Beto O'Rourke Blames Trump Facial Expression for Sparking El Paso Massacre
Struggling to gain ground, Democratic presidential primary candidate Beto O’Rourke doubled down this week on rhetoric comparing President Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler.
The former Texas congressman spoke with Washington Post reporter Robert Costa about his recent on-air claim that “there is so much that is resonant of the Third Reich in this administration.”
If America does not “wake ourselves up to the danger that we face, then this country will die in its sleep,” O’Rourke said.
He went on to claim the president’s mere facial expressions were to blame for a tragic August shooting that killed 22 people in El Paso, Texas.
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“Outside of the Third Reich, give me another example of a Western leader who has called people of one faith inherently defective or dangerous or disqualified from being successful in that country,” O’Rourke said, according to The Hill.
“You ask yourself when you look at the history of the Third Reich,” O’Rourke continued, “how did a modern country, well-educated, a source of innovation and ingenuity, and moral leadership in the world, descend into that level of barbarity, producing a shame that lives with every single German to this day?”
It was, O’Rourke argued, events not dissimilar to a May rally in which Trump shook his head and laughed off an audience member’s suggestion that illegal immigrants crossing the border should be shot that had set Germany on a death spiral that ended in a devastating global conflict and millions of deaths.
This is a make or break moment for the United States of America. And yet, this president, with that shit-eating smirk on his face, smiles and laughs as he threatens everything we care about—including the idea that no one is above the law. pic.twitter.com/UrvsCcDU4y
— Beto O’Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 23, 2019
“So are we in a 1930s moment?” Costa asked O’Rourke.
“In Florida, in May of this year,” O’Rourke told Costa.
“He’s telling that rally in Florida, ‘What are we going to do about these people who are coming here?’ And someone yells out, ‘Shoot them!’ And that crowd roars in laughter and applause.”
“And the president, with that s–t-eating smirk on his face, smiles and laughs in consent — giving the green light to that killer in Allen, Texas, who drove 600 miles to El Paso with an AK-47, who said that he was going to stop the ‘invasion’ that he’d been warned about by the president of the United States.”
Ensuing investigations into the El Paso shooting turned up a manifesto written by the killer in which he said his views on immigration and white supremacy “predate Trump and his campaign for president,” according to The Associated Press.
This was not the first time the former Texas representative has attempted to directly place blame for the shooting on Trump — nor his first attempt at likening Trump to the Nazis.
Talking Trump and more w/ 2020 Presidential candidate Beto O’rourke on #PoliticsNation. pic.twitter.com/MdkghL1MSv
— Reverend Al Sharpton (@TheRevAl) October 20, 2019
According to RealClearPolitics, O’Rourke received major pushback from even Democrats and the establishment media after telling MSNBC’s Al Sharpton on Sunday that Trump believes “the bigger the lie, the more obscene the injustice, the more dizzying the pace of this bizarre behavior, the less likely we are to be able to do something about it.”
O’Rourke even suggested this strategy might be “inspired” by Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
The increasingly sensationalist rhetoric has proved to do little for O’Rourke’s polling numbers, however.
The candidate has been unable rise above 3 percent support nationwide, according to recent polling data.
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