SAN DIEGO (CN) – Standing on a stage amid a crowd of a few hundred San Diegans Tuesday, 2020 presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke shared stories about his family, what he would do to protect them, and condemned the current administration’s failure to protect the families of American citizens and immigrants.
Days after the shooting at a San Diego synagogue that left a woman dead and others injured, O’Rourke wondered why the government has not taken more steps to prevent such massacres that have become commonplace in the U.S.
“We failed to take action for what reason?” O’Rourke asked.
“I don’t know except the next election, or those polls, or the NRA or the political action committees,” he added.
O’Rourke said his first grader has come home from school talking about active shooting drills, something he believes teachers should not have to be burdened with.
“[We have] a Congress that is complicit in the bloodshed we see,” O’Rourke said
The former Texas congressman’s conversation at his town hall in southeast San Diego – on the last leg of his first California tour since he announced his candidacy – was family-focused, and he recalled vacationing in the city as a child.
“I feel at home here in San Diego,” O’Rourke said of the Southern California city, adding that he used to make an hours-long road trip there as a kid during family vacations.
O’Rourke said his father would cut down the 10 ½-hour drive from El Paso to San Diego to eight or nine hours by catching the drift behind an 18-wheel big rig.
“He would freak the shit out of all of us,” O’Rourke said.
Continuing the casual, family-oriented conversation, O’Rourke mentioned some drama at his home while he was away over the weekend when the family turtle went missing. He was trying to console his 10-year-old daughter over the phone and said they could always get new turtle, a solution apparently not approved by his wife, Amy Sanders.
O’Rourke said being away from his family for moments like that shows “how hard this is for families to step up and serve.”
“How hard it is for Amy who bears the brunt of the parenting responsibilities,” O’Rourke added.
Speckling his speech with Spanish, O’Rourke noted the similarities between San Diego and his hometown of El Paso, noting both border cities “are safer than the average American city deeper in the interior.”
He called out President Donald Trump’s family separation policy, which separated immigrant families along the U.S.-Mexico border. A consolidated class action challenging the policy has been making its way through federal court in San Diego.
“It’s how you would expect someone in the Third Reich to describe a human being,” O’Rourke said of comments Trump has made about immigrants.
“If the only way to save the life of our 8-year-old son Henry was to send him on a 2,000-mile journey, you better believe that’s what Amy and I would do,” he added, defending the decisions of Central American parents to bring their kids to the U.S. or send them on the trip solo to seek asylum.
O’Rourke fielded questions from the audience, and was asked how he would feel about bringing on a running mate who is a woman.
“I will do everything in my power to answer the question you just asked me to make sure our administration and ticket looks like the country,” he said.
“Whoever the nominee is in summer 2020, we will do everything in our power to make them successful,” he added over cheers from the crowd.
Milton Roa, 46, asked O’Rourke what he would tell other disillusioned Republicans like himself.
O’Rourke said he partnered with Republican colleagues when he was a congressman to get more health access for veterans and protect public lands in Texas.
He also pointed out that he received more votes than any Democrat ever has in Texas when he challenged Senator Ted Cruz, R-Texas, for his seat in 2018.
“My mom, a lifelong Republican, voted for me in 2018,” O’Rourke said.
After the town hall, Roa told Courthouse News he was a lifelong Republican married to a lifelong Democrat, that he had three daughters and was “becoming a feminist.”
He said he thought O’Rourke was approachable and he liked “some of his vulnerabilities.” He compared him to San Diego congressional candidate Ammar Campa-Najjar.
Roa said he believes that if O’Rourke is elected he’d make good on his promise to create a cabinet that reflects the demographics of the country.
“I believe he would do it,” Roa said. “The moment you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, then you say ‘I should have known better.”
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