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Cori Bush Has No Regrets

Rep. Wesley Bell has AIPAC on his side, but the grassroots energy seems to be behind Bush.

The internet had a field day last summer when a picture surfaced of Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., with his arm around a former Democratic member of Congress.

Hawley was at an event in St. Louis, Missouri, celebrating the inclusion of expanded funds for victims of nuclear radiation in President Donald Trump’s signature economic bill. In the photo, the far-right Republican smiled down on former Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who had worked with him on the measure, as he embraced her.

Bush was no longer in Congress at the time. She was ousted from her St. Louis seat in a Democratic primary the summer before, after facing more than $18 million in spending from outside groups, including the super PAC for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

Bush’s AIPAC-backed replacement, Rep. Wesley Bell, stood in the background of the photo, off to the side.

“Cori, thank you,” Hawley said. “We would not be here without you and your work.”

It was a rare show of camaraderie between two officials who rarely saw eye to eye. Bush previously called for Hawley’s removal from office in 2021 and said he had blood on his hands after making a show of solidarity with rioters who attacked the Capitol on January 6.

“One thing that we both respect is fight,” Bush told The Intercept.

“The community came to me and said, ‘Cori, where is our fighter?’”

“The community came to me and said, ‘Cori, where is our fighter?’”

Though they might disagree on a swathe of other issues, they worked together to deliver the package because it was something they both believed in. Bush said the acknowledgment from Hawley was an honor, particularly because she was no longer in Congress when the bill was finalized. Zero Democrats in the House voted for the bill, though Bell said he supported the provision.

“He decided that he wouldn’t forget about me,” Bush said. “And he said that with the current congressman standing behind him. He didn’t acknowledge him.”

Asked recently about the event, Bell said: “I never take it offensively when Josh Hawley does not give me credit.” (Bell’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)

Beyond sparking internet memes speculating that there had been a romantic bent to their embrace, the event and the subsequent photo distilled the heart of Bush’s argument in her campaign to win back her seat on Tuesday in a rematch against Bell.

Bush told The Intercept this cycle is completely different from her last race.

“This cycle, the momentum met me,” she said. “The community asked me to run. The community came to me and said, ‘Cori, where is our fighter?’”

Two Paths From Ferguson

In many ways, the protracted fight between Bell and Bush started long before either of them ran for Congress.

It was the summer of 2014. Bush was working as a nurse and a pastor. Bell had just lost his first campaign for a seat on the St. Louis County Council.

Four days after Bell lost the race, a Ferguson police officer shot and killed 18-year-old Michael Brown Jr. Protests erupted that would rock the city and launch a nationwide movement against police brutality and overpolicing in Black communities.

Cori Bush on the Shame and Power of Poverty

Bush drove to Ferguson on the second night of demonstrations. She provided mental health support to people in the community. Her work in Ferguson and her ascendance in the Black Lives Matter movement would eventually lead her to run for federal office.

At the time, Bell was an assistant professor of criminal justice at St. Louis Community College, in addition to gigs as a municipal judge and a prosecutor. After he lost his 2014 race in St. Louis, Bell soon set to work on his next campaign for another council seat. This time, though, Bell ran in Ferguson in the city’s first election since Brown’s killing.

Ferguson was a majority-Black city with a largely white government, and Bell, the son of a police officer, was at the time one of four Black candidates running to reshape the city council. One supporter compared him to former President Barack Obama and speculated that he might eventually make it to Congress.

Bell would eventually do just that, though perhaps not in the way some of his supporters envisioned it. Bell moved from the Ferguson City Council to the office of the top prosecutor in St. Louis County, campaigning as a reformer........

© The Intercept