February 9, 2019

Beto O’Rourke Plans Counter-Rally Just a Few Blocks From Where Trump Will Speak in El Paso

A master class in trolling.

Kathy Willens/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

On Monday, President Donald Trump will hold his first rally of the year in Texas at the El Paso County Coliseum, just a few blocks from the US-Mexican border. But it turns out he’ll have some competition. Former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, now weighing a Democratic presidential bid, announced that’ll he’ll speak at about the same time at his own rally, less than a quarter-mile a way. 

The former congressman’s speech is part of a protest against Trump’s continued calls for a border wall to deter immigration. Beforehand, O’Rourke will join a one-mile march along the border, past the site of Trump’s event.

“The President is coming to El Paso Monday. He will promise a wall and will repeat his lies about the dangers that immigrants pose,”  O’Rourke wrote in a Medium post Friday, referring to a claim Trump made during his State of the Union address this week that border barriers in the town have kept it from becoming one of the country’s most dangerous cities.

As Mother Jones’ Noah Lanard reported afterward, that claim is completely false:

El Paso’s violent crime rate peaked in 1993 and fell by more than a third by 2006. The El Paso Times reported in January, “From 2006 to 2011—two years before the fence was built to two years after—the violent crime rate in El Paso increased by 17 percent.” El Paso is now one of the safest cities in America.

“What he’s saying and doing is extremely insulting,” local official Peter Svarzbein told my colleague of Trump’s remarks.

O’Rourke pushed back against the president’s narrative. “Monday we will welcome the President to one of the safest cities in the United States. Safe not because of walls, and not in spite of the fact that we are a city of immigrants. Safe because we are a city of immigrants and because we treat each other with dignity and respect,” he wrote.

The speeches in El Paso will come just days before another possible government shutdown over what Trump describes as a national security crisis at the border. His “Make America Great Again” rally will mark his first official visit to El Paso.

O’Rourke’s counter-rally was organized with dozens of community advocacy groups and partners, including Border Network for Human Rights and Women’s March El Paso. US Rep. Veronica Escobar, a Democratic ally who won O’Rourke’s former seat in Congress last year, will join the event, along with local musicians and mariachis; O’Rourke, who was once part of a punk rock group, may play with some of the bands. (Also: Do yourself a favor and watch this video my colleague Tim Murphy found of O’Rourke singing “Blitzkrieg Bop” in a sheep mask and onesie. You won’t regret it.)

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate