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    Cori Bush confirms investigation as she rejects ‘false’ campaign spending claims

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    The congresswoman Cori Bush has confirmed that the US Department of Justice is investigating whether the Missouri Democrat misused campaign funds for security services, an accusation she denied as “simply false”.In a statement, Bush said her campaign was “fully cooperating” with the investigation and said she had always “complied with all applicable laws and House rules”.“I hold myself, my campaign, and my position to the highest levels of integrity. I also believe in transparency, which is why I can confirm that the Department of Justice is reviewing my campaign’s spending on security services,” said Bush, part of a progressive group of Democratic women known as “the Squad”.She added that the allegations were rooted in “baseless complaints” raised by rightwing organizations who have long made her a target.In a lengthy statement, Bush, a nurse and Black Lives Matter activist turned lawmaker who represents the St Louis area, said she has endured threats to her “physical safety and life” since before she took office in 2021.Bush said that as a rank-and-file member of Congress she is not entitled to receive security protection by the House and has instead used campaign funds to pay for security services.“I have not used any federal tax dollars for personal security services,” she said. “Any reporting that I have used federal funds for personal security is simply false.”At issue, the congresswoman continued, was her decision to hire her husband, Cortney Merritts, to provide her with security services. She paid a total of $62,359 to Merritts for security services in 2022 before the pair were married, according to the St Louis Post-Dispatch.“In particular, the nature of these allegations have been around my husband’s role on the campaign,” she said.“In accordance with all applicable rules, I retained my husband as part of my security team to provide security services because he has had extensive experience in this area, and is able to provide the necessary services at or below a fair market rate.”She said that the Office of Congressional Ethics had investigated the matter last year and voted to dismiss the allegations.“In September of last year, after conducting a months-long investigation, the Office of Congressional Ethics found no wrongdoing and voted unanimously to dismiss the case,” she wrote.“I look forward to this same outcome from all pending investigations.”The department has subpoenaed the House sergeant at arms, the chamber’s top law enforcement official, for records relating to the alleged misspending, according to six sources with knowledge about the investigation, Punchbowl reported.Bush became the first Black woman to represent Missouri in Congress, after her 2020 victory against the 10-term representative Lacy Clay. She held an event on Saturday to kick off her latest re-election campaign.Bush said: “I am under no illusion that these rightwing organizations will stop politicizing and pursuing efforts to attack me and the work that the people of St Louis sent me to Congress to do: to lead boldly, to legislate change my constituents can feel, and to save lives.” More

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      A split among Democrats may threaten ‘the Squad’ – and help Trump – in 2024

