Congressmen’s road trip comes to an end

It’s a road trip that made headlines across the nation.

Texas Democratic Rep. Beto O’ Rourke and Republican Rep. Will Hurd embarked on a 1,600 mile journey after their flights to Washington D.C. got canceled.

Both made it in time to cast their votes at the nation’s capital.

Congressman O’Rourke called the road trip, “The longest bi-national congressional live town hall in the history of the United States.”

The trek started on Facebook with a picture of the two congressmen in front of a Chevy Impala.

O’Rourke announced he and Hurd were going to embark on a 24-hour journey to Washington after Hurd’s flight got canceled.

The story made headlines across the U.S.

“We honestly didn’t know what kind of a impact it had beyond the people who were following us on Facebook because we’ve been in a car driving for the last 35 hours,” O’Rourke said.

CEO and founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, joined the live stream and commented on the trip saying: “This is great use of Facebook live for civic engagement.”

Although the two did have fun acquiring a mascot, picking up burgers and some donuts along the way, the purpose was to talk about issues facing Americans today.

“Will and I had great conversations about bills we are working on, also about health care in general as well as issues like people’s families being torn apart in some cases just because of immigration status,” O’Rourke said.

During the journey both did agree they oppose the border wall.

O’ Rourke also said during the trip they want to see more people afford health care, but he thinks they have some differences of opinions on the expansion of Medicaid.

They did reach Capitol Hill 30 minutes before the session started.

Both said the trip has taught them a valuable lesson.

“I learned that I need to spend more time with my colleagues, especially my colleagues that see things a little differently than I do. It’s the only way you’re going to make things better in this country,” O’Rourke said.

Hurd looked over at O’Rourke and replied “agreed.”

At one point the congressmen had 4,000 viewers. Some commenting from as far as India and the UK.