Missouri Rep. Cori Bush claimed to have healed a woman's tumors with her hands.
Bush originally made the claim in her 2022 book, The Forerunner: A Story of Pain and Perseverance in America. The claim was once again highlighted in a weekend piece published by The New York Post's Jonathan Levine, who noted Bush's book had largely gone unnoticed.
“As I learned how to apply God’s Word to my life in new ways, I better understood the power that was already residing in me,” Bush wrote at the time. “It was there, waiting for me to acknowledge it, to use it. I had the confidence to heal others with God’s power.”
The Missouri representative then gave several examples of her ability to heal others.
“One woman whom we met had several visible tumors on her torso. She was due to have surgery but lacked health insurance and living in the park," she claimed. "One of the tumors was particularly painful to her. I laid hands on her and prayed, and I felt that my hand was no longer touching a tumor. It shrank along with the others on her body." Cori Bush's claims of performing miracles and shrinking tumors went almost entirely unnoticed during her 2022 book tour — one person who did ask her about it was @MargaretHoover https://t.co/TDaFocI7Xm pic.twitter.com/oT96BUFhOt
— Jon Levine (@LevineJonathan) June 15, 2024
Bush then claimed to cure a child who was unable to walk due to complications during childbirth.
“I carried the child from the prayer room in the back of the church out into the sanctuary … ‘Walk,’ I said gently to the three-year-old girl, ‘you will walk.’ And this girl took her first step. Then another, and another. She walked," Bush continued. "Her grandmother walked into the sanctuary just in time to see the child take about two dozen steps. She screamed, and then she kept screaming. When she caught her breath, she looked at me in wonder and said ‘Praise God.’ She grabbed her granddaughter and walked with her out of the church.”
Bush's abilities were also discussed during an interview with PBS' Margaret Hoover in October 2022 in promotion of her book.
“At that time, I, along with a group of friends, we would go out on the street and just meet with people, pray with people and offer them food,” Bush told Hoover during the interview. “And this [homeless] lady came to us, and she had these tumors, and she wanted us to like, feel them."
University of California San Francisco's Dr. Monica Gandhi, a professor of medicine, contested Bush's claims saying she didn't believe the Missouri representative.
“Definitely as a physician I would encourage people to seek treatment for cancer and other ailments," Dr. Gandhi said.
Bush's book saw lackluster performance, selling only 729 copies in its first week.
