Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) responded to her primary ouster on Tuesday with a wild rant threatening the pro-Israel group AIPAC: “All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid. They about to see this other Cori, this other side … AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”
Mark Maxwell, political editor at St. Louis NBC News affiliate KSDK, shared Bush’s response to her loss in a series of videos posted to X.
“Pulling me away from my position as Congresswoman, all you did was take some of the strings off,” she began. She then shouted, “Let’s be clear,” several times before adding, “Let’s talk about what it really is. Because see now I don’t have to worry about some strings that I have attached that as much as I love my job but all they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid.”
“See, now they about to see this other Cori, this other side, because let me say this: I just grew up a whole lot more over the last few weeks, I just grew up a whole different way, and so what they are about to get,” she shouted, claiming that being ousted from Congress could only have happened because she had more important work to do outside the constraints of elected office. “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.”
Cori Bush defiant in defeat: “All they did was radicalize me, so now they need to be afraid.”
“They about to see this other Cori, this other side,” she said. “AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down.” pic.twitter.com/690T0aEhmZ
— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) August 7, 2024
“And let me put all of these corporations on notice: I’m coming after you too. But I’m not coming by myself. I’m coming with all the people that’s in here, that’s doing the work,” Bush continued. “What you didn’t want to do was allow me to get radicalized even more, because this is the thing: I ain’t scared. I don’t fear you! I don’t fear you!”
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She went on to say that Wesley Bell’s campaign only succeeded against her because of the money spent to oust her — largely after she vocally supported the anti-Israel protesters who harassed Jewish students and disrupted classes and graduation ceremonies on college campuses across the nation.
Cori Bush hits at Wesley Bell for a looming civil trial, then sort of walks it back. “We need to build the community back, because what just happened helped to rip our community apart.” She prods him to do his “homework” about Palestinian and Arab and Muslim communities. pic.twitter.com/tN8vSdobSa
— Mark Maxwell (@MarkMaxwellTV) August 7, 2024
Bush concluded by aiming a personal attack at Bell, currently serving as St. Louis County prosecuting attorney, alluding to an ongoing sex discrimination suit filed against his office. “The new member of Congress who will be taking over in January, you know, right before his trial starts … I’m sorry,” she said.
“We need to build the community back, because what just happened helped to rip our community apart,” she continued.
Bush got her start as an activist in Ferguson after the shooting death of Michael Brown by police officer Darren Wilson, and has since used debunked claims about Brown to elevate herself and push for radical policies like “defund the police.” She toppled incumbent Rep. William “Lacy” Clay Jr. (D-MO) in 2020, but lost to Bell in Tuesday’s Democratic primary 51.2-45.6.
The soon-to-be-former Missouri Congresswoman has repeatedly blamed AIPAC for her plummeting poll numbers, after the organization dumped $9 million into ads supporting Bell in his efforts to oust her. Fellow “Squad” member Jamaal Bowman — who also sided with anti-Israel protesters in the wake of last year’s October 7 massacre — was ousted in similar fashion earlier this summer, and has also blamed AIPAC for his political demise.
Bush is also under investigation for money paid out to her security-guard-turned-husband, especially as she retains expensive private security while calling for fewer police protections for her own constituents.
