2020 presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke said that the El Paso mass shooting was “the cost and the consequence” of President Trump.
Former Texas Rep. O’Rourke made the remarks during his opening remarks at Thursday night’s presidential debate in Houston, Texas.
“On Aug. 3, in El Paso, Texas, two things became crystal clear for me and I think produced a turning point for this country. The first is just how dangerous Donald Trump is. The cost and the consequence of his presidency,” O’Rourke began.
“A racism and violence that had long been a part of America was welcomed out into the open and directed to my hometown of El Paso, Texas, where 22 people were killed, dozens more grievously injured by a man carrying a weapon he should never have been able to buy in the first place, inspired to kill by our president,” he continued. “The second is how insufficient our politics is to meet the threat that we have right now. The bitterness, the pettiness, the smallness of the moment, the incentives to attack one another and try to make differences without distinctions, mountains out of mole hills, we have to be bigger.”
O’Rourke has made gun control a big part of his platform since the shooting occurred. Earlier on Thursday, he called for banks and credit card companies to refuse to facilitate purchases of “assault weapons.” O’Rourke also suggested they stop doing business with companies who make them.