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      A looming clash between the centre and left of the Democratic party could unseat members of the “the Squad” of progressives and hand a gift to Donald Trump’s Republicans in the 2024 elections.The war in Gaza has divided Democrats like no other issue and is likely to play a key role in party primaries that decide which candidates run for the House of Representatives.Squad members including Jamaal Bowman of New York, Cori Bush of Missouri and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who accuse Israel of fuelling a humanitarian disaster, are facing potentially well-funded primary challengers. Some Democrats fear that the infighting could weaken the party’s campaign in November.“A lot of us have seen the headlines that Squad or Squad-adjacent members could be in trouble this cycle,” said Chris Scott, the co-founder and president of the Advance the Electorate political action committee (Ate Pac), which recruits and trains young progressives. “When I look at 2024, this is not the cycle where we need to be getting in a battle within our home faction.“There is a much greater threat to us all that we need to be focused on. If you’re having a progressive and centrist go against each other in an open seat, that’s one thing, but to start taking shots at your own is a dangerous precedent and I don’t think we need to fall into that trap this cycle.”The left have won some notable victories during Joe Biden’s presidency but continue to push him on issues such as climate, immigration, racial justice and Gaza, where many are dismayed by his unwavering support for Israel. On 7 October Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis and took about 240 hostage; Israel has since bombed and invaded Gaza, killing about 20,000 people.Ideological tensions with moderates are set to spill into the open during a primary season that kicks off on 5 March with races in Alabama, Arkansas, California, North Carolina and Texas.Bowman faces a stiff challenge from George Latimer, a Westchester county executive who is an ardent supporter of Israel and could receive a financial boost from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac). Bush has competition from Wesley Bell, a county prosecutor who described Bush’s initial response to the Hamas attack as not “appropriate”.Omar will be up against Don Samuels, a former Minneapolis city council member who came within two percentage points of her in a primary last year. The lawyer Sarah Gad and the air force veteran Tim Peterson have also filed to run against Omar in the primary.Centrists smell an opportunity to put progressives on the back foot over their voting records, not just on Israel but a host of issues.Matt Bennett, a co-founder and the executive vice-president for public affairs at Third Way, said: “The Squad for the most part has been problematic for Democrats generally because their voices are outsized and very loud and they have come to define what it means to be a Democrat in swing districts, and that can be very difficult.“We are not huge fans of primaries against incumbent Democrats – often those resources can be directed more forcefully elsewhere to try to beat Republicans – but Cori Bush has done and said a lot of things that are going to be weaponised against her Democratic colleagues and so we wouldn’t be heartbroken if she’s beaten by a more mainstream Democrat in a primary.”Squad members and their allies may also have to contend with pro-Israel Super Pacs and dark-money groups spending tens of millions of dollars on attack ads in a bid to unseat them. Critics say such ads often misrepresent progressives’ views to give the impression that they are cheerleading for Hamas.The Democratic Majority for Israel Pac (DMFI Pac) recently launched a six-figure ad campaign targeting the Michigan congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, the sole Palestinian American in the House and one of Biden’s most strident critics. Its narrator said: “Tell Rashida Tlaib she’s on the wrong side of history and humanity.”This week the DMFI Pac published its first round of endorsements for the 2024 election cycle, including 81 incumbent members of Congress. Its chair, Mark Mellman, said all the endorsees have demonstrated a deep commitment to the party’s values, “which include advancing and strengthening the US-Israel relationship”.The group added that, in the 2021-22 election cycle, DMFI Pac-endorsed candidates won more than 80% of their races, helping bring 21 new “pro-Israel Democrats” to Congress.Larry Jacobs, the director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, said: “The well-organised, and those with resources including money, are looking at the primaries as a way to settle scores.“The Squad has a target on its back. The Israeli Zionist interest have concluded that they underinvested in the last election and that a bit more would have defeated some of the candidates, including Ilhan Omar, who won by only 2%. The amount of money going in looks to be substantially larger.”The House primary stakes have been raised by 23 Democrats and 12 Republicans retiring, seeking other office or getting expelled, leaving a record number of open seats up for grabs. In Oregon’s third congressional district, Susheela Jayapal – whose sister Pramila is chair of the Congressional Progressive caucus – is running for an open seat but facing blowback for not signing a resolution that condemned Hamas.As the war continues and the death toll mounts, the issue becomes ever more rancorous. Scott, the Ate Pac president, warned: “I wouldn’t be surprised to see some of these primaries get nasty.“My worry is, do we get in a fight with the primaries and start trying to do all this spending going against Democrats because we don’t agree necessarily on the same issue and then we miss the mark and come up short in some of the open seats that we should be able to easily win?”He added: “I get the frustration, but if you’re talking about possibly actively spending money to primary somebody like Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or even Rashida Tlaib, one, what type of message are we sending and then two, where are our priorities overall?”Scott argues that Democrats should instead focus efforts on candidates such as Mondaire Jones, who is aiming to win back his New York seat from Republicans, and Michelle Vallejo, who is running for the most competitive congressional seat in Texas. “As a party we have to be smart about how we play these and now is not the time to fall into that warring battle of ideologies,” he said.Others share the concern about losing sight of the bigger picture and the unique threat posed by Trump and far-right Republicans. Ezra Levin, the co-executive director of the progressive grassroots movement Indivisible, said: “High-profile, expensive primary fights this cycle that exacerbate fractures within the Democratic coalition are bad for Democrats’ chances in the general election – and thus bad for democracy.“As leaders of a grassroots movement dedicated to preventing Trump from returning to power, we’ve adopted a fairly simple test for all our strategic decisions over the next 12 months: will this move help or hurt our chances of beating Donald Trump and winning a Democratic trifecta in 2024? Aipac and DMFI’s latest moves clearly fail this test.”The argument over Gaza appears to have been shifting in progressives’ direction. In a recent opinion poll for the Wall Street Journal, 24% of Democrats said they were more sympathetic to the Palestinians, 17% sided with the Israelis and 48% said they sympathise with both equally.Biden, who often hovers in the ideological middle of the Democratic party, has gradually yielded to pressure to urge Israeli restraint and has warned that the country is losing international support because of “indiscriminate bombing”. But he has stopped short of calling for a permanent ceasefire.Norman Solomon, the national director of RootsAction and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, said via email: “Scapegoating progressives is inevitable. That’s what corporate centrist Democrats and their allies routinely do. But primaries merely set the stage for the main event, which will be the showdown between the two parties for Congress and the White House.“Whatever the results of the congressional primaries, the momentous crossroads in the fall will determine whether the fascistic Republican party controls Congress for the next two years and the presidency for the next four. Progressives aren’t making such a calamity more likely. Biden is.” More

