Ted Cruz‘s left-leaning senate challenger, Beto O’Rourke, took the opportunity to distance himself from his own Democratic Party on Friday.
During an immigration discussion with CNN‘s David Gregory, O’Rourke was asked to explain why party leaders like Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have offered to collaborate with Trump on building the president’s proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Gregory said, “The leadership of your party apparently believes that there’s enough need for security that they were prepared to fund a border wall with Mexico–which the president called for. Do you support the leadership of your party and do you recognize that need for some enhanced wall?”
To which O’Rourke replied:
I don’t. And with all due respect to Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, neither of them understand Texas, nor do they understand the U.S.-Mexico border.
O’Rourke continued, “We do not need walls. Those walls will be built on the private land of our fellow Texans here. On ranches, on farms, on homesteads. We’ll have to use eminent domain to build a wall miles into the interior of the United States at a time that we don’t need it–where every single expert who looks at this issue says that it will not do what it is intended to do. Instead, we need to fix our immigration laws.”
Later that same day, the three-term El Paso congressman took another swipe at his party. While reminding voters in San Saba, Texas that he voted against Pelosi’s continued leadership, O’Rourke said, “We’re going to do this independent of the party bosses.”
[image via screengrab/CNN]
Follow Colin Kalmbacher on Twitter: @colinkalmbacher
Editor’s note: this article has been amended to include an additional link and for accuracy.
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