Democratic 2020 hopeful Beto O’Rourke let the f-bomb slip during a Sunday morning interview with CNN’s Dana Bash.
Bash, who was sitting in for Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” began the segment by showing video of the former Texas congressman discussing gun violence at a recent event — and in that video, O’Rourke’s use of the term “f**ked up” was bleeped.
O’Rourke followed that clip by dropping the same term on the live show.
WATCH:
“The rhetoric that we’ve used, the thoughts and prayers that you just referred to, it has done nothing to stop the epidemic of gun violence, to protect our kids, our families, our fellow Americans in public places,” O’Rourke began, listing a few of the more recent tragedies. “At a Walmart in El Paso where 22 were killed. In Sutherland Springs, in a church. One or two a day all over this country, 100 killed daily in the United States of America.”
“We’re averaging about 300 mass shootings a year,” O’Rourke continued, letting the profanity slip. “So yes, this is fucked up. If we don’t call it out for what it is, if we’re not able to speak clearly, if we’re not able to act decisively, we’ll continue to have this kind of bloodshed in America. And I cannot accept that. We’re going to speak as defiantly and as strongly as we can but we’re also going to take action. Universal background checks, red flag laws, end of the sales of weapons of war and buying those AK-47s and AR-15s back so they cannot be used against our fellow Americans.” (RELATED: Beto Breaks Promise To Stop Using The F-Word”)
O’Rourke went on to press the importance of his plan to institute buybacks and red flag laws, concluding, “The challenge is so grave, the threat is so great, we can’t meet it with only half the country. We have to bring in Republicans, independents, Democrats, and save lives or else be complicit in the continuing carnage we see in America. I won’t be part of that.”