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      ‘I’m changing Congress’: how Cori Bush brought her lived experience to Capitol Hill

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      Interview‘I’m changing Congress’: how Cori Bush brought her lived experience to Capitol HillDavid Smith in Washington Member of ‘the Squad’ on how her abortion experience, sexual assault and front-line fight in Ferguson, Missouri, affected her politicsHer new memoir is bracingly, sometimes painfully honest, but there is one passage that Cori Bush seriously considered striking out before publication.She had an abortion when she was 19. Walking into the white-walled room of a reproductive health clinic, Bush writes, she began to have reservations about the procedure. Twice she told a nurse, “I don’t want to do this,” but twice the nurse ignored her objections and carried on.Bush heard “the awful sounds as the vacuum sucked the fetus out of my body … I remember the intense pain and the feeling of helplessness in that moment. I was furious. That doctor ignored my pleas. I was just another person in his assembly line, just another little Black girl.”The doctors leaving anti-abortion states: ‘I couldn’t do my job at all’Read moreAs the prologue observes, The Forerunner is not your typical political memoir. Bush, 46, is not your typical politician. She is a registered nurse, ordained pastor, community activist and organiser and single mother. A Democrat from St Louis, she is the first Black woman to represent Missouri in the US Congress. She is also a survivor and embodiment of resilience.She realises that her frank recollection of abortion as a traumatic experience is politically loaded and could be seized upon by anti-abortion activists to further their cause. It comes just a month before midterm elections in which Democrats hope to tap into public anger over the supreme court’s decision to torch the constitutional right to abortion.“I know that many supporters of reproductive rights will be outraged by my decision to share this story,” the congresswoman writes.Yet in a phone interview, she tells the Guardian she has no regrets about including it. “It was a difficult position but this memoir is me telling my story,” she says. “To silence me, to tell me you shouldn’t tell this story because someone else can use it and weaponise it, that’s not an answer. We’ve got to fix the problem. The way to make sure that the problem is highlighted and awareness is placed on the issue is to talk about it.”While the abortion debate is often oversimplified, Bush is offering a reminder of the messy, nuanced reality that she faced as a young Black woman restrained by white medical providers. She continues: “Speaking about what happened wasn’t to condemn abortion providers at all because I work closely with a bunch of providers and reproductive health clinics and I support them.“It’s something that should not have happened to me and it is our work to not only fix certain parts of the system of harm; it is to do the work to fix all of it. But as I also wrote in my book, I was still able to have the services that I needed and the decision was mine to make. In the end, I made the right decision for me.”On the day in June that the supreme court’s rightwing majority overturned its 1973 Roe v Wade ruling, Bush happened to be back at the same clinic where she had undergone that difficult abortion (along with a previous abortion that resulted from a rape when she was 17). The congresswoman was meeting with providers, advocates and the health secretary, Xavier Becerra, when the news came through.“My chief of staff walked up to me during the conversation and showed me his phone and I couldn’t believe it at first. I kept blinking and looking at his phone. Even though we knew that it was most likely going to come any day, it was still hard to see and for that reality to set in.“Someone said it out loud and stopped the conversation: ‘The supreme court just overturned Roe.’ We all embraced one another. I shed tears, I yelled, I hollered out because I was thinking about the millions of people across this country that will be affected by this.”The court’s decision led to a surge of women registering to vote in some states. In Missouri’s neighbour Kansas, people voted overwhelmingly to continue to protect abortion in the state constitution. But recent midterm opinion polls suggest that Democratic anger over Roe v Wade could be eclipsed by Republican concerns over inflation and crime.Bush insists, however: “It’s a huge motivator because we have to remember that this is something that had been in place since 1973 – this was in place when I was born. There are a lot of us that only know a Roe v Wade society and there are people who may not agree with abortion but they also don’t agree with their rights being stripped away. Those folks are saying that’s going to make me show up to vote for the Democrat because I don’t want my rights being taken away.”Bush brings lived experience to Capitol Hill in ways unthinkable for a career politician. Having been evicted from her home several times, forcing her to sleep in her car with her children, last year she slept on the steps of the US Capitol in protest after Congress failed to pass legislation to extend an eviction moratorium (the White House eventually issued a new eviction moratorium).In 2014 she was on the frontlines of the uprising in Ferguson, Missouri, after the police killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown. This made her a target for harassment. Her tyres were slashed while her car was parked in front of the complex where she lived. She came home and found her front door had been tampered with.Bush needed to move home. In 2016, a few weeks after losing a Democratic primary election for the Senate, she saw a social media post by a local faith healer advertising a house to rent. When she got in touch and went to see it, the man raped her. She describes the assault in unflinching, unforgiving detail and writes: “I whimpered through the pain. It seemed like forever. I felt like dying. I wanted to die.”Bush explains by phone why she choose to open her memoir with this candid account: “That changed everything and I am still in therapy now. I’m still walking out that journey to healing. It affected my life the way that it did because, when I thought about the sexual assaults I had back when I was 18, early adult, I went for the next 20 years blaming myself, like it was because my shorts were really short or my shirt was low or where I was when I met the person. I carried that for all of those years.