Beto O’Rourke called the Texas GOP a “death cult” in an MSNBC interview Tuesday night talking about the impact of the coronavirus in his state.

O’Rourke spoke with Ali Velshi about how seriously the pandemic is hurting Texas, including news this week about a Hidalgo County Judge’s new stay-at-home order. Per the Texas Tribune:

As the Rio Grande Valley grapples with an onslaught of coronavirus infections and hospitalizations, Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez is pushing hard for residents to stay at home. But the emergency order he issued Monday mandating that people shelter in their residences, restricting travel and limiting gatherings remains an unenforceable recommendation, according to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office…

“This order has no enforcement mechanism, which makes it simply a recommendation for those to stay home if they can, which Governor Abbott supports,” Abbott spokesman John Wittman said late Monday. “However, this order does not force businesses to shut down in the Rio Grande Valley.”

O’Rourke called the governor’s response “inexplicable,” saying, “He will not allow the county judge there, Richard Cortez, to issue one for Hidalgo county to save the lives of the people that he was sworn to serve and to represent.”

He accused Abbott of “choosing to allow people to die when he could choose to allow county judges to save their lives.”

Velshi asked why this is happening, saying, “It’s not like Texas isn’t experience this as badly as it is. It is! And people are calling we’ve talked to endless mayors and judges and other county officials who are saying, just let us fix this.”

O’Rourke called it “one of the most craven, callous failures of leadership that I’ve ever witnessed in my life.”

He said Texas “desperately needs” a governor who’s “going to be guided by the facts and the science and the truth,” singling out New York Governor Andrew Cuomo — whose own coronavirus response has received serious criticism recently.

O’Rourke even called the state GOP a “death cult”:

“Instead, we have a governor who perhaps is looking at the 2022 Republican primary for the office that he now holds, trying fend off our lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who on Fox News said there are more important things than living. In other words, let’s get on with the dying, knowing full well that it will be those frontline workers making $7.25 an hour, which is the minimum wage in Texas. It will be African-Americans, it will be Latinos and Mexican-Americans who will be doing the dying right here in Texas. This is a death cult. The Texas GOP. Only they want you to do the dying, and that is exactly what’s happening in Texas right now.”

You can watch above, via MSNBC.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/3hijSKK