O’Rourke to Vanity Fair: ‘You can probably tell I want to run … I do.”
Remaining coy on whether he will run for president in 2020, former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke told a Vanity Fair reporter, “You can probably tell that I want to run … I do. I think I’d be good at it.”
ABC-7’s Saul Saenz reached out to Chris Evans, a campaign spokesperson for O’Rourke. Evans told ABC-7 O’Rourke has not yet announced he is running for president in 2020.
O’Rourke is further quoted by Vanity Fair as saying, “I want to be in it …. Man, I’m just born to be in it, and want to do everything I humanly can for this country at this moment.”
The former congressman told Vanity Fair “I’m not as concerned about our ability to make it as a family as I might have been three months ago,” he said.
According to the Vanity Fair article, O’Rourke described a breakthrough conversation with his wife the week before he was to appear on stage with Oprah Winfrey in New York. He said he stayed up until three a.m. thinking about his future: “I was excited to think it through.”
O’Rourke told Vanity Fair, “It’s important to defeat Trump,” but what is exciting for him is “for the United States to lead the world, in making sure that the generations that follow us can live here.”
When asked about his platform, O’Rourke said he wants to make Medicare part of the Obamacare marketplace with the goal of making “health care for all” a reality.
“What’s exciting to me is figuring out something that has eluded us for so long: How do we make sure every single person can see a doctor in this country?” O’Rourke told the magazine.
The former Congressman also told Vanity Fair he wants to end the War on Drugs, raise the cap on work visas, and find a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
“In my opinion, that includes citizenship for Dreamers, a legal path to citizenship for their parents, and the ability to get right with the law, and work legally, and pay taxes,” O’Rourke told Vanity Fair.
