Beto O’Rourke says Democrats ‘unexcited’ about Biden: ‘Really failing us’
Former Texas representative and one-time Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke accused President Biden Thursday of “failing” to live up to his 2020 campaign promises on immigration — and warned that “unexcited” voters are “leaving his banner in droves.”
The ex-congressman took particular issue with the 80-year-old president’s efforts to bar migrants from applying for asylum if they cross the border illegally, referring to the Biden administration policy as an “asylum ban” during an event at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School.
“And on some counts, Biden has been successful. The rhetoric, it’s night and day against Donald Trump. Biden is not inspiring, I don’t think, any acts of political terror or the kind of slaughter that we saw in El Paso, and yet on other counts, he’s really failing us,” O’Rourke said.
“The asylum ban that we see makes it so hard for people to lawfully, safely and in an orderly fashion come to this country when they cannot stay in their own,” he added.
“Because why the hell else would you travel 2000 miles, the length of this continent, much of it on foot, some of it atop, not inside, of a train, called the beast — La Bestia — facing rape, torture, you know, kidnapping by these transnational criminal organizations, only to come to the most heavily militarized border probably anywhere in this hemisphere, if not this planet where you risk your life.”
More migrants “have died this year than any year on record,” O’Rourke said.
The 51-year-old former lawmaker argued that without a return to the “incredible moral clarity” Biden had on immigration during the 2020 election, the incumbent could lose his 2024 race.
“It is no secret that Democratic voters are unexcited about Biden — that’s putting it politely — it is no secret, thanks to the poll that we just read in The New York Times on Sunday, that young voters especially are leaving his banner in droves,” O’Rourke said, referencing a recent survey showing Biden trailing Trump in five battleground states.
Another poll released Thursday by Bloomberg News/Morning Consult showed Biden losing to Trump in six swing states – Georgia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina.
“Now will they vote for Donald Trump? Will they vote for RFK Jr.? Will they not vote at all? I don’t know. But let’s give them a reason to vote for the president. Something bold, something big, something that matches the rhetoric that he used in 2020 and inspires voters in 2024 is what’s needed right now,” O’Rourke, who is seemingly out of politics after losing the 2018 Texas Senate election against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), the 2020 Democratic presidential primary race and the 2022 Texas gubernatorial election against Gov. Greg Abbott, added.
