Former Congressional representative and presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke stressed the importance of “fighting back” against the Trump administration at a Stanford in Government (SIG) Town Hall on Monday.
O’Rourke’s visit to Stanford comes at what he calls “the darkest [days] we’ve had, at least in my 52 years on this planet.” He cited numerous challenges, including escalating gun violence, increasing voter suppression and rising maternal mortality as a result of President Donald Trump’s policies.
The event at Tressider Oak Lounge came days after the University announced that the Trump administration had revoked six Stanford student visas.
“To give in is to give up, is to become complicit,” O’Rourke said, specifically calling out Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer for handing “Donald Trump and Elon Musk unmitigated power to use the federal budget as a slush fund.”
For O’Rourke, Schumer’s compromise represented the failure of elected officials to use their power. He called for Schumer to step aside and “allow a real fighter to emerge so we can win.”
Originally from El Paso, Texas, O’Rourke began his political career on the El Paso City Council in 2005. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 2012 and ran for Senate in 2018. Despite losing to incumbent Senator Ted Cruz by 2.5 percentage points, O’Rourke earned over 4 million votes, the most Texan votes ever cast for a Democrat. He ran for President in 2020 and Governor of Texas in 2022.
“My best advice to you is to not wait your turn,” O’Rourke said. Claiming that political institutions are “dominated by old people,” he encouraged students to step into leadership roles.
“If you want to run for office, do that now,” he said.
For freshman Robert Liu ’28, O’Rourke’s speech was inspiring. “I really liked his anger and his point about authenticity,” Liu said. “I totally agree that we should not wait our turn.”
SIG co-chairs Chris Badillo ’25 and Andrea Reyes ’25, who organized the event, hoped that O’Rourke would address student concerns on both political and emotional fronts. “Beto is a model of what authenticity and relationship-building mean in politics,” they wrote in a statement to The Daily.
Badillo and Reyes also said they hoped for O’Rourke’s town hall to be an opportunity for students across the political spectrum to feel empowered and recognize their community.
O’Rourke ended his speech on a cautionary note, asking his audience to imagine the history books written about today. “You do not want to be the generation that loses this [American democracy],” he said.