Dem Rep. Wesley Bell, ex-‘Squad’ congresswoman Cori Bush tout fund for nuclear radiation victims tucked into GOP that neither voted for

Rep. Wesley Bell (D-Mo.) and ex-“Squad” congresswoman Cori Bush at a Tuesday press conference in Missouri touted the expansion of a fund for nuclear radiation victims tucked into a Republican megabill that neither voted for.

The onetime Democratic primary foes stood on opposite sides of Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who introduced the provision, in a rare moment of bipartisanship following the months-long fight to pass President Trump’s “big beautiful bill.”

“You’re not gonna always get everything you want and so there are some concerns and issues that many of us have with this budgetary bill,” Bell said of the multitrillion dollar tax-and-spending package Trump signed into law on July 4.

“But at the same time, the folks who have been waiting a long time for compensation to be acknowledged for the pain and suffering,” he added. “That’s one thing that I can rejoice in.”

Bush didn’t step up to the mic to speak but hugged Hawley warmly before he began speaking with reporters.

Bell had waged a punishing primary fight against the Democratic incumbent last year that ultimately ousted her from representing Missouri’s First Congressional District — after she served two terms marred by her outspoken anti-police and anti-Israel rhetoric and votes.

“Let me say this, AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down,” Bush erupted at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that spent $9 million backing Bell in the primary to help unseat her.

Hawley had several times floated the provision to compensate survivors of cancers who were exposed to nuclear waste from the processing of uranium at a St. Louis chemical plant as part of Manhattan Project.

The radioactive residue was known to be affecting residents who lived in the state near Coldwater Creek as early as 1949, according to reports, and the Missouri Republican’s measure added language to the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to aid those afflicted.

The bill’s text expanded federally covered health care eligibility for some treatments related to radiation-linked cancers to include Missouri Tennessee, Kentucky and Alaska and fully covered others in the Arizona, Nevada and Utah.

Complete coverage was also extended to uranium mine workers.

“To look these good people in the eye and listen to their stories — and we’ve heard just a small selection of them today, this is the smallest slice of these stories you’ve heard today, this is truly the tip of the iceberg,” Hawley added Tuesday.

“We’re talking about millions of people who’ve been affected over the years, millions. So my, my strategy was simple. It was just allow force my colleagues to have to listen to these good folks, and we did it over and over.”

The Senate had twice-passed the provision as a standalone bill, but it never cleared the House until last Thursday.

“I won’t name names, but I had quite a few senators sitting on the floor with me as we were voting on this thing at whatever time of the morning, complaining to me, ‘They were like, I can’t believe you got this massive bill in here. How did this happen?’” Hawley revealed.

“And I said it happened because it’s justice, but there’s more to do.”

No Democrats voted for the One Big Beautiful Act in either the House or the Senate, with party leaders decrying the tax cuts as a giveaway to billionaires.

The introduction of work requirements for Medicaid and other tweaks to social safety net programs would remove health care coverage from millions of Americans, Democrats also charged, pointing to figures on the bill provided by the Congressional Budget Office.

“We’re gonna fight and … push back on what happened in this bill with respect to Medicaid and how it impacts so many people, so the work is not done,” Bell said Tuesday, before saying of the radiation fund: “This is one piece of that bill that that I can be happy about and happy for the folks standing by.”

The law is expected to raise the federal deficit by $3.9 trillion over the next decade, which rankled some budget hawks in the Republican conference. It still narrowly passed both chambers of Congress.