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‘I PROBABLY COULD HAVE FLIPPED OVER A FEW MORE TABLES’  
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Nicholas Wu
December 25, 2024
Politico
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_ Outgoing Rep. Cori Bush gets candid about her time in Congress and
how progressives should respond to 2024. _

Rep. Cori Bush, Francis Chung/POLITICO

 

Rep. Cori Bush was swept into office in 2020 on a wave of liberal
energy, defeating a longtime Democratic incumbent and cementing the
notion of a rising insurgency on the left. Four years later, she was
defeated in her own primary — along with fellow progressive
firebrand Rep. Jamaal Bowman — amid a deluge of money spent
attacking her, mostly by the pro-Israel group AIPAC.

In an exit interview with POLITICO Magazine, Bush defended her tenure
in Congress and touted her accomplishments, including successfully
pressuring the Biden administration
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extend a pandemic-era eviction moratorium.

A member of the progressive Squad, Bush was targeted by AIPAC because
of her outspoken criticism of the Israeli government and her push for
a resolution calling for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war. But she
said the attacks
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a “deception” since AIPAC’s ads focused on her vote against a
bipartisan infrastructure law rather than Israel policy. (Bush and
some other progressives opposed the infrastructure measure after it
was decoupled from the broader social spending legislation in Joe
Biden’s “Build Back Better” plan.)

Bush leaves office with the Squad smaller and the American left facing
an uncertain path after Donald Trump’s victory. But she said her
progressive colleagues weren’t going to back down despite the latest
defeats.

“Anyone who underestimates our power is severely mistaken, because
we aren’t going anywhere,” she said. “And I will always be
Squad. I’m not going far.”

_This interview has been edited for length and clarity._

YOU GOT ELECTED IN 2020 AFTER WINNING A PRIMARY AGAINST A POWERFUL
DEMOCRATIC INCUMBENT. FOUR YEARS LATER, YOU WERE DEFEATED IN A PRIMARY
BY ANOTHER CHALLENGER. HOW DO YOU VIEW YOUR PLACE IN THE DEMOCRATIC
PARTY?

I don’t feel that this speaks to my place in the party. This was
primarily Republican money that was used to unseat me. I think this
was deception by the people who wanted to oust me because they
couldn’t even speak up for the issue that they claimed was the
reason why they were challenging me. There was not one ad that they
used to speak to their issue [Israel], to say that this is why they
feel that I should no longer represent the people of Missouri’s 1st
District.

I believe that I have a lot of respect from my colleagues and vice
versa. I actually believe that I have grown in the party, as far as
who people may have thought I was when I entered Congress, and who
they’ve seen and who they’ve gotten to know.

AIPAC SPENT AT LEAST $8 MILLION TO DEFEAT YOU. DO YOU WISH DEMOCRATIC
LEADERS HAD DONE MORE TO KEEP THE GROUP OUT OF PRIMARIES THIS YEAR OR
LEND YOU MORE SUPPORT?

Absolutely. At this point, yes, and looking forward, Democratic
leadership has to do something. Democratic leadership must make the
decision that this corporate money should not be able to be used in
Democratic primaries. Because that was the deciding factor in this
race.

Democrats have to ban corporate PAC donations, and specifically have
to speak up and push to ban the super PAC spending in our Democratic
primaries. That is the only way that this does not happen again,
because I wasn’t unseated because I didn’t take care of my
community. We brought over $2 billion to our district in four years.
We helped thousands of constituents who reached out to our office to
help them navigate federal agencies, whether it was housing or PPP
loans, whatever their need was. Let me also add the eviction
moratorium. It saved people in our district and around the country.
That work was for 11 million people around this country to stay housed
during the deadly global pandemic. And I still hear today from people
around the country who say, “You were the reason why I was able to
stay housed.”

YOUR FELLOW SQUAD MEMBER REP. JAMAAL BOWMAN ALSO LOST HIS PRIMARY.
REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ LOST THE RACE TO BE THE TOP DEMOCRAT ON
THE OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE. WHERE DO YOU THINK THE SQUAD GOES FROM HERE?

The Squad will keep fighting. First of all, the Squad is big. And I
know we want to make the Squad just out to be a few people, but we
don’t do this work by ourselves.

The numbers will be lower for the 119th Congress, but they will keep
fighting for people who have the greatest need. They’re not going to
change their priorities and what they believe. The number of people in
Congress on the team will just be smaller. But they’ve never been
silent. Anyone who underestimates our power is severely mistaken,
because we aren’t going anywhere, and I will always be Squad. I’m
not going far.

DO YOU THINK ITS REMAINING MEMBERS WILL SHIFT COURSE AT ALL?

