Ousted Squad Dem stumps with radical activist who defended Hamas, promoted political violence
Former Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., is campaigning to return to Congress alongside a self-described Maoist activist and political organizer whose online videos and social media rhetoric has included urging leftists not to disavow Hamas or Hezbollah, has included calls to "unmake" America, applauded burning the American flag and endorsed political violence.
The activist, Christopher Winston, has built an online presence across numerous platforms under the pseudonym "BlackRedGuard," posting and appearing in videos about "Maoist organizing in DSA," attacking leftists who say they do not support "Hezbollah/Hamas" and using rhetoric that appeared to condone political violence. In one video reviewed by Fox News Digital, Winston asked, "What’s wrong with throwing molotovs at a police station?"
Bush, an ousted Squad Democrat mounting a comeback bid in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District, appeared in a recent social media post standing right beside Winston as he participated in supporting her campaign.
Fox News Digital asked Bush’s campaign whether Winston has any formal or informal role with the campaign, whether Bush knows him personally and whether he was invited to the event, but the campaign did not answer those questions, instead sending a link to a Fox News article about Joy Behar, co-host of "The View," defending democratic socialism, noting it "should clear up any questions you have about DSA."
"If you say sh-- like ‘I don’t support Hezbollah/Hamas’ and call yourself a leftist you lame. All power to all the resistance. Peace through the sword," Winston, a St. Louis-area activist working with the DSA said in his social media post shaming those on the left who condemn Hamas and Hezbollah.
Other posts from Winston called to "unmake" America and said the American flag "should always be desecrated."
"Do not fix America. Unmake it," a June 2025 post from Winston's X account said.
"I applaud the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of the slavery and genocide which built America. It should always be desecrated in that way," a separate 2024 post from Winston said.
Meanwhile, during a 2024 video posted on YouTube titled "Debating Commie Gobbledegook (Ft. Black Red Guard)," Winston is asked why, as a Maoist, he chooses to be a part of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).
"Well, it’s obvious why I’m a Maoist in the DSA. There’s a lot of naive young white people to brainwash," he said.
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Fox News Digital reached out to Winston and the DSA for comment on Winston's remarks and affiliation with the group, but did not hear back.
At another point during the same video, Winston questions "what's wrong with throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station?"
When his co-host tried to check him, replying that doing such would be "an easy way to get your whole organization, like, kind of destroyed," Winston shot back: "That’s why we want the masses to do it."
He later argued that if the goal is a "socialist" or "communist" revolution, "people are not going to pick up a gun and fight" for something they do not understand, adding that activists must "teach people what communism is."
A Fox News Digital review of Winston's X account found several social media posts praising Bush, including a 2023 post where he said, "Yeah, I’m a Maoist ultra with dreams of riding into power on a tank like Fidel and Che but in the meantime Cori Bush is the best congressperson right now and we need to back her."
"Cori Bush is the best of STL, and DSA," Winston said in May at a Bush campaign event.
"Cori Bush is running for Congress again. STL-DSA voted to endorse her overwhelmingly. Help beat the AIPAC money that stole her seat here," Winston said last year.
Winston’s appearance alongside Bush is not the first time her political orbit has drawn scrutiny over hard-left activists and anti-Israel figures. Her comeback bid has already faced questions over campaign spending and alliances that critics say show the same activist network is helping power her effort to return to Washington.
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Earlier this year, Fox News Digital reported that Bush’s comeback campaign paid more than $20,000 to "Unbought Power," a consulting firm publicly linked to far-left activist Rasha Mubarak, whose ties to Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s political operation had already drawn scrutiny.
Mubarak has close ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), "which was an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation terror-financing trial," according to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, and has publicly called to "abolish the police," backed defund-the-police efforts and repeatedly accused Israel of "ethnic cleansing" and "apartheid."
"Mubarak has also been a speaker at events held by the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), an organization that promoted the BDS movement," the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy noted in a report. "Previously, in September 2023, she served as the press contact for the Arizona-based non-profit Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), which was investigated for ties to Samidoun, an anti-Israel advocacy group banned in Germany, Canada, and Israel and classified as a terrorist entity in the United States for financing the PFLP."
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In her prior campaigns for Congress, Bush also received help from radical anti-Israel activists. During her 2024 re-election bid, Linda Sarsour and Marc Lamont Hill headlined a virtual "Jews for Cori" fundraiser, according to Jewish Insider, which described Sarsour and Hill as "controversial far-left activists with histories of antisemitism."
Sarsour has been accused of praising a convicted terrorist and has compared Zionism to white supremacy, while likening Zionists to neo-Nazis. She had to walk back remarks after stating Israel "is built on the idea that Jews are supreme to everyone else," and lost her seat on the board of the Women's March amid allegations of antisemitism that she subsequently denied.
Hill, meanwhile, was fired from his job at CNN after making anti-Israel comments that his former employer, Temple University, called "virulent anti-Semitism and hate speech."
Bush’s alignment with the anti-Israel left has also repeatedly put her alongside fellow "Squad" Reps. Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Bush, Tlaib and Omar held a news conference outside the U.S. Capitol on Dec. 7, 2023, calling for a cease-fire in Gaza two months after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. Bush and Tlaib later became the only two House members to vote against the No Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act, a bill aimed at barring Hamas members and non-U.S. nationals involved in the Oct. 7 attack from immigration benefits.
Tlaib was eventually censured by the House over her Israel-Hamas rhetoric, including her use of the phrase "from the river to the sea."
Meanwhile, Bush’s rhetoric after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack also drew condemnation from the Biden White House. Fox News Digital reported that Bush called for ending U.S. support for what she described as Israeli "military occupation and apartheid" in the wake of the attack, prompting then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to blast Squad members’ comments as "wrong," "repugnant" and "disgraceful."