President Trump tweeted late Tuesday night questioning the authenticity of 2020 Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke’s name and telling the former Texas representative to “be quiet.” “Beto (phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage) O’Rourke, who is embarrassed by my last visit to the Great State of Texas, where I trounced him, and is now even more embarrassed by polling at 1% in the Democrat Primary, should respect the victims & law enforcement - & be quiet!” Trump wrote. The president will travel to El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, Wednesday after a shooter attacked a Walmart on Saturday in El Paso, killing 22, and another shooter killed nine people at a bar in Dayton on Sunday.
O’Rourke hasn’t held back his criticism of Trump over the past few days, and he was quick to respond to the president’s tweet. “22 people in my hometown are dead after an act of terror inspired by your racism,” he wrote. “El Paso will not be quiet and neither will I.” While at a vigil for the victims of the shooting Sunday night, he compared the president’s rhetoric to the Third Reich. “We have a president right now who traffics in this hatred, who incites this violence, who calls Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals, calls asylum seekers animals and an infestation,” he said. “You may use that word in the Third Reich to describe those who are undesirable, who must be put down because they are subhuman.” Speaking to reporters after the vigil, O’Rourke said the president is “inciting racism and violence in this country,” along with other expletives.
