Cori Bush vs. AIPAC: Squad Member in Tough Primary Race as Pro-Israel Lobby Spends $8M to Defeat Her

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Today is Primary Day in Missouri. One of the most closely watched races of the year, Democratic Congressmember Cori Bush is facing off against county prosecutor Wesley Bell. AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and an affiliated super PAC have spent over $8 million in an effort to defeat Bush, who has been a vocal critic of Israel’s war on Gaza. The election comes just weeks after the same super PAC, United Democratic Project, spent over $14 million to help defeat New York Congressmember Jamaal Bowman in his Democratic primary here in New York.

Four years ago, Cori Bush won a stunning primary upset over the 10-term incumbent Congressmember William Lacy Clay Jr. in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District in the St. Louis area. Bush was a leader in the 2014 Ferguson uprising over the police killing of 18-year-old Michael Brown. Prior to taking office, she worked as a nurse. She was also unhoused for a period of time with her children, an experience that led her to become a leading housing advocate in Congress, where she introduced the Unhoused Bill of Rights.

We go right now to St. Louis. We’re joined by Michael Berg, former political director of the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club. He has a new piece for The Nation headlined “I’m a St. Louis Jew. Here’s Why I’m Backing Cori Bush. If AIPAC and its donors defeat her, we won’t just be losing one of Palestine’s staunchest allies but also one of the climate movement’s most effective champions.”

Michael Berg, welcome to Democracy Now! Explain what’s happening in St. Louis now with this massive amount of money that’s being put in to defeat Congressmember Bush.

MICHAEL BERG: Thank you, Amy.

Yes, if you’re in St. Louis and you live here, over the last several weeks, couple months, you look at YouTube, you will see an advertisement either against Cori Bush, a lot of them against Cori Bush, or for Wesley Bell. You go to your television, you hear that. You go to the radio. You get mailers. There’s been — I’ve talked to people who have had over 40 mailers, either anti-Bush or pro-Bell, coming in. It’s just this incredible infusion of money and resources in attacking Bush, in supporting Dell.

And it’s interesting because, as you mentioned, the money is coming from AIPAC, but the attacks have nothing to do with her principled stance for a ceasefire. They’re about other very, very misleading attacks on her coming in. And it’s all meant to push out someone who stands up for Palestinian rights, but who stands up for so many other things. But it’s very duplicitous for this organization to come in and have the money for one reason, and have all these ads that are misleading for other reasons.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Michael, what’s been the stance of the existing Democratic Party machinery, which normally backs an incumbent?

MICHAEL BERG: Well, if you look at the national level, you know, Cori Bush is backed by Hakeem Jeffries and the leadership in Congress, the Progressive Caucus, the Black Caucus. I mean, you have Democrats in the state of Missouri, in the area, who are on both sides of this race. So I can’t say there’s a unified response, but there is a — you know, the union movement, most unions are supporting Bush. She has voted with the AFL–CIO almost 100% of the time. There’s trades have been on the other side, but the other unions have not. So, I’d say there’s been people on different sides.

But the primary thing happening is just this incredible infusion of AIPAC money that’s sort of washed — like, just dominated the airwaves. And people keep hearing it, and people keep hearing it and seeing it. And I’ve hit a lot of doors, knocked a lot of doors, and it has its effect. Misleading statements about her record as far as the infrastructure bill, where she made a principled stance to hold out for — to make sure there’s a child tax credit, to make sure we had more climate provisions — a stance that was taken in 2021 where she stood up and she took a vote. And in the 2022 election, almost nobody heard about it. But here, in the 2024 election, just the airwaves and the mailers are just hammering, hammering, saying she didn’t stand up for your job, she didn’t stand up for clean air and water. And there’s nothing further from the truth. She was standing up many times as much.

And what I found is, you know, I knock on doors, and people have heard these things. And you talk to them, and they say, “Oh, I don’t support her anymore, because she didn’t do this.” And when you explain that, no, she was holding out to get more resources for your children, to make sure we much more further confronted the climate crisis, and the only reason you’re hearing about it now is because she stood up for peace in the Middle East, for a ceasefire, for children to stop being killed with American weapons, and that because of that, you have millions of dollars coming heavily from the same donors who backed Trump, Vance and Senator Hawley. When you let people know that, and that you say, “Why are you hearing so much about this? It’s because people don’t want her there,” you flip the vote. People then support her again, but the problem being, you know: Who’s got the capacity to go to every door and have a 5- to 10-minute conversation? You know, the barrage of misinformation works. And, you know, we’re hopeful. We’re hoping we can counteract it. But it’s been — never seen anything like it.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And what about Wesley Bell? He’s the St. Louis County prosecuting attorney. He previously served on the City Council and was instrumental in policy changes after the police killing of Michael Brown. What’s been the sentiment of voters toward him? But do people even really know him?

MICHAEL BERG: A lot of people know him. I mean, it’s different. St. Louis has confusing jurisdictions. So, St. Louis County is outside of St. Louis city. So, he’s the prosecutor for St. Louis County. The district, Cori Bush’s district, is about half the city of St. Louis and half parts of St. Louis County. People know him.

And I would say, you know, what is disturbing to me is he told Congresswoman Bush that he was not going to run. He told her that. He was running against Josh Hawley, our senator, who is not very popular in this district. And he said he was running against him. And then, when he was offered a deal to get millions of dollars of AIPAC money, he did a 180 and decided to take on, you know, an incumbent progressive Democrat, who’s just been a champion, as I mention in my article, for the climate, for so many things that people care about in this area.

So, I would call him an opportunist who saw an opportunity to go to Congress, while Cori Bush is in it because she wants to represent the interests of ordinary people, the people who are suffering, people who are unhoused. Before she came into office, she was constantly on the streets helping folks who were unhoused, making sure people had resources, food and shelter, when need be. So, I see a clear distinction there.

AMY GOODMAN: Michael Berg, I want to thank you so much for being with us, St. Louis Jewish supporter of Cori Bush, former political director of the Missouri chapter of the Sierra Club. We’ll link to your piece in The Nation, “I’m a St. Louis Jew. Here’s Why I’m Backing Cori Bush.” And, of course, we’ll report on the results of the election, the primary, tomorrow.