- The Washington Times - Monday, August 5, 2019

Democratic presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke on Monday said that “Jesus Christ, of course” President Trump is racist, a day after Mr. Rourke used several expletives to make a similar point in the wake of weekend shootings in his native Texas and Ohio that have left at least 29 people dead.

“The writing has been on the wall since his maiden speech coming down that escalator describing Mexican immigrants as rapists and criminals,” Mr. O’Rourke, a former congressman from Texas, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”

“The actions that follow cannot surprise us, and anyone who is surprised is part of this problem right now, including members of the media who ask, hey Beto, do you think the president is racist? Well Jesus Christ, of course he’s racist,” he said.

“He’s been racist from day one — before day one when he was questioning whether Barack Obama was born in the United States,” Mr. O’Rourke continued. “He’s trafficked in this stuff from the very beginning, and we are reaping right now what he has sown and what his supporters in Congress have sown. We have to put a stop to it.”

Mr. O’Rourke was appearing from his native El Paso, where a gunman is accused of fatally shooting 20 people and wounding dozens of others at a shopping area on Saturday.

“The president has not been shy — he’s not been saying this behind closed doors,” he said. “All people of one religion inherently defective and should be banned from the shores of this country — the only modern western democracy that I can think of that said anything close to this is the Third Reich, Nazi Germany.”

Mr. O’Rourke’s comments came after expletive-laden remarks he made about the president after a vigil in El Paso on Sunday that were captured by a CNN reporter.

Asked if there is anything that the president can do to make things better, Mr. O’Rourke said: “What do you think? You know the s— he’s been saying. He’s been calling Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals. I don’t know … members of the press, what the f—?”

“It’s these questions that you know the answers to,” he continued. “I mean, connect the dots about what he’s been doing in this country. He’s not tolerating racism, he’s promoting racism. He’s not tolerating violence, he’s inciting racism and violence in this country. … I don’t know what kind of question that is.”

• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.

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