Hillary Clinton used Elijah Cummings’ funeral in Baltimore Friday to make a Biblical dig at Donald Trump,
The former secretary of state said that like Cummings, who died this month at 68, the prophet ‘stood against corrupt leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.’
She did not name the president – but her message could hardly have been clearer; Cummings was one of the leaders of the current impeachment inquiry into the president.
Her comment drew loud applause from a crowd gathered to honor the late House Oversight Committee chairman in Baltimore, with two former presidents, Barack Obama and Bill Clinton in attendance, but no White House official representative.
Ahab was a corrupt and evil king of Israel; Jezebel was his wife, a Phoenician princess who adorned herself in fine clothing and jewelry, and worshiped the false god Baal, only to ultimately meet her doom. In the Old Testament Elijah brought the kingdom of Israel back to the true path of God.
‘Our Elijah could call down fire from heaven. But he also prayed and worked for healing,’ Clinton said.
‘Like that Old Testament prophet, he stood again corrupt leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel,’ she said.
‘He weathered storms and earthquakes, but he never lost his faith,’ Clinton said.
‘And he looked out for the vulnerable among us. And he kept reminding us, life is no dress rehearsal,’ she added.
‘The American people want to live their lives without fear of their leaders,’ Clinton said, ‘and as leaders, we have a responsibility to keep the promises made when running for office to make the lives of Americans better,’ she said.
Sermon: Hillary Clinton used the funeral of Elijah Cummings to make a comparison between the Bible’s evil Ahab and Jezebel and modern America
Pointed message: ‘Like that Old Testament prophet, he stood again corrupt leadership of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel,’ Hillary Clinton said
Mourned: Hillary Clinton was the first politician to offer a eulogy to Elijah Cummings at the New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore
Address: Barack Obama also avoided Donald Trump’s name in his eulogy of Cummings, saying that the Baltimore-born congressman shows ‘there’s nothing weak about being honorable.’
Presidents’ tributes: Barack Obama and Bill Clinton spoke in eulogy of Elijah Cummings at his funeral in his home city of Baltimore
Widow: Maya Rockeymoore Cummings paid tribute to her late husband. She is likely to run for his vacant seat
Clear message: ‘There’s nothing weak about looking out for others. There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect,’ Barack Obama said in a more subtle dig at Trump than Hillary Clinton’s
Ahab and Jezebel: Hillary Clinton’s eulogy did not mention Donald and Melania Trump but the implication was clear
Clinton said Cummings had ‘little tolerance for those who put party above country or partisanship above truth.’
Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, widow of the longtime lawmaker and the Maryland state Democratic party chair, acknowledged that President Trump’s attacks on Baltimore ‘hurt’ Cummings.
She said Cummings was fighting the ‘very real corruption’ in the country and was working to save ‘the soul of our democracy.’
President Barack Obama said he sometimes turned to Cummings during difficult times of his administration, and put in plugs for the Affordable Care Act.
‘He was never complacent, for he knew that without clarity of purpose and a steadfast faith and a dogged determination demanded by our liberty, the promise of this nation could wither,’ Obama said.
‘Complacency, he knew, was not only corrosive for our collective lives, but for our individual lives.’
He pointed to Cummings’ reputation for being kind to others even as he wielded power in Washington.
Obama, the father of two daughters, referenced hearing Cummings’ daughters at the funeral. He said it got him ‘choked up.’
‘I was thinking I’d want my daughters to know how much I love them, but I’d also want them to know that being a strong man also means being kind, that there’s nothing weak about kindness and compassion.’
‘There’s nothing weak about looking out for others. There’s nothing weak about being honorable. You’re not a sucker to have integrity and to treat others with respect,’ he said, earning applause.
He said ‘honorable’ was a title that many elected officials hold. But Elijah Cummings was honorable before he was elected to office. There’s a difference,’ said Obama.
‘Elijah Cummings came from good soil,’ Obama said, calling him ‘a leader who once said he’d die for his people even as he lived every minute for them. His life validates the things we tell ourselves about what’s possible in this country – not guaranteed, but possible.’