“This time I had just completed my first run for office and lost; I was grieving that but I was a registered nurse now, I was taking care of two kids, I had just come from work, I was in my scrubs uniform, I was going to a place to see a home. That’s what really rocked me. Before, I thought it was because of something I did; I didn’t do any of those things this time; I wasn’t drinking, any of it.“So that’s why the book had to start with that, because my life turned upside down but, as I’m working through it, I’ve been able to help so many others and so many others have also helped me to be able to move forward.”Can Democrats win tight midterm races with a pro-choice message? Pat Ryan says yesRead moreAfter the rape, Bush was horrified by the lack of discretion she was afforded. She tells how “a caravan” of people followed her to hospital and she was subjected to the humiliation of a rape kit. A forensic exam found that the encounter could have been an assault or, as the rapist had claimed, consensual rough sex. Bush went to court four times to get a protection order against the faith healer but repeatedly lost.As a Christian, has she been able to forgive the man who raped her? She pauses. “Let me just say I have some forgiveness but is there a blanket all-is-forgiven? I’m still working through that. I’ve always believed that forgiveness is for you, not for the other person, and so usually I’m quick to forgive.“But in this instance, because there was some trust there and he hurt me the way that he hurt me and then he lied as a man of God and preacher of the gospel, and he continues on in this lie and continues to evade the system, that has made it difficult for me to just be like, yes, I forgive him and I’m going on with my life.”The Forerunner also gives Bush’s insider account of joining thousands of activists on the streets in response to the 2014 shooting of Brown in Ferguson. She recalls how the skin on her face and arms burned after police fired teargas. The uprising went on for more than 400 days and, Bush argues, became a pivot point in the centuries-long struggle for Black liberation.It also foreshadowed the nationwide protests for racial justice that followed the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020. But calls from Bush and others to “defund the police” met with a predictable backlash, even from Joe Biden and other Democratic leaders. Some fear that the momentum of Black Lives Matter is again being lost.But Bush contends that the working and the organising goes on: “Even if we’re not on the streets every single day chanting and marching, are we organising folks to get them to the polls? Are we organising groups to be able to teach people what to do if you get pulled over by the police? Are we organising groups to teach white people how to talk about and understand racism? Are we mobilising people to support our immigrant community if they’re under attack? Are we organising for repro rights?”She accuses Republicans of wilfully distorting the central idea of defund the police, which means reallocating funding away from police departments to mental health workers, social workers and other government agencies. “They would rather scare their people instead of educating them.”Bush became a leader of the movement seeking police and criminal justice reform in Ferguson and across the St Louis area. She lost a Democratic primary race for a congressional seat in 2018 but, with the backing of progressive group Justice Democrats, prevailed in 2020 over a 20-year incumbent. She was instantly embraced as a member of “the squad” in the House of Representatives; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez describes her as a “sister-in-service”.There have been wins and losses under Biden, a longtime moderate. The president declared racial equity a central plank of his agenda, appointed a diverse cabinet and far outpaced his predecessors in nominating women and people of colour to the federal bench. But legislation on police reform and voting rights stalled in a Congress where Democrats command only narrow majorities. Bush regards the glass as half full.“Joe Biden has absolutely surprised me,” she says, citing his decisions to commute the sentences of 75 people serving time for nonviolent drug offences, cancel billions of dollars in student loan debt and lift a pandemic-related expulsion policy that effectively closed America’s asylum system at its border with Mexico.Many idealists have arrived in Washington only to find their dreams crushed by compromise. Is Bush changing Congress or is Congress changing her? She laughs. “Congress is changing me a little bit in the way of helping me to see how, by pushing, our government can work for the regular everyday person. Not understanding the inner workings of Congress before, I wasn’t able to see it but I knew that I needed to go inside of it to push for the change I wanted to see.“But mostly I’m changing Congress because I’ve been there less than two years and we have been able to bring about some change and, if nothing else, my colleagues know where I stand on issues. They don’t have to wonder what’s going to happen if a policing bill comes forward, if we talk about Israel-Palestine, if they relate to equity and inclusion, anything that has to do with incarceration rates. There is no question. People know that I stand on the side of equity and equality.”TopicsCori BushUS politicsUS midterm elections 2022Biden administrationAbortionRoe v WadeinterviewsReuse this content More

