Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) announced early Friday morning that she and her staff were switching to a different office following a heated dispute with far-right extremist Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), which occurred on January 13.
“A maskless Marjorie Taylor Greene and her staff berated me in a hallway. She targeted me and others on social media,” Bush tweeted. “I’m moving my office away from hers for my team’s safety.”
An aide for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) confirmed Bush’s relocation in an email to TPM.
“This room assignment change was by the direct order of the Speaker upon request,” the aide said.
On Friday afternoon, Bush put out a statement laying out her account of the altercation. It began when Greene walked up behind her while “ranting loudly into her phone while not wearing a mask,” according to the Democrat.
“Out of concern for the health of my staff, other members of Congress, and their congressional staff, I repeatedly called out to her to put on a mask,” Bush said. “Taylor Greene and her staff responded by berating me, with one staffer yelling, ‘Stop inciting violence with Black Lives Matter.'”
The Democrat also cited Greene’s violent rhetoric about Democrats on Facebook, along with the Republican’s attacks against her work as a Black Lives Matter organizer, as her reasons for relocating to a different office.
Greene accused Bush of “lying” and tweeted a video of the incident.
In the video, the Republican lawmaker livestreams herself walking down a hallway with her mask hanging under her chin as she rails against Antifa and Black Lives Matter. She is interrupted when Bush tells her to “follow the rules and put on a mask” off-camera. The video ends after Greene pulls her mask up and complaining to her viewers, “You’re witnessing exactly what we’re having to live through.”
Nick Dyer, Greene’s press secretary, told TPM in an email that Bush “can’t dispute anything” with regard to the video, but did not address TPM’s specific inquiry about Bush’s allegation that one of Greene’s aides had yelled at her.
Besides peddling a host of far-right conspiracy theories, Greene has also made racist comments claiming that Black people are “lazy” and comparing Black Lives Matter activists to neo-Nazis.
Bush has introduced legislation calling for the expulsion of Greene and other Republicans who tried to overturn the 2020 election on ex-President Donald Trump’s behalf.
