Beto O’Rourke: Trump’s Policies Are Deeply Unpopular, He Doesn‘t Want to Face Accountability

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
TAPPER: “Joining me now, former democratic Texas congressman and 2020 presidential candidate beto o‘rourke. Thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it. So the Texas legislature, run by Republicans, their special session begins tomorrow. Democrats say they‘re going to use whatever means necessary they can to block this redistricting effort. But Democrats are in the minority, as you know. Realistically, what are the democratic options to block this?”

O’ROURKE: “First, just just in case folks don‘t. Know what redistricting. Is, that‘s the process by which members of Congress choose their own voters. Typically, that happens after the passage of the decade, the new census. It is very rare to happen in the middle of the decade. Why are they doing this? Donald Trump‘s policies, whether it‘s the big, beautiful bill that‘s going to take nearly 2 million Texans off of Medicaid or transfer nearly $1 trillion of wealth to the richest 1% at the expense of working families. His policies are deeply unpopular. He doesn‘t want to face accountability from the voters, and he‘s worried about keeping his very slim majority in Congress. So he‘s trying to pick up five seats through this redistricting process in Texas. Now to your question about how we fight back, there are a number of things that we can do. One, the democratic state legislators can deny their Republican colleagues a quorum to be able to move forward on this.”

TAPPER: “We‘ve seen this before with legislators leaving the state and that sort of thing.”

O’ROURKE: “Absolutely. And I think they at least have to try this. And all of us, wherever you live, have to get behind them, because if we fail to support them right now, it‘s not just going to hurt the people of Texas. It‘s going to hurt people all over this country. But there‘s more that we can do. Governor Gavin Newsom in California has talked about a redistricting in his state. I think it‘s time that we match fire with fire. I think Democrats in the past, too often have been more concerned with being right than being in power. And we‘ve seen. Republicans only care about being in power regardless of what is right.”