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      ‘For me, it’s about the mission’: why Cori Bush is just getting started in Congress

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      Interview‘For me, it’s about the mission’: why Cori Bush is just getting started in Congress Lauren Gambino in Washington Missouri congresswoman says she was sent to Washington to disrupt the political order that had long stopped working for people like herselfIf the American political status quo was working, Congresswoman Cori Bush might not have slept on the steps of the US Capitol to demand an extension of a coronavirus-era eviction moratorium. She might not have testified about her decision to have an abortion, consigning the details of her experience to the official congressional record. Perhaps she might not have run for Congress at all.But as the St Louis congresswoman sees it, she was sent to Washington to disrupt a political order that had long ago stopped working for people like herself – a nurse, pastor and activist who has worked for minimum wage, once lived out of a car and raised two children as a single mother. And she says she is only just getting started.Squad goals: Ocasio-Cortez warns Biden patience is wearing thinRead more“I ran and I lost and I ran and I lost. I kept running because there was a mission behind it,” Bush said in an interview. “It wasn’t about me wanting to be somebody in Congress – I know some people have those aspirations – but, for me, it was more about the mission. And I have not completed that mission yet.”Halfway through an extraordinary first term, and gearing up for reelection, Bush is one of the most recognizable – and quotable – members of the House. Part of the progressive “Squad”, she believes deeply that her own personal hardships make her a better and more responsive representative. Her personal story is what connects her to her constituants and what sets her apart in Congress.When her colleagues left Washington for their weeks-long summer recess without securing an extension of the federal eviction moratorium, Bush stayed behind. Having experienced the pain of poverty and eviction, she couldn’t fathom leaving hundreds of thousands of Americans vulnerable to homelessness as the coronavirus ravaged the US. In an instant, she decided to stage a sit-in on the steps of the US Capitol.Her protest on the Capitol steps drew widespread national attention and effectively shamed party leaders into finding a solution where they had insisted there was none. Eventually, the White House extended the temporary ban on evictions.The hard-won victory was an important moment for Bush and her team. She said it proved to her constituents in St Louis that she would always put them first, even if it put her at odds with Democrats, party leadership, even the president of the United States.“For us, winning that extension of the eviction moratorium was a huge part of the story of who we said that we would be in Congress, we said we would do the work, do the absolute most, and that was the absolute most we could do.”Now, she continued, “the White House knows that about us, too.”Bush describes herself a “politivist” – part politician, part activist. In her view, the roles are complementary, not oppositional.“Oftentimes people expect you, because you hear it in your communities, that when you go to Congress, you’re going to change. That is the expectation,” she said. “I think that we’ve already been able to show that St Louis is first…. St Louis is the heart of every single thing that we do.”Bush rose to prominence as a Black Lives Matter organizer in Ferguson, Missouri, where the movement was born after the 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr was shot and killed by a white police officer. The daughter of a local alderman, Bush said it wasn’t until the protests that she considered running for public office.‘It was just unconscionable’: Cori Bush on her fight to extend the eviction moratoriumRead moreIn 2020, Bush became the first Black woman to represent the state of Missouri when she was elected to Congress after two unsuccessful campaigns – first for Senate in 2016 and again in 2018 for Congress. To win, she unseated the Democratic incumbent, William Lacy Clay. Clay had held the seat for 20 years, having succeeded his father, William Clay Sr, a founder of the Congressional Black Caucus, who was first elected in 1968.She was sworn in three days before the Capitol was attacked by a pro-Trump mob.