A supporter dressed as Uncle Sam awaits the arrival of President Donald Trump at a rally in the El Paso County Coliseum on Feb. 11. The exchange of speeches was the most direct real-time clash yet between Trump and a 2020 Democratic hopeful. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images Immigration Beto takes on Trump in tale of 2 mega-rallies The president held a campaign event in the hometown of his potential 2020 rival — and O’Rourke hit back with a speech blasting the border wall.

EL PASO, Texas — The showdown between Donald Trump and Beto O’Rourke Monday night over the president's border wall unfolded at competing rallies with thousands of people in venues barely a block apart.

But the events practically took place in parallel universes: One with rowdy MAGA-gear wearing Trump backers chanting "USA, USA!"; the other serenaded by a mariachi band before O'Rourke took the stage for a lengthy takedown — at times in Spanish — of the president's signature project.


Welcome to 2020. O'Rourke has a long way to go before becoming Trump's general election opponent, but the clashing events showed the fight over immigration and border security is certain to keep electrifying Trump's voters — and animate the Democratic determination to make him a one-term president.

Trump, true to form, kicked off his speech by mocking O’Rourke, without uttering the former congressman's name.

“A young man who’s got very little going for himself except he’s got a great first name, he challenged us," Trump said. "I would say that may be the end of his presidential bid.”

Trump said O’Rourke’s presidential aspirations were probably ended because of the low attendance at his event. However, an event organizer, citing law enforcement, said 8,000 people attended.

“This is where we make our stand!” O’Rourke said to screaming fans from a stage on the infield of a baseball field.

O’Rourke was mobbed by thousands of supporters as they marched to a baseball field so close to Trump’s rally that the loud speakers from Trump’s event could be heard at O’Rourke’s.

“With the eyes of the country upon us, all of us together are going to make our stand, here in one of the safest cities in the United States of America,” O’Rourke said. “Safe not because of walls, but in spite of walls. Secure because we treat one another with dignity and respect.”

He said, “We are the example that the United States of America needs right now.”

The bitter call-and-response in West Texas on Monday night crystallized the partisan battle over immigration. Staring down a potential second government shutdown over border security, Trump picked this heavily Democratic and Latino city to pound away at the issue that propelled him to the presidency and remains at the center of his re-election campaign.

A large chunk of his speech was devoted to immigration, particularly the wall he wants to build on the southern border.

“Walls are not immoral,” Trump said. “Walls work...Walls save lives.”

The crowd broke into a familiar chant — “Build that wall!” — Trump said, “You really mean finish that wall because we’ve built a lot of it.”

The speeches were the most direct real-time encounter between Trump and a 2020 Democratic hopeful. O’Rourke, who is expected to decide whether to run by the end of the month, would join the top tier of Democratic presidential candidates if he gets in.

He got an early taste of what that would be like.

Trump was introduced by his son, Don Jr., who previewed the night with an attack on O’Rourke.

“I’d be more impressed if he had the guts to go do his rally on the Juarez side, on the other side of the wall!” he said.

Trump said 69,000 people signed up to attend the rally at the coliseum, but that only about 10,000 were allowed inside. Later, he said 35,000 people showed up.

“It looks like Beto only has 900 guests at his so called March, tiny!” Trump’s campaign manager Brad Parscale tweeted . “We have over 35000 in attendance. 8000 inside and tens of thousands in the parking lot and streets. @realDonaldTrump had 70,000+ RSVPs and thousands couldn’t make it. #winning”

At his rally, Trump launched into his standard campaign speech fare, with boasts of the economy and military, criticism of the media and, of course, tough talk on immigration. He vowed to build a border wall whether or not Congress agreed — and said he already was.

“Today we started a big beautiful wall right on the Rio Grande,” he said as the crowds broke into chants of “USA!”

Trump didn’t just blast O’Rourke, but the Democratic Party, too. “They’re becoming the party of socialism, late-term abortions, open borders and crime,” he said.

And he blasted the so-called Green New Deal: “I really don’t like their policy of taking away your car, of taking away your airplane rights, of let’s hop a plane to California, of you’re not allowed to own cows anymore," he said to cheers.

O’Rourke said he did not interpret Trump’s visit as a personal challenge to him, but rather as “an effort to use this community as a prop to make his case for the border wall.”

The location of the dueling rallies appeared destined to inflame controversy. A city of about 680,000 people, El Paso is a Democratic oasis in a heavily Republican state – closer geographically to the California state line than to San Antonio or Houston. More than 80 percent of the population in El Paso County is Hispanic, and Trump is so deeply unpopular here that in 2016, he won just 26 percent of the county’s vote.

O’Rourke, meanwhile, has made immigration a central part of his platform following his closer-than-expected loss to Republican Ted Cruz in last year’s Texas Senate race. Before the counter-rally against Trump, O’Rourke drew publicity for walking across the border form El Paso to Juarez to meet with asylum seekers and for visiting a detention camp for migrant children at Tornillo. On Christmas Eve, he was photographed passing out pizza slices to immigrant children in El Paso.

Trump is under pressure across the political spectrum on immigration. His base is demanding money for a border wall, of course. But a majority of voters oppose shutting the government down again to force Congress to appropriate money for a wall, according to recent polls. And declaring a national emergency is no quick fix for Trump — the idea lacks broad support.

Trump has dismissed O’Rourke as a “total lightweight,” saying in December that “I thought you were supposed to win before you run for president.” But his singling out of El Paso — first in his State of the Union address, and then on Monday — only increased attention on the former congressman and his city.

“The border city of El Paso, Texas used to have extremely high rates of violent crime — one of the highest in the entire country, and considered one of our nation’s most dangerous cities,” Trump said in his State of the Union address. “Now, immediately upon its building, with a powerful barrier in place, El Paso is one of the safest cities in our country. Simply put: Walls work, and walls save lives.”

Trump’s claim that El Paso used to be one of the nation’s most dangerous cities before erecting a barrier has been widely discredited. El Paso has long enjoyed a violent crime rate lower than the national average for cities of similar size, according to PolitiFact, the political fact-checking website.