President Trump didn’t attend the star-studded memorial service for the Rev. Jesse Jackson but he was at the top of mind for many of its speakers.
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Kamala Harris, Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Al Sharpton all used their eulogies to take pot shots at the president, his policies, and his vision for America.
“Let me just say I predicted a lot about what’s happening right now,” Harris bragged as the crowd roared in applause. “I’m not into saying I told you so but we did see it coming.”
She did not mention Trump by name but it was clear she was talking about his presidency. Trump overwhelmingly beat her in their 2024 presidential election.
“But what I did not predict is that we would not have Jesse Jackson with us right now to help us get through this,” Harris added.
Obama, for his part, described the state of the country under Trump’s leadership.
“Each day we wake up to some new assault on our Democratic institutions, another setback to the idea of the rule of law, an offense to common decency. Every day you wake up to, to things you just didn’t think were possible,” he said.
Obama also didn’t mention Trump’s name but his meaning was clear. And the crowd at Chicago’s House of Hope stood in applause, cheering as he spoke.
“Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other and to turn on each other, and that some Americans count more than others, and that some don’t even count at all,” Obama said. “Everywhere we see greed and bigotry, being celebrated and bullying and mockery masquerading as strength.
“It’s hard to hope in those moments,” Obama said, adding it was tempting to “maybe just put your head down and wait for the storm to pass.”
Jackson wouldn’t have wanted that, he insisted.
“But this man, Reverend Jesse Lewis Jackson, inspires us to take a harder path. His voice calls on each of us to be heralds of change, to be messengers of hope.”
Biden also had words for the man who replaced him in the White House.
“We’re in a tough spot, folks. We’ve got an administration that doesn’t share any of the values that we have. And I don’t think I’m exaggerating a little bit,” he said.
Sharpton was more blunt, giving out a rallying cry to the crowd: “I don’t care what they do in Washington, I care what we do in the community. We’ve beat people bigger than Trump!”
The packed service included former presidents – Bill Clinton, Obama and Biden – and several presidential wannabes, including Hillary Clinton, Gavin Newsom and JB Pritzker. Democrats filled the room, including Jill Biden and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
Isaiah Thomas, the legendary basketball player, noted the all-star row of politicians in the audience, saying there were “five presidents” in attendance.
Then he named them: President Harris, President Hillary Clinton, President Bill Clinton, President Biden, and President Obama.
The crowd applauded his words.
George W. Bush, the former Republican president, was not in attendance. Neither was Michelle Obama. But gospel singers, business executives and other prominent members of the black community crowded the center on the South Side of Chicago.
The memorial service was a celebration of Jackson, his life and role in shaping American politics. He died last month at his Chicago home at 84.
Obama credited Jackson’s first White House campaign with inspiring his own presidential campaign 24 years later.
The former president noted he had just graduated from college when Jackson ran for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1984, saying watching him on the debate stage showed “there wasn’t any place, any room where we didn’t belong.”
“He paved the road for so many others to follow,” Obama said on Friday.
Obama also blamed Jackson for his move to Chicago, joking: “I definitely didn’t know how I was going to survive these Chicago winters, because I grew up in Hawaii.”
Still, Obama said it was because of Jackson that he was taken seriously as a candidate when he made his own presidential bid in 2008.
“It was because of that path that he had laid, because of his courage, his audacity that two decades later, a young black senator from Chicago’s South Side would even be taken seriously as a candidate for the presidential nomination,” Obama said.
Bill Clinton warmly remembered Jackson as a friend through good times and bad.
And that friendship came in the form of a shocking phone call the reverend made during his 1998 impeachment.
“When the Congress was trying to run me out and I was in that big impeachment fight, Jesse called me one night in the White House,” Clinton said, noting he has never told this story before. Clinton was impeached by the House in 1998 on charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice. The Senate later acquitted him.
“I thought he was calling me,” Clinton recalled, “but he said, I don’t want to talk to you. I want you to go get Chelsea.”
“He called me to talk to my daughter, to make sure she had her head in the game, and he prayed with her on the phone.”
Clinton said he was at a political low point and it was unclear if he would be able to stay in office. “Those are the things you remember,” he said of Jackson reaching out.
“I’m here more as a friend than a former president,” Clinton said. “He was my friend when I needed it.”
“Ask yourself how you can do more by being a better friend and a more effective one.”
