Former President Barack Obama used the funeral of civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson to unleash a broadside against the current administration, turning a homegoing service at a packed Chicago church into a political rally that drew a blistering response from the White House.
Obama, speaking Friday at the House of Hope on Chicago's South Side, told mourners that "we are living in a time when it can be hard to hope." He broke down in tears during portions of his remarks, but the emotional display didn't soften the partisan edges of a speech that had little to do with the man in the casket.
White House spokesman Steven Cheung wasted no time responding:
"Barack Hussein Obama is a classless moron who clearly suffers from a debilitating and severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome that has rotted his brain. He is a total disgrace for all the hurt he has caused this country and history will not judge him well."
Obama's remarks at the service veered quickly from tribute to tirade. According to The Daily Mail, he told the congregation:
"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, everyday you wake up to things you just didn't think were possible."
He wasn't finished. Obama went on to claim that "greed and bigotry" are being "celebrated" and that "bullying and mockery" are "masquerading as strength," while "ignorance and dishonesty, and cruelty and corruption are reaping untold rewards every single day."
This was a funeral. A man who walked with Martin Luther King Jr., who was present at his assassination in Memphis in 1968, who ran for president twice and founded the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, had just been laid to rest. And the 44th president chose the occasion to workshop midterm talking points.
There is something deeply clarifying about watching a former president, surrounded by three other former presidents and a parade of Democratic luminaries, use a dead man's service as a venue to air political grievances. It tells you everything about where the party's head is right now.
The front row at the House of Hope looked like a Democratic National Convention reunion. Obama, who attended without his wife Michelle, was seen sharing laughs with Bill Clinton and Joe Biden. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was present. Former first lady Dr. Jill Biden attended with Joe Biden. Kamala Harris sat a few rows to Obama's right. California Governor Gavin Newsom was seated directly behind Obama.
Also in attendance:
The gathering carried the energy of a party searching for a rallying point and finding one in a funeral. When Obama was introduced as "the South Side's own," the crowd erupted. That reception wasn't for a eulogist. It was for a political figure that the base still craves.
Rev. Jesse Jackson died on February 17 at the age of 84 after a long battle with progressive supranuclear palsy, having been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 2017. His family said he continued coming into the office until last year, communicating through hand signals. His final public appearance was at the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
His life was genuinely consequential. He joined the Selma-to-Montgomery marches in 1965. He secured the release of American prisoners from Syria, Iraq, and Serbia as a diplomatic envoy. He ran for president in 1984 and 1988, campaigns that reshaped Democratic primary politics. He served as President Clinton's special envoy for Africa.
Jackson's son Yusef, who now runs the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, offered a far more fitting tribute:
"He lived a revolutionary Christian faith rooted in justice, nonviolence and the moral righteousness."
Jesse Jackson Jr. struck a notably different tone from Obama, saying last month that all were welcome to celebrate his father's life:
"Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative, right wing, left wing because his life is broad enough to cover the full spectrum of what it means to be an American."
Jackson Jr. added that his father "would have wanted us to have a great meeting to discuss our differences, to find ways of moving forward and moving together." Obama apparently didn't get that memo.
The family wanted Jackson to lie in honor in the Capitol rotunda. House Speaker Mike Johnson denied the request, noting the space is typically reserved for former presidents and select officials. A planned Washington, D.C. service was shelved as a result.
Democrats treated this as an outrage. But the outrage was selective. The same party that claims to honor Jackson's legacy of bridge-building sent its most prominent voice to his funeral to torch every bridge in sight.
Obama's speech was framed around the idea that Americans should "step up" in dangerous times, invoking Jackson's example. But Jackson's children explicitly called for unity across political lines. The disconnect is staggering. Obama eulogized a man who believed it "takes two wings to fly" by insisting one of those wings is made of corruption and cruelty.
Meanwhile, Mary Lovett, a 90-year-old attendee who moved from Mississippi to Chicago in the 1960s, taught elementary school, raised a family, and voted for Jackson in both his presidential runs, offered the most honest assessment of the day:
"He's gone, but I hope his legacy lives. I hope we can remember what he tried to teach us."
What Jackson tried to teach and what Obama demonstrated on Friday are two very different things.
Obama's decision to weaponize a funeral is not surprising, but it is revealing. This is the posture of a political movement that has lost the White House, lost the argument on the border, and is now running out of venues where it can speak to a friendly audience without interruption. A church on Chicago's South Side, during a funeral no Republican would disrupt, is about as safe a space as it gets.
President Trump, for his part, praised Jackson on social media after his death and shared photos of the two. On Friday, he was at the White House hosting a roundtable on collegiate sports. He let the contrast speak for itself.
Marketing professional Chelsia Bryan, who attended the service, described it as "a chance to be part of something historic." She wasn't wrong. It's just not the kind of history that ages well.
Jackson's family asked for a celebration that could hold the full spectrum of what it means to be an American. Obama delivered a partisan sermon to the already converted. The man they buried deserved a eulogy. He got a campaign speech instead.
