Critics are slamming “Squad” member Rep. Cori Bush for a video showing her crying on the Capitol steps in protest of the federal eviction moratorium that expired over the weekend.
“One of the most shameless and embarrassing stunts we’ve ever seen from a politician, and that is saying something,” conservative commentator Matt Walsh said in response to the video.
Bush slept on the Capitol steps Friday evening in protest against the end of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention moratorium on evictions that stemmed from the coronavirus pandemic.
“But when you hear the cries of others. When you hear the suffering of others,” she says in the video, while wiping away tears. “We are already fighting a battle, and losing a battle, because there are people who slept out last night, the night, the night before. There are people who are already un-housed. And we don’t have enough, we don’t have enough shelters, we don’t have enough … we don’t have the safe housing for them right now.”
The video, posted early Saturday morning to Twitter, has received fierce criticisms of “political theater” and comparisons to reality TV.
Bush’s press secretary did not immediately respond to Fox News’s request for a response to the criticisms.
The video comes after the Supreme Court ruled 4-5 in June to allow the CDC to continue its moratorium until July 31, and said that any future extensions would be in Congress’s hands.
CORI BUSH SPENDS NIGHT PROTESTING OUTSIDE US CAPITOL, GETS SUPPORT FROM SQUAD ALLIES OMAR, PRESSLEY
Congress, however, couldn’t muster the votes last week to extend the moratorium, and the Biden administration cited the Supreme Court ruling for why it could not use executive branch powers to extend the expiration date.
“In light of the Supreme Court’s ruling, the President calls on Congress to extend the eviction moratorium to protect such vulnerable renters and their families without delay,” White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said last week.
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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, this weekend, pinned blame for the lack of extension on Democrats in both the White House and Congress, saying on Sunday, “We cannot in good faith blame the Republican Party.”
“The House and House leadership had the opportunity to vote to extend the moratorium, and there was frankly a handful of conservative Democrats in the House who threatened to get on planes rather than hold this vote,” she said on CNN “State of the Union.” “We have to really just call a spade a spade. We cannot, in good faith, blame the Republican Party when House Democrats have the majority.”
