Beto O'Rourke.
-♪ ♪ -(cheering, applause)
Beto O'Rourke. Welcome back to The Daily Show.
Thank you for having me back.
You are back on the campaign trail,
this time for a different position: governor of Texas.
-It is, uh-- -(cheering) -Yeah.
It's an interesting time to be
dealing with politics in Texas,
because it feels like everything is happening
in and around Texas, so let's- let's jump straight into it.
You know, uh, you've run before.
You came super close. You didn't take it.
What do you think will be different this time and why?
It's really about where Texas is
and what Texans are willing to do about it.
So, um, you mentioned all these things
that are coming to a head in our state.
We have the most extreme abortion ban in America.
-Mm-hmm. -No exception for rape or incest,
begins at conception. Um, speaking of democracy
and the right to vote, it is harder to cast a ballot
or get on the rolls in Texas
than any other state in the union.
It's been 17 weeks since those 19 kids and two teachers
were killed in Uvalde.
Uh, gun violence is the leading cause of death
for kids and teenagers in that state.
But instead of succumbing to the temptation to despair
or submitting to this, Texans are rising up
and they're volunteering on this campaign.
They're knocking on doors.
They're turning out in record numbers,
and they're gonna win this election in November,
which is really a referendum on all these issues.
Are we gonna be defined by this extremism
and our hatred and the way that we make each other afraid
of one another or are we gonna come together
and do big things together?
So, it's-it's an exciting time to be doing this,
and a great state to be in. And we're gonna win.
You know, there's no... there's no denying
that you-you've always had a charismatic way about you.
There's no denying that you've been really popular
on the national stage.
Unfortunately, sometimes it feels like
the majority of Texas
isn't exactly on the same page that you are.
You know, a good example is-is the busing stunt
that's happening right now, you know,
with Greg Abbott busing people to all over the country
"to prove a point."
You're against that,
you've spoken out against it multiple times,
but more than 50% of Texans go, "Yeah, this is the right move,
because it sends a message to Washington, DC."
Uh, how do you... how do you work that in your mind
the idea that you are opposed to so many Texans
where they're saying, "No, this is actually what we want."
I actually think that this extremism
that we see in our current governor
and government in Texas is reflective of the fact
that we have a badly broken democracy.
Seven million Texans didn't vote in the last election in 2020.
Seven million who were eligible to did not.
And if a majority right now thinks that busing migrants
to DC or Chicago is a good idea...
Maybe, as you suggested, it's a reflection of the fact
that our immigration system is so badly broken
and people want to do something.
What I propose, though, is, instead of these stunts,
which are, um, so cruel and unkind
not just to those migrants
but to those of us who live in Texas
to the Border Patrol agents who we put on their backs
this entire immigration system that is so badly broken.
What if instead we had, for example,
a Texas-based guest worker program
or the ability to join family and not wait 20 years in line,
which is the back of the line in Mexico
or India or the Philippines
to come to the U.S. today?
What if you were trying to claim asylum,
you didn't wait six years for your claim to be adjudicated,
which is the current wait time?
What if Texas led the way in rewriting our immigration laws
to reflect our values, our interests and our needs,
and we said, "Look, you want to come to this country,
"you must follow our laws,
but our laws will follow our values"?
I want Texas to lead on that.
(applause)
It's... it's admirable.
You know? I...
I think-- I think it's admirable.
I-I think you're proposing solutions.
But it seems like America is getting to a place
where people are less enthused by long-term plans
and more riled up by an immediate idea
that seems like it will work, even if it may not.
So, you know, you're out there.
You're speaking to people.
I know that you knock on doors and talk to people personally.
So I would love to know, have you met a person
who doesn't agree with you on immigration,
doesn't agree with you on these issues,
and has changed their mind?
And what was it that made them change their mind?
It's interesting. We-we were in, uh,
a town called Hemphill in East Texas.
And in that county, they-they literally have
about three percent high-speed Internet access.
So, huge infrastructure problems there.
It's a very red, Republican, rural county.
So, half the-the group that comes out is Republican.
You know, 20 are wearing "Make America great again" shirts
-and Donald Trump hats on. -Mm-hmm.
And this guy stands up and asks a very legitimate question.
He's wearing a Trump hat. He said,
"My mom immigrated to this country from Canada.
"And to renew her green card,
"we had to stand in this line every so often.
"She worked three jobs, because my dad,
"who was disabled in World War II fighting for this country,
"could not work. I started working when I was 14 years old.
"We-we played by the rules.
"Um, we followed the law.
"And I don't know why, Beto,
"people are coming in between ports of entry right now
and-and not following our laws."
And I think his anger was legitimate.
-Mm-hmm. -Um, his experience was valid.
And he asked a really good question.
And so we talked about, you know,
"Is busing migrants fixing this problem at all?"
"Well, no." "Is building a mile and a half of border wall,
which is what Greg Abbott has done, helping anything?"
"Well, no, I guess it's not."
"Well, what if we address the fact that people have
"legitimate reasons to want to come here to work
"or to join family or to seek asylum
"in a country that is comprised by and large
"of asylum seekers and refugees
"and what if we in Texas-- you, as a Republican,
and I, as a Democrat-- actually led on this issue?"
And he's nodding his head and comes over
at the end of the meeting, shakes my hand, and says,
"You know what, you might have earned my vote
by coming out here to Hemphill and having this conversation."
-So it works. Dialogue works. -So, so then... -(applause)
How do you then bring people together
to solve an issue that, y-you know,
you talk about in this book, the fight for voting rights?
Where America is-is particularly divided right now
is how the parties view the issue of voting.
You have Donald Trump and the Republicans saying
that the election was stolen.
There were millions of illegal votes.
None of this has been proven. In fact, the opposite
has been proven. You know?
And-and then on... at the same time,
you have Republicans saying,
"Well, if Democrats say that we should accept the elections,
"why don't they accept the elections,
you know, after they lose?"
Stacey Abrams will say it wasn't legitimate, you know?
How do you then break that?
How do you get beyond that dialogue
to even begin the conversation of having everybody vote?
It helps, for me, at least,
to understand that not only can we do what you just described.
We've done it before against much longer odds.
One of the stories that I tell in this book, We've Got to Try,
is about a Black doctor in El Paso, Lawrence Nixon,
who never missed an election, uh,
until the Democratic-controlled legislature, in 1923,
-outlaws voting by Black Texans. -Mm-hmm.
Nonetheless, he pays his poll tax the next year, shows up.
They say, "Dr. Nixon, you know we can't let you vote."
And he says, "I know you can't, but I've got to try."
For the next 20 years, he fights this battle, a very lonely one,
takes it to the Supreme Court, wins two signal victories there,
and by 1944, he's helped to integrate elections
once again in Texas, and has laid the path
for LBJ to work on,
and ultimately, sign the Voting Rights Act
into law in 1965.
So, if that guy could do it against those odds,
then who are we now in Texas, who have inherited his sacrifice
and his service and his struggle...
We can't squander it.
We have to build on it and make sure that we win it back.
So, in our campaign, we're targeting the very voters
-who are themselves the targets of suppression... -Mm-hmm.
...and intimidation, to bring them in
and make them the margin of victory on election night.
-We're gonna get our democracy back. -(applause and cheering)
That's a very difficult mountain to climb.
-I wish you the best of luck. -Thank you.
Thank you so much for joining me on the show.
Thanks for having me out. Appreciate it.
We've Got to Try is available now.
Beto O'Rourke, everybody.