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FIRST ON FOX: Former Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who just launched a comeback bid for her old seat, claimed she brought “billions of dollars” home to Missouri’s 1st Congressional District while serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, but public records reviewed by Fox News Digital tell a different story.
During her failed re-election campaign last year, Bush’s fundraising claims for St. Louis skyrocketed from $41 million to $2 billion in less than a month.
“I’m proud to have delivered home over $2 BILLION and counting,” Bush claimed on April 19, 2024.
But less than a month prior, on March 28, 2024, Bush’s campaign submitted language for an ad, which ran for a month beginning on April 3, 2024, touting just $41 million in “community project funding since 2021.” Her campaign has not responded to Fox News Digital’s request to explain the 4,778% increase.
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Federal contract and grant records published by the Departments of Defense and Justice and reviewed by Fox News Digital show that a majority of that funding came from those agencies.
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While in Congress, Bush consistently voted against National Defense Authorization funding, which between Feb. 1, 2021, and May 1, 2024, included $48,812,351 in Department of Defense funding for research at Washington University, Saint Louis University and Vandeventer Place Research Foundation, which are all located in St. Louis.
Bush’s claim that she delivered more than $2 billion to her district seems to include the nearly $49 million in DOD research grants that she voted against.
Through National Defense Authorization funding between 2021 and 2024, Missouri’s 1st congressional district also received at least $6,020,147 from the Department of Justice to increase police department headcounts, provide overtime pay or purchase new equipment.
The district also benefited from $1,286,634,821.76 in Defense Department contracts, primarily for missiles, military aircraft and drone purchases with The Boeing Company.
Bush was also one of six Democrats who voted against former President Joe Biden’s $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which passed through Congress in 2021 as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA).
Much of the government funding that flowed into Bush’s district during her tenure supported programs at odds with her progressive platform.
Bush has a long record of calling to “defund the police,” and in 2020, also called to “defund the Pentagon.”
The former “Squad member” announced last week that she is mounting a comeback congressional bid more than a year after losing her Democratic primary to a more moderate challenger.
While campaigning for re-election in May 2024, Bush said she was proud “to have delivered more than $2 billion” for Missouri’s 1st Congressional District.
On Friday, while launching her comeback bid, Bush more ambiguously touted that she “brought billions of dollars home directly to our community.”
“St. Louis deserves a leader who is built different,” Bush announced in a video shared on social media. “That’s why I’m running to represent Missouri’s 1st District in Congress. We need a fighter who will lower costs, protect our communities, and make life fairer. I’ll be that fighter.”
The “Squad” member was ousted in the Democratic primary in Aug. 2024 by St. Louis County prosecutor Rep. Wesley Bell, D-Mo., who is a more moderate candidate and had the backing of pro-Israel groups that spent millions to unseat Bush.
Democratic Majority for Israel President Brian Romick criticized Bush’s inconsistency with her St. Louis fundraising numbers in a statement to Fox News Digital.
“Cori Bush lied to her constituents last year when she claimed she brought back billions to the district and it’s brazen that instead of owning up to it, she just said it again in her launch video. Cori Bush lost because she was an ineffective Member of Congress and lies like this only remind the voters of that,” Romick said.
“I ran for Congress to change things for regular people,” Bush said in the campaign launch video. “I’m running again because St. Louis deserves leadership that doesn’t wait for permission, doesn’t answer to wealthy donors and doesn’t hide when things get tough.”
Bush was first elected to Congress in Nov. 2020, quickly joining the ranks of the progressive “Squad,” including Democratic Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who were elected in 2018.
The Missouri progressive was re-elected in 2022, but she became the second member of the “Squad” to lose her Democratic primary last year after Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., also lost to a more moderate pro-Israel Democrat.
Fox News Digital reached out to Bush’s campaign multiple times for comment.
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