“We were still moving into our office when the insurrection happened,” she said. “We didn’t have a panic button yet.”“So that was our introduction to Congress,” she continued. “Since we started off in such an unexpected place, a horrible place, for us, it was just like, ‘OK, dig in.’”While locked in their office, Bush and her staff drafted a resolution to “investigate and expel” any member of Congress who attempted to overturn the election results and “incited a white supremacist attack”.The resolution reflected the increasing hostility between members of Congress. At times, Bush has said she feels targeted by her own colleagues.Shortly after the attack, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, ordered the relocation of Bush’s office, after she asked to be moved away from congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene out of concern for her staff’s safety.Earlier this month, Bush joined House progressives in pressuring the party’s leaders to strip congresswoman Lauren Boebert of her committee assignments over her Islamophobic comments targeting Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is Muslim. At a press conference, she unloaded on Boebert, calling her a “lying, Islamophobic, race-baiting, violence-inciting, white supremacist sentiment-spreading, Christmas tree gun-toting elected official” who is a “danger” to her country and her colleagues.Like her colleagues in the “squad”, Bush has been unafraid to challenge Democratic leaders, even the president.“I am who I am,” she said. “I don’t take off my activist hat to be able to legislate in Congress. And so that has been the guiding force this entire time.”During a tense standoff over Biden’s agenda earlier this year, Bush charged Democratic leaders with breaking their promise to progressives by decoupling two pieces of Biden’s agenda – a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a sweeping social policy package. In a word, she captured progressives’ sense of betrayal: “Bamboozled.” TV network chyrons snapped to reflect the comment and soon Bush was on TV arguing their case. House leaders delayed the vote.A month later, Bush was one of just six House Democrats to vote against the infrastructure bill that Biden signed into law last month. Not because she opposed the legislation, which would spend billions upgrading Missouri’s bridges and highways, but because she feared that passing the bill without the larger social policy that was a priority for progressives would sap them of their leverage.Bush now fears she was correct. After a months-long effort to appease conservative Democratic senators, Joe Manchin announced that he could not support the $2.2tn social safety net bill, dooming its chances in the evenly divided chamber.Bush, who previously denounced Manchin’s opposition to the package as “anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman, and anti-immigrant”, laid the blame squarely on party leadership.“Honestly, I’m frustrated with every Democrat who agreed to tie the fate of our most vulnerable communities to the corporatist ego of one Senator. No one should have backed out of our initial strategy that would have kept Build Back Better alive,” she tweeted. Tagging the president, she said: “You need to fix this.Still, the activist in Bush is not done fighting for the measure, which passed the House in November. “We cannot spend the next year saying, ‘the House did its part, and now it’s the Senate’s turn,’” she said recently. “We need the Senate to actually get this done.”Bush is also working to elevate issues of racial justice that she said the party does not do enough to prioritize.Efforts to pass police reform collapsed earlier this year, and voting rights legislation remains stalled in the Senate. The supreme court will soon decide the future of abortion access.Bush said her Capitol protest was inspired by the moment, but she does not rule out future action.“If I feel led to move in that way, based upon whatever is happening, it is never off the table for me,” she said.Some lawmakers are critical of her legislative style. They call it divisive at worst and naive at best. The suggestion is that she will eventually have to learn to compromise and play by the rules.But in light of Manchin’s opposition, Bush is even more certain of her approach.“If that were the gold star, we would be a lot further in this country,” she said. “There’s more than one way to get things done.”TopicsCori BushUS politicsDemocratsBiden administrationinterviewsReuse this content More

