Former Presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton attended the funeral of the late civil rights leader Jesse Jackson on Friday, where Obama and Biden, along with former Vice President Kamala Harris, proceeded to trash President Donald Trump, drawing criticism from Jackson’s son.
“Let me just tell ya, I predicted a lot of what’s happening right now,” Harris said at one point during her speech, a reference to the Trump administration. “I’m not into saying ‘I told ya so,’ but we did see it comin’,” she added in a southern-style accent.
Obama said similar things when it was his turn to speak, again in an accent that appeared to be playing to the crowd.
The shameful behavior caught the attention of the civil rights leader’s son, Jesse Jackson Jr., who decried the political posturing as inappropriate for the occasion.
“Do not bring your politics, out of respect to Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the life that he lived, to these ongoing services. Come respectful, and come to say thank you. But these ongoing services are welcome to ALL – Democrat, Republican, liberal, and 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., a former Democratic congressman from Illinois, chastised.
Hillary Clinton and Jill Biden both attended as well, but Michelle Obama was not there.
Others criticized the remarks by Biden, Obama, and Harris:
Meanwhile, a resurfaced video clip of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi defending Obama’s 2011 military strikes in Libya without congressional authorization is drawing renewed attention as Democrats criticize Trump’s decision to launch strikes against Iran.
In the clip, recorded during a 2011 press event, a reporter asked Pelosi whether Obama needed congressional approval to conduct the military operation in Libya.
“You’re saying that the president did not need authorization initially and still does not need any authorization from Congress on Libya?” the reporter asked.
“Yes,” Pelosi replied.
The remark contrasts sharply with Pelosi’s response to Trump’s weekend strikes against Iran, which she condemned as unconstitutional without prior approval from Congress.
“President Trump’s decision to initiate military hostilities into Iran starts another unnecessary war which endangers our servicemembers and destabilizes an already fragile region,” Pelosi wrote in a post on X.
“The Constitution is clear: decisions that lead our nation into war must be authorized by Congress,” she added, referencing the 1973 War Powers Act.
Pelosi’s office has argued that the two situations are fundamentally different, which, of course, is false.
“There is an absolute distinction between the limited military operations in Libya and the broad, escalating war with Iran initiated by President Trump,” Pelosi spokesperson Ian Krager said.
“Speaker Pelosi’s position has been consistent: when the prospect of expansive or prolonged hostilities exists, the Constitution and the War Powers Act are clear that Congress must authorize it.”
Trump authorized the strikes as part of a joint U.S.-Israeli operation targeting Iran’s military leadership and infrastructure.
The operation killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other senior officials, according to U.S. officials, in what the administration described as a necessary move to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
Pelosi and other Democrats are now pushing a War Powers resolution that would limit Trump from conducting additional military operations against Iran without explicit congressional authorization, though votes to invoke it failed this week.
Republican and Democratic administrations have all argued they consider the War Powers Act, passed towards the end of the Vietnam War, to be an unconstitutional limitation on a president’s authority as commander-in-chief.
The controversy has revived comparisons to Obama’s 2011 intervention in Libya, known as Operation Odyssey Dawn. In March of that year, Obama ordered U.S. and NATO forces to conduct airstrikes against Libyan government positions to stop Muammar Gaddafi’s forces from attacking civilian protesters during the Libyan uprising.
Obama consulted congressional leaders before the strikes but did not seek a formal declaration of war.
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