Former President Joe Biden is under heavy criticism after giving a politically infused eulogy at civil rights leader Jesse Jackson’s funeral earlier this month, ignoring the family’s clear request to keep the service nonpolitical.
Commentator Megyn Kelly issued a harsh critique on “The Megyn Kelly Show” following Jesse Jackson Jr.’s public rebuke of Biden, former President Barack Obama, and former Vice President Kamala Harris for turning the March 6 memorial at House of Hope in Chicago into a political stage.
On her March 9 program, Kelly lambasted the Democratic figures who spoke, accusing them of disregarding the family’s request. “All these Democrats show up at his funeral, and they were asked not to get political,” she said. “Well, they couldn’t contain themselves.”
The dispute began after the Jackson family explicitly asked attendees to refrain from political remarks at memorials for the civil rights icon, who passed away on February 17 at 84 after battling progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare neurological disease. Despite that appeal, several Democratic officials gave speeches that appeared to criticize President Donald Trump’s administration.
Biden’s meandering eulogy took an odd turn when the 83-year-old former president made an unusual remark about his intelligence while discussing a childhood stutter. Biden told attendees, “I’m a **** of a lot smarter than most of you.” He said this while explaining how speech issues can be misread as lack of intelligence, then added: “Well, all kidding aside, it makes you feel really small.”
Kelly did not mince words in her critique of Biden, mocking his delivery and questioning why he ignored the family’s wishes.
During his March 6 remarks, the former president moved from personal stories to direct criticism of the current administration. “We’re in a tough time, folks. We have an administration that doesn’t share the values we have,” Biden told the crowd, according to CNN’s live reporting of the service.
Obama also used his eulogy to make indirect criticisms of President Trump, saying Americans face “some new assault on our democratic institutions” each day. He warned that “greed and bigotry” are being celebrated while “bullying and mockery” are passed off as strength.
The next day at the final memorial at the Rainbow PUSH Coalition headquarters on Chicago’s South Side, Jesse Jackson Jr. sharply criticized the Democratic leaders who had spoken at his father’s funeral.
“Yesterday, I listened for several hours to three United States presidents who do not know Jesse Jackson,” the former congressman said on Saturday, March 7. Jackson Jr., who is running in the March 17 Democratic primary to try to reclaim his old congressional seat in Illinois’ 2nd District, stressed that his father insisted on “a consistent, prophetic voice that at no point in time ever sold us out as a people.”
Kelly backed Jackson Jr.’s criticism on her show. “But Jesse Jackson Jr. was not happy. And who could blame him?” she asked.
The commentator reserved particular disdain for Harris, who also spoke, calling the former vice president “insufferable” for quickly shifting to political attacks after offering brief condolences.
Kelly predicted Harris will run for president again in 2028, criticizing her for reusing material from past campaign speeches.
Former President Bill Clinton notably refrained from political remarks in his eulogy, concentrating instead on his personal relationship with Jackson. “I’m here more as a friend than a former president,” Clinton said. “He was my friend when I needed him.”
Jackson, who led civil rights efforts after Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination in 1968 and ran for president in 1984 and 1988, left a legacy that went beyond partisan lines. His passing at 84 closed a chapter in American civil rights activism.
The funeral dispute underscores the tension between honoring a family’s wishes at memorials and politicians’ tendency to use prominent events for political messaging. Kelly questioned whether “hubris” led the three Democratic figures to override the Jackson family’s request for a politics-free ceremony.
As criticism grows, the episode is a reminder that even solemn tributes to national figures can quickly become flashpoints for partisan conflict in a deeply divided political environment.