Three-time Democrat Congressman Beto O'Rourke of Texas said President Joe Biden is "really failing us" on immigration policy and that "unexcited" Democratic voters are leaving "in droves."
O'Rourke, a onetime national hopeful among the left who ran failed Senate, gubernatorial, and presidential campaigns, made the comments Thursday as part of a panel at the Harvard Kennedy School's Institute of Politics.
O'Rourke takes issue with Biden on his policy dubbed the "asylum ban" — not that migrants are crossing the southern border in droves.
"And on some counts, Biden has been successful. The rhetoric, it's night and day against Donald Trump. Biden is not inspiring — I don't think — any acts of political terror or the kind of slaughter that we saw in El Paso. And yet on other counts, he's really failing us," O'Rourke said.
"The asylum ban that we see makes it so hard for people to lawfully, safely, and in an orderly fashion come to this country when they cannot stay in their own," he added.
O'Rourke also weighed in on polls that showed Biden losing all but one of six battleground states to Trump, the Republican front-runner.
"It is no secret that Democratic voters are unexcited about Biden — that's putting it politely. It is no secret, thanks to the poll that we just read in The New York Times on Sunday, that young voters especially are leaving his banner in droves," O'Rourke said.
O'Rourke was an unlikely elected Democrat out of Texas and served in the House from 2013-19. He lost a Senate bid in 2018, a presidential bid in 2020, and a Texas gubernatorial run in 2022.
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