ABC’s Good Morning America took a break from its superficial 8:00 a.m. Eastern hour that’s usually dominated by celebrity interviews and corporate whoring to give a gooey platform to Squad member and Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-MO). It included repeatedly giving Bush the floor to go unchallenged in emphasizing the need to defund the police.
Of course, there wasn’t any genuine pushback to her radical agenda and hypocrisy on demanding police departments are defunded while she herself gets to keep private security and represent St. Louis, where crime is soaring.
Co-host Michael Strahan was giddy in a tease: “Coming up, from single mom to activist to congresswoman, Representative Cori Bush’s inspiring personal story. You don't want to miss that and she is here live.”
Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos did the interview as part of Bush’s book tour and started with a softball skirting over the riots and destruction of property in Ferguson in 2014 (click “expand”):
STEPHANOPOULOS: Welcome to GMA. So, you got your political start in — coming out of the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson. Why was that moment so pivotal?
BUSH: First of all, it was a moment we didn't know was coming, you know. There was no playbook that said, hey, if this happens in your community, do this. So, it — I just stepped out on the streets during the protest as a nurse, as clergy, as someone of the community that just wanted to see justice happen, and I never had a desire to run for office, never had a desire. My father's been in politics for most of my life and so, I said I would never do it. But it was through that that I saw how policy can help — help bring transformative change to communities or it can hurt.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And — and you’ve stuck by it.
Stephanopoulos boasted that Bush “stuck by” her desire to “bring transformative change” as “one of the few Democrats who still says let's defund the police.”
Showing concern for his team and not the American people, Stephanopoulos asked: “Are you worried at all that could hurt some of your colleagues going into the midterm elections?”
Bush didn’t back down and instead insisted “we have to tell the entire narrative” about its necessity because “[p]eople hear defund the police, but you know what they'll say? Say reallocate. Say divest, say move, but it's still the same thing.”
“We can't get caught up on the words. We — people spend more time focusing on the word defund than they spend on caring and addressing the problem of police violence in this country,” she added.
After a question about how she persevered in life through “episodes of abuse and assault throughout your life,” Stephanopoulos returned to defund the police: “The Helping Families Heal Act. What is that?”
Bush explained that she’s pushing it alongside “the mother of Mike Brown who was killed in Ferguson in 2014” to “allocat[e] $100 million to be able to help...families heal” anytime a loved one is killed in a police-involved incident.
Naturally, there wasn’t any discussion of the circumstances for how someone ended up dead and whether the shooting was justified.
“[T]here’s no government-funded program to help those families...[I]n 2021, there were only 15 days where the police did not kill someone. That's a lot of people affected that could use mental health services,” she said.
Stephanopoulos didn’t press and instead ended with this eyeroller: “So, you ran for Congress as a single mom of two kids with a full time job. How did you juggle it all?”
Tuesday’s segment promoting defund the police and robbing citizens of protection from rising crime was made possible thanks to the endorsement of advertisers such as Febreze and Toyota. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant ABC transcript form October 4, click “expand.”
ABC’s Good Morning America
October 4, 2022
8:35:14 a.m. Eastern [TEASE]MICHAEL STRAHAN: Coming up, from single mom to activist to congresswoman, Representative Cori Bush’s inspiring personal story. You don't want to miss that and she is here live.
(....)
8:38 a.m. Eastern
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Live on GMA; Rep Cori Bush Talks “The Forerunner”; Missouri Congresswoman on New Memoir & Her Journey into Politics]
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Congresswoman Cori Bush is the first black woman to represent Missouri's First Congressional District. In her memoir, The Forerunner describes her journey from nurse, pastor, and community activist. Thank you for joining us.
CONGRESSWOMAN CORI BUSH (D-MO): Thank you for having me.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Welcome to GMA. So, you got your political start in — coming out of the Black Lives Matter movement in Ferguson. Why was that moment so pivotal?
BUSH: First of all, it was a moment we didn't know was coming, you know. There was no playbook that said, hey, if this happens in your community, do this. So, it — I just stepped out on the streets during the protest as a nurse, as clergy, as someone of the community that just wanted to see justice happen, and I never had a desire to run for office, never had a desire. My father's been in politics for most of my life and so, I said I would never do it. But it was through that that I saw how policy can help — help bring transformative change to communities or it can hurt.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And — and you’ve stuck by it. In fact, you're one of the few Democrats who still says let's defund the police. Are you worried at all that could hurt some of your colleagues going into the midterm elections?
BUSH: So, the thing about defund the police is we have to tell the entire narrative. People hear defund the police, but you know what they'll say? Say reallocate. Say divest, say move. But it's still the same thing. We can't get caught up on the words. We — people spend more time focusing on the word defund than they spend on caring and addressing the problem of police violence in this country.
STEPHANOPOULOS: In your book, you recount episodes of abuse and assault throughout your life.
BUSH: Yes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Was it hard to tell that part of the story?
BUSH: It was — it was hard because I had to keep going. Every time I did an edit, I had to keep going back into those moments and I’ve been in therapy since this happened in 2016 — since the last one in 2016 and I had to keep sitting back in that moment and reliving it all over again to be able to — to write this book. I cried a lot. I cried a lot or I wanted to knock over the laptop. It was very, very difficult.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you hope people get from reading that?
BUSH: To know that you can be someone who has a different background than what people think is, you know, deems you appropriate or deems you, you know, qualified. You can come from places of trauma like me, not that you should, you know, but you can come from places of trauma like me and still do amazing things. Like, you know, people want to throw you away because you have, you know, a background where you've come through pain and struggle, but that's not the case. You know, we rise out of those ashes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And you're putting that to work in Congress. The Helping Families Heal Act.
BUSH: Yes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: What is that?
BUSH: Yes, the Helping Families Heal Act. I actually worked on this bill with the mother of Mike Brown who was killed in Ferguson in 2014 — worked on it with her because I was out there on the ground, I've worked with her, I worked with other families who have experienced police violence and have been impacted so negatively and wanted to make sure that there were mental health resources there for the students, mental health resources for the families, allocating $100 million to be able to help those families heal and have those mental health services because there’s no government-funded program to help those families and when — in — just in 2021, there were only 15 days where the police did not kill someone. That's a lot of people affected that could use mental health services.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So, you ran for Congress as a single mom of two kids with a full time job.
BUSH: Yes.
STEPHANOPOULOS: How did you juggle it all?
BUSH: It was tough. But, you know, it — it was one day at a time. You know, you got to speak here, you go there. You figure out how to get dinner. I tell you what I did, though. I oftentimes made dinner on Sunday, packed it up, had it ready for the full week. My kids could pull it out and heat it up, but it was very, very tough but the mission was greater than what I had to go through to be able to get there.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you for coming in this morning.
BUSH: Thank you for having me.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The Forerunner is available now.
