Ousted Squad Dem comeback bid puts hardline activist ties back in the spotlight

Former Rep. Cori Bush is campaigning to return to Congress alongside a self-described Maoist activist and political activist whose online videos and social media speeches have included exhorting activists not to denounce Hamas or Hezbollah, including calls to “do” America, calling for burning the American flag and condoning political violence.

The activist, Christopher Winston, has made a name for himself online in several forums under the pseudonym “BlackRedGuard,” posting and appearing in videos about “Maoist descending on DSA,” attacking extremists who say they do not support “Hezbollah/Hamas” and using rhetoric that appears to favor political violence. In one video reviewed by Fox News Digital, Winston asked, “What’s wrong with throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station?”

Bush, the ousted Democrat who is running for re-election in Missouri’s primary district, appeared in a recent social media post standing next to Winston during a campaign rally.

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Fox News Digital asked the Bush campaign whether Winston had an official or unofficial role in the campaign, whether Bush knew him and whether he was invited to the event, but the campaign did not answer those questions, instead posting a link to a Fox News article about Joy Behar, host of “The View,” defending the welfare of democracy, noting that it “should clear up any questions you have about DSA.”

“If you say sh– like ‘I don’t support Hezbollah/Hamas’ and you call yourself a leftist, you’re lame. All power to all opposition. Silence with a sword,” said Winston, a St. Louis activist.

Another post from Winston called it “unfake” America and said the American flag “must always be desecrated.”

“Don’t fix America. Stop,” said a June 2025 post from Winston’s X account.

“I applaud the burning of the American flag. That flag is a symbol of slavery and genocide that built America. It should always be desecrated like that,” 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 part of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

“Well, it’s obvious why I’m a Maoist in DSA. There are a lot of young white people who don’t know that they’re brainwashed,” he said.

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Fox News Digital reached out to DSA for comment on Winston’s comments and affiliation with the group, but did not receive a response.

Members of the Democratic Socialists of America gather outside Trump’s building during a May Day rally in New York City in 2019. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

At one point during the same video, Winston asks the questions “what’s wrong with throwing Molotov cocktails at a police station?”

When his partner tried to check on him, replying that doing so would be “an easy way to get your whole organization, like destroying it,” Winston replied: “That’s why we want the masses to do it.”

He later argued that if the goal is a “socialist” or “communist” revolution, “people won’t pick up guns and fight” something they don’t understand, adding that activists should “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, “Yes, I’m an ultra Maoist with dreams of riding a tank like Fidel and Che but right now Cori Bush is the best congressman right now and we need to support him.”

“Cori Bush is leading STL, and DSA,” Winston said in May at a Bush campaign event.

“Cori Bush is running for Congress again. STL-DSA voted overwhelmingly to endorse her. Help fund AIPAC that stole her seat here,” Winston said last year.

Winston’s appearance at Bush’s side is not the first time that his political path has come under the scrutiny of far-left activists and anti-Israel figures. His comeback bid has already faced questions about campaign spending and alliances that critics say show a similar activist network is helping his bid 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 communications firm publicly linked to far-left activist Rasha Mubarak, whose ties to Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s political career had come under scrutiny. Mubarak has close ties to the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), “a co-conspirator in the 2009 Holy Land Foundation case,” according to the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, and has publicly called for the “abolition of the police,” supporting police defunding and “alleged ethnic cleansing.”

United States Representatives Rashida Tlaib (2nd L), Cori Bush (L) hold a banner calling for a ceasefire and condemning Israel’s attack on Gaza, in front of the US Capitol in the United States on November 8, 2023. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

“Mubarak has also been a speaker at events held by the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), which is the organization behind the BDS movement,” said the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy in a report. “Previously, in September 2023, he worked as secretary of the Arizona-based non-profit organization Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ), which was investigated for ties to Samidoun, an anti-Israel group banned in Germany, Canada, and Israel and designated as a terrorist organization in the United States for financing the PFLP.”

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In his earlier campaigns for Congress, Bush also received help from anti-Israel activists. When he filed for re-election in 2024, Linda Sarsour and Marc Lamont Hill held a “Jews for Cori” fundraiser, according to Jewish Insider, which described Sarsour and Hill as “far-left activists with a history of anti-Semitism.”

Sarsour is accused of praising a convicted terrorist and comparing Zionism to white supremacy, while equating Zionists with neo-Nazis. He was forced to respond after he said Israel was “built on the idea that Jews are superior to everyone else,” and lost his seat on the board of the Women’s March amid accusations that anti-Semitism denied it.

Hill, meanwhile, was fired from his job at CNN after he made comments against Israel that his former employer, Temple University, called “brutal anti-Semitism and hate speech.”

Palestinian activist Linda Sarsour speaks to a group of Jewish activists and allies participating in a Passover Seder outside ICE headquarters in New York City calling for the release of Mahmoud Khalil and an end to the war in Gaza. (Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

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Bush’s association with the anti-Israel left has also set him apart from other “Party” representatives. Tlaib and Ilhan Omar. Bush, Tlaib and Omar held a press conference outside the US Capitol on Dec. 7. 2023, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza two months after Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel. Bush and Tlaib later became the only two House members to vote against the Immigration Benefits for Hamas Terrorists Act, a bill aimed at banning members of Hamas and non-US nationals involved in the Oct. 7 on immigrant benefits.

Tlaib was eventually censured by the House for his Israel-Hamas rhetoric, including his use of the phrase “from the river to the sea.”

Meanwhile, Bush’s speech after the Hamas attack on October 7 also received criticism from the Biden White House. Fox News Digital reported that Bush called for an end to US support for what he described as “military and racist occupation” of Israel after the attack, prompting then-White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to blast the Squad members’ comments as “wrong,” “disgusting” and “disgraceful.”