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      'Accountability, not yet justice': how the US reacted to the Chauvin verdict – video

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      Across many US cities, there were scenes of jubilation after Derek Chauvin was found guilty for the murder of George Floyd. Crowds gathered outside the court room in Minneapolis as well as at the scene of George Floyd’s death. Loud cheering erupted from Floyd’s family members watching in an adjacent courthouse room. But the elation was tinged with wariness and concern that while justice was done for one Black person, it would not be enough by itself

      ‘Just the beginning’: joy and wariness as crowds celebrate Chauvin verdict
      ‘My brother got justice’: George Floyd’s family praises guilty verdict
      ‘The work continues’: Black Americans stress that police reform is still needed More

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      Cori Bush says she's moving office away from GOP extremist over safety concerns

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      Sign up for the Guardian’s First Thing newsletterThe Democratic representative Cori Bush said she is moving her office away from that of Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene due to safety concerns after Greene and her staff berated her and refused to wear masks.“I’ve worked fast food. I’ve worked in childcare. I’ve worked in healthcare. I’ve never been in a work environment like this before,” Bush said in an interview with MSNBC’s Joy Reid on Friday evening.Earlier in the day, Bush, a freshman representative from Missouri, had said in a statement that staff working for Greene, the newly elected Georgia congresswoman who supports the pro-Trump, antisemitic and racist QAnon conspiracy theory, had yelled after her in the underground tunnel connected to congressional office buildings: “Stop inciting violence with Black Lives Matter”.Bush told MSNBC she is moving her office, “not because I’m scared” of Greene, “because I am here to do a job for the people of St​ Louis”.“What I cannot do is continue to look over my shoulder wondering if a white supremacist in Congress, by the name of Marjorie Taylor Greene … is conspiring against us,” she said.Calls for Greene to be expelled from Congress or be censured have grown in recent days, amid reports that she has endorsed calls for violence against political opponents. In past social media posts uncovered by CNN, Greene indicated support for executing Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. In a 2018 Facebook post reported by MediaMatters, she echoed conspiracy theories that the wildfires that ravaged California that year were caused by a laser from space triggered by a group of Democratic politicians and companies for financial gain. And in a 2019 confrontation with survivors of the Parkland mass shooting documented on tape, she appeared to accost the students and later echoed conspiracy claims that mass shooting survivors and family members of victims are “crisis actors” and the attacks that killed their loved ones were staged as a plot to pass gun control laws.Greene has accused Bush of leading a “terrorist mob” because she was a prominent Black Lives Matter activist.The incident between Bush and Greene occurred on 13 January, and is a sign of growing strife in Congress following the pro-Trump riot that left at least five people dead. With Donald Trump facing an impeachment trial in the Senate for inciting the violence, many Republican leaders have avoided taking a clear stance against colleagues who egged on or encouraged the riot.[embedded content]The House Republican leader, Kevin McCarthy, is reportedly planning to meet with Greene on Monday to discuss her altercation with Bush. Still, the California Democrat Jimmy Gomez earlier this week announced plans to introduce a resolution to oust Greene as a rebuke of her calls for violence against lawmakers. Survivors of the Parkland shooting have also called on representatives to censure Greene, and March for Our Lives – the student-led gun violence prevention advocacy group that formed in the aftermath of Parkland, issued a one-word statement directed at Greene: “Resign”.The non-governmental Republican Jewish Coalition said on Friday it is working with lawmakers “regarding next steps in this matter” and noted that it opposed Greene’s 2020 election because “she repeatedly used offensive language in long online video diatribes” and “promoted bizarre political conspiracy theories”.Two-thirds of Congress would have to vote to expel Greene, which is unlikely to happen given that Republicans control slightly under half the seats.Greene is not the only first-term Republican member-facing scrutiny: Lauren Boebert of Colorado was warned that she could face criminal penalties if she carries out her publicly stated desire to bring her Glock into Congress.Several Republicans have complained about the metal detectors installed at the Capitol following the deadly attack earlier this month. The House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, announced fines for members ignoring metal detectors or refusing to wear face masks amid the pandemic.Reacting to video that Greene released following Bush’s allegations, Bush said: “She had the audacity to be walking through this space on her phone showing people that she was not going to adhere to the rules of the House,” Bush said. “Put your mask on.” More

