connections with Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D).

Axelrod defended Emanuel on MSNBC Wednesday from suggestions that he has been reckless with his words.

“I have no concerns about Rahm,” Axelrod told MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough. “He is an enormous asset to us and will be an enormous asset to the country, as he has been in the Congress.”

Scarborough suggested Emanuel had been reckless with his remarks. The MSNBC host pointed to Emanuel’s comment in The New Yorker last summer that Obama helped lay out Blagojevich’s 2002 general election campaign strategy. The Chicago Sun-Times this week also reported that Emanuel is caught on tape speaking about Obama’s old Senate seat 21 times. Blagojevich is accused of trying to sell that seat for his own benefit

Obama’s team and Illinois officials have disputed the notion that Obama ran that campaign, and Axelrod said Wednesday that Emanuel had made a “casual comment” to the reporter.
“I mean, Obama attended a couple of political meetings in the fall of 2002 when Blagojevich was the Democratic nominee for governor, having opposed him in the primary,” Axelrod said.
Axelrod also noted that Blagojevich didn’t back Obama during his U.S. Senate primary in 2004.

Obama has said that no one on his team committed any wrongdoing in connection with Blagojevich’s alleged schemes. He plans to release a full accounting of his staff’s contacts with the governor next week.