‘Squad’ Member Rep. Cori Bush Defends Prison Riot After Condemning Capitol Riot

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cori bush riot

Far-left Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO), a member of the ‘Squad,’ appeared to defend a prison riot that broke out at the downtown St. Louis Justice Center over the weekend.

In a tweet Bush posted on Saturday, she quoted the late Dr. Martin Luther King saying “A riot is the language of the unheard.”

Bush went on to say that she and her team are working to “ensure that the needs of people who are incarcerated are not ignored.”

The freshman Congresswoman also put a more in-depth statement on her Congressional page where she talked about the positivity rates and testing for COVID-19 among those incarcerated.

But it was her apparent support for the riot that broke out on Saturday that became front and center.

RELATED: Squad’s Ayanna Pressley: Capitol Riots Gave Me ‘Deep And Ancestral’ Terror From ‘White Supremacist Mob’

Trouble At The City Jail

According to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, roughly 115 inmates at the Justice Center jimmied already-faulty lock systems and freed themselves from cells.

The fourth floor of the building was taken over as inmates set fires, clogged drains, broke windows, and threw furniture down onto the sidewalk.

While no inmates were reported to have been injured, one corrections officer who was attacked by inmates is recovering from injuries. Mayor Lyda Krewson says damage totals are “way into the thousands of dollars.”

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Bush’s Position On Riots – It’s Complicated

Bush’s comments that seemed to support, or at least justify, the riot drew rebuke and questions.

The National Republican Congressional Committee wondered aloud if any of Bush’s fellow Democrats would also justify the riot at the St. Louis City Jail.

The Daily Caller covered Seattle conservative radio host Jason Rantz, who called Bush a “total failure” and said to Fox News’s Harris Faulkner, “Well, I can look at it and say that Cori Bush is a total fraud unless suddenly she’s decided to change her position on impeachment.”

Rantz was referring to President Trump, who was impeached for allegedly inciting the Capitol riot on January 6th. 

Bush voted to impeach Trump, with the official charge in the article of impeachment reading, “Donald John Trump engaged in high Crimes and Misdemeanors by inciting violence against the Government of the United States.”

RELATED: Bill Maher Claims Christianity Is To Blame For Capitol Hill Riot

Are Riots Good Or Bad?

Just a little over a month ago however, Congresswoman Bush was singing a very different tune when it came to the subject of riots.

In a report from ‘The Hill”, Bush claimed that, “had the rioters that stormed the Capitol earlier in the day been black, they would have been shot.”

The only person shot on January 6th was a white woman, unarmed Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt, who was shot by Capitol Police.

In another report from CNN, Bush called former President Donald Trump the “white supremacist in chief” and described the storming of the Capitol, “a white supremacist insurrection.”

“Madam Speaker, St. Louis and I rise in support of the article of impeachment against Donald J Trump. If we fail to remove a White supremacist President who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s First District that suffer the most,”

While Bush was careful to use the term “insurrection” instead of “riot,” Twitter users were quick to wonder where exactly the Squad member stood on riots. 

One user finished Martin Luther King’s quote for Bush, pointing out that the august Reverend opposed wanton violence:

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has come under fire from the media and the left and was recently removed from her Congressional committees, wondered where Bush stood on riots:

Many Bush defenders were quick to differentiate between “riot” and “insurrection.” 

Dictionary.com defines riot as “a noisy, violent public disorder caused by a group or crowd of persons, as by a crowd protesting against another group, a government policy, etc., in the streets.”

They define insurrection as “an act or instance of rising in revolt, rebellion, or resistance against civil authority or an established government.”

A Google search for “Capitol riot” returns 229,000,000 results, with news outlets TIME, NBC, CNN, New York Times, CBS, and USA Today describing the event as such.

When speaking to the local NBC affiliate immediately following the Capitol Hill riot, Bush describe those storming the Capitol as “not protesters, not demonstrators, that was violence happening in our Capitol.”


Based on that, it seems fair to wonder where exactly Bush stands on riots.

Apparently, Congresswoman Bush has learned the art of Washington D.C. Democrat double standards quickly. 

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