No, I don’t. The one thing that we all had in common, or at least
most of us had in common entering Congress, was to be authentically
ourselves and to be that regular everyday person from our communities,
because we felt like those voices were missing in the Congress. The
voices of, for me, being the nurse, Jamaal being the principal, Alex
being a bartender. I think that the difference is us wanting to
remember who we are fighting for. I don’t think that will change.

WHAT’S SOMETHING YOU WISH YOU HAD KNOWN GOING INTO THE JOB?

I wish I would have known how expensive it is to be a member of
Congress. It wouldn’t have changed anything as far as me running,
but it would have helped me to be prepared for what life is like.
You’re being criticized for having a lot of money while you’re
figuring out, “How do I have a home in two places? How do I make
sure that I have toilet paper in two places at the same time? How do I
have all the things that I need in both places to bounce back and
forth?”

I think that understanding how — at least as far as the Democratic
Party is — seniority plays so much of a role in who gets what
committee assignment, what bills are brought to the floor, just in so
many different areas, how seniority plays such a major role. We have
great people in the Congress who, just sometimes in my conversations,
I hear this disillusionment, and some of it is because people are
waiting their turn. They have great ideas, and they’re really
remarkable in the work that they’re doing, and we need those voices
to be represented. We see in the Republican Conference they don’t
seem to go by seniority as much. I think that the Democrats, we need
to pay attention to that.

HOW DO YOU THINK THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY SHOULD CHANGE IN ORDER TO WIN IN
2026 AND 2028?

One thing is to realize that the people of this country have spoken
and are saying that we need to hear about the kitchen table economic
issues, but we also need those things to happen. So speaking about
divisions in our party — “Progressives have to understand, we have
to do these things in an incremental way” — and people in our
communities are saying, “Well, hey, I don’t have access to clean
water.” And progressives, oftentimes, we’re shut out. Look at
Build Back Better, and how much the Squad pushed for the Build Back
Better Act. That was President Biden’s agenda, his full economic
agenda, and we were pushing for that.

Had we achieved making Build Back Better the law of the land, I truly
believe this last election would have gone differently. People
received the child tax credit, and then it was stripped from them. Now
I know that some things did change with IRA, but people still have not
seen that investment. The one thing that I’ve heard more than
anything, when I asked people who were Democrats who made the decision
to vote for Donald Trump this time, so many of them said the same
thing: “It was because I received a stimulus check with his name on
it for $1,200.” People held on to “I got something.”

[Donald Trump's name is seen on a stimulus check issued by the IRS.]

"When I asked people who were Democrats who made the decision to vote
for Donald Trump this time, so many of them said the same thing: It
was because I received a stimulus check with his name on it for
$1,200,” said Rep. Cori Bush. | Eric Gay/AP

We could have accomplished so much. The Democratic Party should pay
attention. The progressives are not the enemy. We are saying that we
are regular, everyday people. We are hearing what the people are
saying.

DO YOU SEE YOURSELF RUNNING FOR ANY POLITICAL OFFICE IN THE FUTURE?
WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO NEXT?

The possibilities are endless. All I know right now is that I am not
going anywhere. I’m going to keep fighting for the issues that I
fought for before I ever entered Congress, and since I’ve been in
Congress.

Running for office again is not off the table at all. I did not expect
to only be in Congress for four years, and so I do believe at some
point I will run again, whether it’s for Congress or something else,
I don’t know. I don’t have any plans right now, but it’s not off
the table. What I will do, though, is I will organize and I will work
on the same issues and more that I started with before I ever made it
to the Congress.

DO YOU HAVE ANY REGRETS ABOUT YOUR TIME IN CONGRESS?

I don’t really operate in regret, but I will say I wish that I could
have pushed harder as it relates to our cease-fire now resolution, and
done more to save lives.

I left it all on the field. I put my life and my livelihood on the
line, because so many have lost their lives. I wish that I could have
done more, and I wish that my colleagues who later have said, “OK,
this is too much. It’s gone too far,” I wish they would have heard
us when we first started to speak to this, because our work was coming
from a place of wanting to save as many people as we could — the
lives of all people, whether Israeli or Palestinian, people abroad and
people in the United States.

I probably could have flipped over a few more tables.

St. Louis deserves the best, and if there had to be any regret, just
that I won’t be back for the 119th Congress where I could have done
so much more for my community, because the people have waited for such
a long time to have this type of leadership — that person who will
put their body on the line, will put their name and reputation on the
line for them, and now they are about to lose that type of leadership.

_Nicholas Wu is a congressional reporter at POLITICO._

 

 

* Rep. Cori Bush
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* The Squad
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* political strategy
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