Rejecting President Donald Trump's retweeting a Jeffrey Epstein-related conspiracy theory, Beto O'Rourke issued a theory of his own, claiming the president used it to distract Democratic presidential primary candidates off attacking him.
"He's changing the conversation and if we allow him to do that, then we'll never be able to focus on the true problems of which he is a part and make sure that we get to the solutions," O'Rourke told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
O'Rourke was asked about President Trump's retweeting a conspiracy theory former political opponent Hillary Clinton might have been tied to accused sex trafficker Epstein's death in prison Saturday. He ripped the president for distracting him from making a call for gun control after the latest mass murders in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio.
"This is another example of our president using this position of public trust to attack his political enemies with unfounded conspiracy theories – and also to try to force you and me and all of us to focus on his bizarre behavior, instead of the fact that we just lost 22 people in this community, nine people in Dayton, Ohio," O'Rourke told host Jake Tapper.
O'Rourke added an accusation President Trump "willfully suppressed" his Department of Homeland Security off efforts to address domestic terrorism, particularly as it relates to white supremacy.
President Trump had directly ripped "phony name" O'Rourke last week after the Texas Democrat called him an avowed "racist" and "white supremacist." O'Rourke's move was condemned by Bill O'Reilly for being an "abhorrent" politicization of death.
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