Trump, Beto O’Rourke hold dueling immigration rallies

EL PASO, Texas — Undaunted by his past failures, President Donald Trump on Monday again headed south to the border with Mexico to make his case to spend billions of federal dollars for a wall there, hoping to put Democrats in Washington on the defensive as another partial government shutdown looms.

Yet awaiting him in El Paso were residents fuming over the president’s false characterization of their city as a former hotbed of violence during his State of the Union address last week. That sparked plans for protest marches and rallies that will give the area’s former congressman, Democrat Beto O’Rourke, a prime-time national platform as he considers a presidential campaign to challenge Trump.

With both men’s rallies likely to receive national television coverage, the split-screen moment promised something of an audition of their hypothetical 2020 matchup, effectively creating a live debate between the president and a charismatic potential challenger on the issue that most animated Trump’s followers in 2016 and might well again in his re-election bid. Though O’Rourke lost a Senate race in November, his campaign excited national attention among Democrats.

Before leaving the White House, the president signaled that he too saw the dueling rallies as an early competition, with his familiar emphasis on crowd sizes.

“We have a line that’s very long already,” Trump told reporters, referring to people waiting to enter his venue. He added, “I understand our competitor’s got a line too, but it’s a tiny little line.”

Eager to frame the contrast, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway dismissed O’Rourke as a “loser” who is looking for “free air time” by counterprogramming the president’s rally. “If he wants to remind everybody that he’s against securing the border, a man who represented El Paso, then have at it,” she said during an interview on “Fox & Friends.”

With protest organizers anticipating a turnout of between 6,000 to 9,000 people, O’Rourke called the march “a positive response to the president’s lies about our community.” He said the event had little to do with him: “The reason this is happening is because the community came together.”