O’Rourke was greeted by climate change protesters in New York where he was being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey for her show

Texas Democrat and rising political star Beto O’Rourke was greeted by climate change protesters in New York on Tuesday at an event where he said he would announce a decision about a 2020 presidential run by the end of the month.

Demonstrators blasted the former congressman for breaking a pledge not to accept campaign funds from donors in the fossil fuel industry, and pushed him to throw his weight behind the Green New Deal.

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“It’s a very corrosive influence. You can’t be taking money from the people you’re supposed to legislate against and regulate,” said Gustavo Gordillo, 31, a member of the group Democratic Socialists of America, from Manhattan. He joined a group of protesters outside the PlayStation theater, near Times Square in the heart of the city, where O’Rourke was being interviewed by Oprah Winfrey for a taping to be broadcast later in the month on Winfrey’s OWN Network.

“We want to make sure that we can count on him to propose an aggressive, comprehensive plan,” Gordillo said, about action to protect the environment.

Organizers said they plan to target other potential Democratic presidential candidates to press them to get behind an aggressive climate plan. But O’Rourke, who narrowly lost an election against the Republican Texas senator Ted Cruz last year but gained a national following in the process, has sparked a backlash among a small but vocal group of progressive, young, grassroots activists who believe he is not liberal enough.

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O’Rourke was removed from a list of signers of pressure group Oil Change USA’s pledge not to accept fossil fuel money after the news site Sludge reported that he received $430,000 from individuals working in the oil and gas industry. His spokesman has told the Huffington Post he is “supportive of the concept” of a Green New Deal, the economic stimulus program being promoted by progressives to address jointly economic inequality and climate change.

“Just like campaigns shouldn’t take tobacco industry money or corporate Pac [political action committee] money, we don’t think that they should take fossil fuel industry money,” said Pete Sikora, of advocacy group New York Communities for Change. “We want to make sure that candidates are accountable to the people and not to big corporate interests.”

In his interview with Winfrey at a taping of her program Oprah’s SuperSoul Conversations, O’Rourke gave himself a deadline of the end of February to decide on a presidential run, saying he wanted to help unify the country and make sure it lives up to its promise.

“If I can play some role in helping the country to do that, by God I’m going to do it,” O’Rourke said.

Winfrey has considered running for the White House herself. She pushed O’Rourke for a deadline and he said: “The serious answer is really soon. Before the end of the month.”

O’Rourke has kept a low profile in recent weeks.

But he said on Tuesday: “There was something that was new and maybe even dangerous or different about the way we ran this campaign.”

He recalled a meeting with Barack Obama, where he said Obama did not encourage him to run but they did discuss the possibility, in the context of the previous president’s own candidacy. “He was very generous in sharing what his thought process was leading up to that decision,” he said.

O’Rourke had fans in the crowd, including Olga Espinal from Queens. “I was really excited about him during the campaign,” she said. “I think he’s compassionate, he’s different. I like his approach to immigration.”