Hours after Beto O’Rourke confirmed that he is running for president, following a glossy cover story in Vanity Fair, President Donald Trump was asked what he thinks about his new 2020 challenger. It’s hardly a trivial question, given the number of G.O.P. insiders worried that either O’Rourke or Joe Biden, both white men of a certain sunny disposition, could be competitive in many of the states Trump flipped in 2016. But Trump, apparently, has more specific threats on his mind.

“Well, I think he’s got a lot of hand movement. I’ve never seen so much hand movement,” Trump told reporters in the West Wing on Thursday. “I said, ‘Is he crazy or is that just the way he acts?’ So I’ve never seen hand movement. I watched him a little while this morning, doing, I assume, some kind of a news conference, and I’ve actually never seen anything like it.”

Trump, who is prone to wild gesticulation himself, seems to be flailing a bit here. Ditto Hogan Gidley, the deputy White House press secretary, whose own lame response to O’Rourke’s entry was to point out that “Beto” isn’t his Christian name. “Well first of all, you pronounced it wrong,” he told Fox News on Thursday. “It’s ‘Robert Francis.’”

It’s an inauspicious start for Trump allies as they test out attack lines against O’Rourke. So far, both Trump and Gidley appear to be trying to puncture O’Rourke’s cool, either by painting him as erratic (O’Rourke famously spent his itinerant early twenties bumming around New York City, playing in a punk band, and later getting a D.U.I. back home in Texas) or somehow inauthentic (the very white, definitely not Hispanic Robert Francis O’Rourke was nicknamed “Beto” by his family). But it’s not clear whether either criticism will really stick. During last year’s election, similar attacks by Ted Cruz—look, Beto skateboards—arguably made him look cooler. As O’Rourke hinted to my colleague Joe Hagan, he plans on being a complete open book when it comes to his past.

The more damning attack lines are likely to come from the left, where Beto is viewed somewhat suspiciously for his centrist-y political messaging, his billionaire in-laws, and his past decision to take campaign funds from oil and gas industry employees. (Although, try to throw a stone in Texas without hitting at least one person making a buck off of hydrocarbons.) Already, some Republicans are trying to hasten the internecine squabbling. Earlier this week, the G.O.P.-aligned Club for Growth released an ad targeting O’Rourke as a phony progressive who has coasted through life on his “white male privilege”. The two-minute television spot is clumsy and transparent, like a bad imitation of how woke Twitter kids might talk to each other. But it does suggest that the right is clued into the potential for an ugly primary battle between the centrists and the progressives, and the role that race and identity is likely to play in amplifying the divides between candidates like Beto and Kamala Harris or Cory Booker.

Trump, for now, seems to be preoccupied with more pressing concerns, like the unsettling size and eldritch movement of O’Rourke’s hands. “Study it,” Trump urged reporters in the White House. “I think you’ll agree.”

Donald Trump’s Short Fingers: A Historical Analysis



1 / 17 Chevron Chevron By Justin Lane/EPA/Corbis. “O.K., you, in the third row… Yes, you… I’m calling on you… Yes, that’s why I’m pointing… I’m pointing with my finger… My FINGER. This one… Why would you think I’m holding up a cocktail frank?”

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