The showdown between Donald Trump and Beto O’Rourke started with the president ratcheting up his rhetoric on immigration and the border wall at a campaign rally in O’Rourke’s home town.
It spilled over at a sports complex across the street, where O’Rourke was marshaling the opposition.
Trump kicked off his speech by mocking O’Rourke without uttering his name.
“A young man who’s got very little going for himself except he’s got a great first name, he challenged us,” Trump said. “I would say that may be the end of his presidential bid.”
Trump said O’Rourke’s presidential aspirations were probably ended because of the low attendance at his event.
Trump speaks to supporters in El Paso, Texas.
O’Rourke spoke at a rally that looked like a parallel universe.
A mariachi band played beforehand, then O’Rourke, speaking in Spanish at times, took the stage for a lengthy takedown of the president’s proposed wall.
Lambasting what he called “the president’s lies about our community, about the U.S.-Mexico border, about immigrants, about Mexicans,” O’Rourke said before the rally, “All of this will find its match in El Paso, and not from any one person, but from all of us.”
Beto O’Rourke addresses crowd in El Paso.
The bitter call-and-response in West Texas tonight crystallized the partisan battle over immigration.
Staring down a potential second government shutdown over border security, Trump picked this heavily Democratic and Latino issue to pound away at the issue that propelled him to the presidency and remains at the center of his re-election campaign.
The exchange was the most direct real-time clash yet between Trump and a 2020 Democratic hopeful.
O’Rourke would join the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates if he decides to run.
Trump and his campaign gleefully taunted O’Rourke.
Trump was introduced by his son, Don Jr., who criticized O’Rourke at the El Paso County Coliseum adorned with “Finish the Wall” signs and a sea of red Make America Great Again hats.
“I’d be more impressed if he had the guts to go do his rally on the Juarez side, on the other side of the wall!” he said.
Earlier, Trump said 75,000 people signed up to attend the rally at the coliseum, but that only about 10,000 were allowed inside.
The El Paso Fire Department says only 6,000 were allowed inside.
Trump’s claim that El Paso used to be one of the nation’s most dangerous cities before erecting a barrier has been widely discredited.
El Paso has long enjoyed a violent crime rate lower than the national average for cities of similar size, according to PolitiFact, the political fact-checking website.
“Even more, the violent crime rate went up — not down, as Trump claimed — after the construction of a border fence in the region,” the site found.
In El Paso, Pres. Trump calls out Beto O’Rourke early in remarks, calling him “a young man who’s got very little going for himself, except he’s got a great first name.” https://t.co/j14esAeUkQ pic.twitter.com/u1ldtjCRlV
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) February 12, 2019
Beto O’Rourke at rally in El Paso, TX: “There is no bargain in which we can sacrifice some of our humanity to gain a little more security. We know that we deserve and will lose both of them if we do. We stand for the best traditions and values of this country.” pic.twitter.com/FPC7AI7xKa
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 12, 2019