O’Rourke calls Abbott a “thug” and ‘Authoritarian’ at South by Southwest festival
Beto O’Rourke, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, called the Republican incumbent, Greg Abbott, a “a thug” and an “authoritarian” on Saturday and compared Texas energy executives to Russian oligarchs in a blistering critique that presages an election that is about eight months away.
“I just had a chance to meet with the ambassador from the EU,” O’Rourke told Evan Smith, the CEO and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, in a crowded hall at the South by Southwest festival. “We talked about the fact that you’re seeing the continued rise of authoritarians and thugs across the world. And we have our own, right here, in the state of Texas.”
Smith asked, “Greg Abbott is a thug in your mind?”
O’Rourke replied, “He’s a thug, he’s an authoritarian.”
“Let me make the case. Not only could this guy, through his own incompetence, not keep the lights on in the energy capital of the planet last February, but when people like Kelcy Warren and other energy company CEOs made than $11 billion in profit over five days — selling gas for 200 times the going rate; not only did he not claw back those illegal profits; not only was there no justice for more than 700 people who were killed, who literally froze to deaths in their homes, outside, in their cars, people who are paying now tens of billions of dollars cumulatively to pay for the property damage that the flooding that ensued caused in their homes, but he’s taking millions of dollars in payoffs from these same people. I mean, he’s got his own oligarch here in the state of Texas.”