Bill Clinton lauded Cummings for ‘sticking up for Hillary and lots of other people, many of whom were voiceless and weak and will never be known.’
‘While doing all that he actually made in one of the most partisan periods in our country’s history a lot of Republican friends. Why did he do that? How did he do that?’ Clinton asked.
‘I think he did it because everybody could see he was the real deal … His heart was in it. And I think he did it because no matter how hard he fought and how passionately argued he tried to treat everybody the way he wanted to be treated. The way he thought America should be treated. You know you can’t run a free society if you have to hate everybody you disagree with,’ he said.
Bill Clinton pointed to the prophet Isiah and referenced Cummings’ call to service: ‘Elijah Cummings spent a whole life saying, “send me.” An entire lifetime.’
Life celebrated: Elijah Cummings was celebrated as the son of a sharecropper who fought in Washington D.C. for his home city by two presidents – first Barack Obama then Hillary Clinton
Comfort: Barack Obama hugs Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, Elijah Cummings’ widow, at the start of the funeral service for the Baltimore Democratic congressman
VIPs: Former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, with Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, arrive for the funeral
Maya Rockeymoore Cummings, widow of the longtime lawmaker and the Maryland state Democratic party chair, acknowledged that President Trump’s attacks on Baltimore ‘hurt’ Cummings. She said Cummings was fighting the ‘very real corruption’ in the country and was working to save ‘the soul of our democracy.’
Welcome: Elijah Cummings’ staff member Harry Spikes greets Bill Clinton, with Maya Rockeymoore Cummings and Barack Obama to his left
Tribute: Maya Rockeymoore Cummings paid tribute to her husband as a sharecroppers’ son and a son of Baltimore who fought for his city
Funeral services are held for late U.S. Representative Elijah Cummings at the New Psalmist Baptist Church in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., October 25, 2019
Tribute: Mourners at Elijah Cummings’ funeral in the New Psalmist Baptists Church in Baltimore, where there were eulogies from Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton and Maya Rockeymoore Cummings
Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016 after a bitterly contested election. Her former spokesman on Thursday refused to rule out 100 per cent that she wouldn’t run again.
In her eulogy Clinton praised Cummings, a leading force in the impeachment inquiry of President Donald Trump, as someone who ‘stood against corrupt leadership.’
The former Democratic lawmaker’s funeral drew a Who’s Who of Democratic leaders past and present to the New Psalmist Baptist church in Cummings’ hometown of Baltimore, as well as thousands of other supporters.
Former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, as well as 2020 Democratic candidates like Joe Biden and Elizabeth Warren, were among those attending the funeral.
A son of sharecroppers, Cummings served for 22 years in the U.S. House of Representatives before his death on Oct. 17. He was an ardent civil rights voice who decades ago endured violence from white mobs as he and other African-Americans sought to integrate a public swimming pool.
The 13-term congressman was credited with helping calm tensions in Baltimore in 2015 when violence erupted following the death of an African-American man in police custody.
He was a high-profile antagonist of Trump, who reacted to a weekend of deadly violence during a ‘Unite the Right’ rally in Virginia saying there were ‘very fine people’ on both sides of the demonstrations.
The funeral was being held in Cummings’ congressional district, which Trump vilified earlier this year as ‘disgusting, rat and rodent-infested.’
Cummings responded at the time by saying Trump should visit his majority-black congressional district. ‘I’ll ride with him for hours… I want him to see all of the wonderful things that are happening.’
Trump, who is scheduled to speak at a historically black college in South Carolina, did not plan to attend the funeral, the White House said on Thursday. No information was available as to whether he had been invited, and it was not clear if other administration officials would attend.
U.S. race relations are sure to be a contentious topic during the upcoming 2020 presidential election season in which Democrats aim to unseat Trump.
They hope to win over the votes of African-Americans who could play an important role in determining the outcome, along with growing Hispanic communities throughout the United States.
As chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cummings before his death led a series of investigations of Trump’s administration and business dealings. He had been a central figure in Democrats’ ongoing impeachment inquiry on the president’s dealings with Ukraine.