SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — The founder of the Southern Poverty Law Center says former Sen. George McGovern implored Barack Obama to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan right after the 2008 election.

Morris Dees says, “Obama didn’t heed his message.”

It was a pointed jab from the activist, speaking at a Thursday night prayer service for McGovern, with Vice President Joe Biden sitting in the third row.

Dees commended McGovern’s fight against the Vietnam War and added that Americans were the true losers when McGovern lost his 1972 presidential bid to Richard Nixon.

Biden did not visibly react to Dees’ comment but later joined Dees in praising McGovern’s anti-war stance.

Obama ended the Iraq war in 2010 and says he’ll end the war in Afghanistan in 2014.

Ninety-year-old McGovern died Sunday.

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