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      in US Politics

      'We weren't intimidated': A diary of Cori Bush's first two weeks in the House

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      The first two weeks of Cori Bush’s freshman week in Congress couldn’t have been more turbulent. Three days after the Missouri representative was sworn in, the Capitol was stormed by white supremacists looking to overturn the election. She gave her first criticisms of the Biden administration, saw her Twitter following grow by 185,000 and, last but not least, voted to impeach the president. And she did all of it without a paycheck, as one of the very few representatives that was neither a millionaire nor a career politician before joining the House of Representatives. The Guardian caught up with her to discuss her first fortnight in the House.Week oneDay oneBeing sworn in was … Surreal. Seeing my name on the nameplate outside the door, getting my voting card and member pin, and having much of my family by my side meant so much to me. We took our seat; we opened our office, we cast our votes on the House floor. I wish all of St Louis could have been with me; it’s such an incredible honor to serve the community I’ve always loved. Being mistaken for Breonna Taylor was … Disappointing. We had just arrived to the auditorium, people were getting settled, walking around and introducing themselves. I was wearing a Breonna Taylor mask. Someone walked up to me and said “Hello Breonna,” and it stunned me. I paused, thinking, did I hear them correctly? I turned my head to make sure no one else was standing there. And then it happened again, and again, and again.That told me a lot. [The Republican party] dismissed the Black Lives Matter protests publicly, and yet [these representatives] didn’t even understand why we were protesting. Shouldn’t they be paying attention to what’s happening around the country?Day threeBeing in the Capitol when white supremacists stormed it was … What I was trained for. I come from the movement – we’ve faced tanks, police dogs, teargas, rubber bullets, you name it. We came here to fight for the people of St Louis, and we were not going to be intimidated by these insurrectionists. We locked ourselves in the office and got to work.Calling to expel the Republicans who tried to overturn the election was … something I never thought would be my first piece of legislation. This is a sad moment in our nation’s history, but it calls for us to act urgently in defense of democracy. Section 3 of the 14th amendment is clear: no person who works in rebellion against the United States government can hold the office of representative, senator or president. I’m proud to lead my colleagues in holding them accountable.Having the moment for celebration after the historic Democratic win in Georgia snatched away was … Unsurprising. Black joy, Black excellence, Black success – it is so often met with white violence. It’s a tradition that goes back to the foundation of our country. This is part of why we say we must legislate in defense of Black lives. It’s why I stood on the House floor, before voting to impeach this president, and called him out for what he is: the white supremacist-in-chief.Being part of “the Squad” is … Helpful. They offer advice, I ask them what some might call stupid questions, but I am able to talk to them as my sisters. They have really helped my transition.My policy will be shaped by … Those who have to choose between life-saving prescriptions and groceries; the people who are working three jobs and still can’t make ends meet; the sex workers, and those who have never been given the opportunity or resources to thrive. For decades, legislators have focused on helping the wealthy and well-connected. I’m focused on serving those who have been given the least because that is what the government is supposed to do.A summary of week one:Outfits thrifted: Many, but can you tell?
      High point: the thousands of small interactions I’ve had with people in my district. To make their lives better is my greatest privilege and honor.
      Low point: To be locked in my office with my team and not know what was happening and whether we all would be safe. We all deserve to be able to feel safe in our homes, in our communities and in our places of work.
      Week twoDay eightGetting my first paycheck has … Still not happened. There’s a reason why most people who run for Congress are wealthy – it’s expensive. It means working all day, every day without a paycheck, without health insurance. Or running a campaign and having a second full-time job. How are working people supposed to do that? I’m a single mom and I’ve been unhoused. I know what it’s like to struggle, but most people in Congress don’t. We have to make it easier for regular, working people to run and to serve.Moving to DC was … Hard, during the pandemic, without any money. But I have some furniture now. I have finally moved off the air mattress!Day 10Getting booed during a speech about white supremacy was … Proof they heard me. They showed their true colors. They booed a Black woman talking about ending, dismantling, rooting out white supremacy. And they said no! They said no on live TV. That’s exactly what America needed to see: even after an insurrection that could have killed lawmakers, that killed innocent people, they still were like “we want to hold on to white supremacy”.What does it mean when they boo the Black congresswoman denouncing white supremacy?— Cori Bush (@CoriBush) January 13, 2021
      Day 11The policy I will keep being vocal about is … A universal basic income. I’ve called for $2,000 monthly survival checks and last month the House voted to send a one-time payment of $2,000 for families. I think we need to recognize that poverty is a policy choice and it is my intention to keep fighting until economic prosperity can be shared by everyone.The US can only heal through … Accountability. After four years of the Trump administration, where we’ve seen communities devastated and the moral fabric of our country torn to shreds – we need justice for all we have been forced to endure. I’m going to fight to make sure every person has access to healthcare, housing and education – we can’t compromise on those things because we’re talking about whether or not someone can live.A summary of week two:High point: Leslie Jones giving commentary about a TV interview I did. She was so passionate, saying go ahead sister! I carry that with me, that people are right here and not even affiliated with politics, saying, “We got you.”
      Presidents impeached: 1 (but for the second time).
      Days off: You’re kidding, right? More

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      in Elections

      'Dollars don't vote': Ocasio-Cortez and the 'Squad' rally for action on climate crisis – video

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      The New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was among members of the ‘Squad’, a group of progressive Democrats, who spoke at a Sunrise Movement rally in Washington to push Joe Biden on tackling the climate emergency.
      AOC said they would urge Biden to ‘keep his promises’ to working families, women, minorities and climate activists as he fills his cabinet.
      In July, Biden outlined an ambitious climate plan that would spend $2tn over four years investing in clean-energy infrastructure while vowing to cut carbon emissions from electrical power to zero in 15 years
      Climate activists ramp up pressure on Biden with protest outside Democratic headquarters
      Why Biden calls Trump a ‘climate arsonist’ – video explainer More