“Squad” lawmakers were ripped Saturday for transforming Washington, DC, into a “Hooverville” by sleeping on the Capitol Building’s pristine marble steps in a stunt timed to the expiration of the national eviction moratorium.
The far-left Democrats — Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, Minnesota’s Ilhan Omar and Massachusetts’ Ayanna Pressley — camped outside the historic building Friday night and vowed to continue the sleepover into Sunday.
“We slept at the Capitol last night to ask them to come back and do their jobs. Today’s their last chance. We’re still here,” Bush tweeted Saturday alongside photos of herself and staffers in hoodies and blankets.
“The night went better than what a night would really looked like for somebody who was really unhoused,” Bush told reporters from her orange sleeping bag Saturday morning. “We need the powers that be to understand that we’re not going to let this go quietly.”
Photos of their night sleeping rough show the lawmakers thoroughly surrounded by piles of trash, including discarded Domino’s pizza boxes. Stacks of chips, cookies and other junk food stood ready to sustain them.
Bush and Pressley dropped off to sleep around 5 a.m., as staffers sprawled on the steps and the stone plaza around them.
Meanwhile, Staten Island City Councilman Joe Borelli mocked the display as a woke “Hooverville” — evoking images of the Great Depression shantytowns thrown up by the down-and-out during President Herbert Hoover’s administration.
“The Capitol is looking like everywhere else in the US where the far-left is in charge,” Borrelli said.
New York City GOP mayoral candidate Curtis Sliwa added that the “Squad camp” reminded him of Penn Station.
“The only thing this didn’t have was marshmallows around an open fire,” he quipped.
One glaring absence from the sleepover was New York’s own Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. The Squad stalwart posted video Friday evening in which she offered supportive words of encouragement.
“Everybody knew this was coming,” AOC said in the clip, clapping her hands for emphasis. “We have members within our own caucus threatening to go on vacation” rather than extend eviction protections. She did not respond to The Post’s queries on where she spent the rest of the night.
Omar, too, took a swipe at her own caucus, blasting Dems for skipping town.
“Some of our Democratic colleagues decided that it was more important for them to go on their summer recess instead of protecting the thousands and millions of people that would eventually face eviction,” she told reporters.
The temporary ban on evictions, put in place last year as a pandemic relief measure by President Trump, was set to expire July 31 as a result of a Supreme Court ruling last month.
President Biden, who has taken no action to extend it, instead asked Congress to rush through a bill to solve the problem and called on on states to enact their own relief measures.
About 6.2 million renters are being protected by the eviction ban, according to a recent Harvard University housing report. and another 2.3 million homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments.
But some Republicans say it’s time to get back to normal.
“America’s employers can’t fill a record 9.2 million jobs because the government has been paying people more in unemployment to stay home,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), told The Post.
“So why aren’t they paying their rent?” she asked.
“Small landlords haven’t received income for over a year, yet they’re expected to pay property taxes, a mortgage and water bills,” she pointed out.
A House GOP aide agreed.
“The Squad should encourage people to take one of the millions of available jobs so they can pay their rent instead of defending the right to freeload,” the insider said.
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