Beto O’Rourke on Trump and El Paso: 'He is an open, avowed racist'

Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic presidential candidate and former Texas representative in the US Houses, was asked by the CNN host Jake Tapperon Sunday about Donald Trump:

“Do you think President Trump is a white nationalist?”

“The things that he has said, both as a candidate and then as president of the United States, this cannot be open for debate. You, as well as I, have a responsibility call that out, to make sure that the American people understand what is being done in their name by the person who holds the highest position of public trust in this land.

“He does not even pretend to respect our differences or to understand that we are all created equal.

“He is saying that some people are inherently defective or dangerous – reminiscent of something you might hear in the Third Reich, not something that you expect in the United States of America – based on their religion, based on their sexual orientation, based on their immigration status, based on the countries that they come from. Calling those in Africa shithole nations and saying that he’d like to have more immigration from Nordic countries, the whitest place on planet Earth today. Again, let’s be very clear about what is causing this and who the president is.

“He is an open, avowed racist and is encouraging more racism in this country.” Andon Saturday night O’Rourke was asked if Donald Trump was at all

responsible for yesterday’s shooting in El Paso, Texas. This was his reply:

“We’ve had a rise in hate crimes every single one of the last three years during an administration where you’ve had a president who’s called Mexicans ‘rapists’ and ‘criminals’, though Mexican immigrants commit crimes at a far lower rate than those born here in the country.

“He has tried to make us afraid of them, to some real effect and consequence. Attempting to ban all Muslims from this country. The day that he signed that executive order the mosque in Victoria, Texas, was burned to the ground.

“Those chants that we heard in Greenville, North Carolina – ‘send her back’, talking about our fellow American citizens elected to represent their constituents in the Congress, who happen to be women of color.

“He is a racist and he stokes racism in this country, and it does not just offend our sensibilities, it fundamentally changes the character of this country and it leads to violence.”