During a speech at his campaign rally in Dallas, Texas on Thursday, US President Donald Trump specifically mocked Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke’ “flailing” counter-campaign.
“I called him right, remember, the flailing arms. Nobody noticed it, I noticed it. The flailer - remember he was flailing all over the place”, Trump said, waving his hands around.
He slammed O’Rourke as a “very dumb” person over the 47-year-old’s drive to campaign on taking away semi-automatic rifles from US gun owners and revoking the tax-exempt status of religious organisations.
On Thursday, O'Rourke asserted that any religious group that does not support gay marriage should not be tax exempt, insisting that “there can be no reward, no benefit, no tax break for anyone, or any institution, any organisation in America that denies the full human rights and the full civil rights of every single one of us”.
Almost all netizens have, meanwhile, berated Trump for his mocking O’Rourke, claiming that he “has no policy to speak of", and that he is “undermining our nation”.
“He must be insecure. Constantly attacking Dem. candidates. What is he so afraid of. A lot I hope,” one user tweeted.
Trump started to mock O’Rourke for his “crazy” hand movements while speaking shortly after the Democratic candidate announced his campaign in March.
“I think he’s got a lot of hand movement. I’ve never seen so much hand movement. I said, ‘Is he crazy or is that just how he acts?’ I’ve never seen so much hand movement. I watched him a little while this morning […] I’ve actually never seen anything quite like it. Study it. I’m sure you’ll agree,” he told reporters at the time.
Last week, O'Rourke, who is earning just about 3 percent in national polls, said that the US House of Representatives should vote on impeachment so that Trump could not use it as a “talking point”.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced impeachment proceedings against the US President on 24 September , following Trump’s phone call with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky in July. Trump is accused of piling pressure on Zelensky to prod him to investigate 2020 election presidential candidate Joe Biden during the call, an allegation that POTUS vehemently denies.