Mayor's Brother Offers Insight Into Rahm Emanuel With New Book
(CBS) – Mayor Rahm Emanuel's brother, Zeke, offers a revealing portrait of Chicago's top elected official in a new book he was signing in Winnetka Thursday.
CBS 2 Chief Correspondent Jay Levine sat down with Zeke Emanuel, a physician, and the mayor. Missing was Ari Emanuel, the high-powered Hollywood agent who comprises one third of Zeke's book, "The Brothers Emanuel."
"His running for mayor was exciting, my writing the book everyone was pissed at me about," Zeke Emanuel said.
"Everyone was angry at him about it," the mayor agrees.
All kidding aside, this is as close knit a family as you'll ever see,
"Yesterday I talked to Rahm and Ari twice, today I've talked to both of them," the author says.
"We talk to each other constantly," Rahm Emanuel agreed.
Even more when there are issues, like the time President Obama asked Rahm to be his first chief of staff.
"It wasn't a single phone call, it was a phone call a day," Zeke Emanuel says.
He ended up working in the White House, too, as a health care adviser. Zeke Emanuel jokes that he bore the brunt of his brother's propensity for screaming.
"He screamed at me twice as much as anyone else," he says.
It was quite a transformation from the youngster Zeke described as passive, observant and an underachiever. That suddenly changed after a brush with death. Rahm Emanuel spent seven weeks in the hospital with a badly infected finger.
"For the first 96 hours, it was touch and go," the mayor says. "Three of my roommates died."
"I'm an oncologist, I treat cancer patients and one of the things when they survive they tell you those near-death experiences was the most important thing in their life," Zeke Emanuel says.
"The moment I walked out of that hospital, I never looked back and had a totally attitude about making sure every moment was used to get the maximum of life out of that moment," the mayor says.
