During his El Paso, Texas, rally, President Donald Trump quipped at the expense of the Democrats’ failed Senate candidate in Texas, Beto O’Rourke, whose counter-rally nearby attracted a much smaller crowd.
Trump called O’Rourke “a young man who’s got very little going for himself except he has a great first name”—an apparent shot at O’Rourke’s use of a Hispanic-sounding nickname in the heavily Hispanic area, despite being of Irish lineage.
O’Rourke previously said he’s been called Beto since birth to differentiate him from his grandfather, who was also named Robert.
“He challenged us,” Trump continued. “So we have let’s say, 35,000 people, tonight. And he has 200 people, 300 people. Not too good.”
“That may be the end of his presidential bid,” Trump said.
O’Rourke has repeatedly suggested that he may enter the 2020 race, though he has yet to formally commit.
The Epoch Times couldn’t verify the number of attendees at the Trump rally. The El Paso Police Department didn’t respond to a request for crowd size estimates for the rallies.
About the Wall
Trump went to El Paso, O’Rourke’s hometown, to make a case for building a border barrier. In the first such rally since the November midterm elections, the “Promises Made, Promises Kept” banners had given way to “Finish the Wall.”Trump highlighted El Paso as an example of the success of border fencing, as the crime rate went down after the fence was erected. Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, is located directly across the border and has massive levels of violence.
Safe El Paso
Compared to Juárez, which had 1,247 murders in 2018, El Paso was much safer with only 23 murders that year, UPI reported.But O’Rourke’s reference to the 2008 fence construction misses the fact that El Paso has had some border fencing since the 1990s.
It’s hard to quantify, though, how much of the decrease can be attributed to the fence.
Illegal Crossings
O’Rourke voiced his opposition to building a border wall “at a time of record-low northbound apprehensions.”It’s not clear what he meant. U.S. Customs and Border Protection doesn’t differentiate apprehensions of illegal border crossers by where they’re bound in its public statistics.
Trump has requested $5.7 million for an additional 234 miles of steel slats border fencing for the 2019 budget. After stiff opposition from leaders of Democrats in Congress, he shut down about a quarter of the federal government until Democrats agreed to negotiate the wall funding after a record-breaking 35 days. The negotiations produced an offer of less than $1.4 billion on Feb. 11. Trump indicated he was unhappy with the number, but wants to avoid another shutdown, which can be averted by passing the remaining appropriations by Feb. 15.