Beto O'Rourke interrupts Gov. Abbott's news conference

Beto O'Rourke, as I mentioned, confronted Texas Governor Greg Abbott during that press conference. CNN's Ed Lavendera was inside. Ed, what happened there and what did he say after? Well, as the governor was going through his introductory remarks, before he started taking questions, Beto O'Rourke, who had come into the press conference just moments before it started and sat down in the third row, then stood up and started confronting the governor. It didn't take long, if you watch the video of all of this, for others in the crowd to start yelling back at Beto O'Rourke, but this is some of the exchange that we saw unfold just a short while ago. Excuse me. Sit down. You're out of line and an embarrassment. Sit down and don't play this. No. You should get the f*** out of here. Just get in the place and talk to the folks. Sir, you're out of line. You're out of line. Sir, you're out of line. Please leave this auditorium. I can't believe you're a sick son of a b**** to come to a deal like this to make a political issue. And that person you saw there behind the governor, the lieutenant governor, yelling you're out of line is the mayor of Uvalde and as he was being escorted out, Beto O'Rourke started telling the governor, turned around once again and said, this is on you as long as gun laws in this state are not changed, then there will continue to be more children killed like here in Uvalde. Beto O'Rourke was escorted out of the press conference in the press briefing area and he spoke with reporters afterwards. This 18 year old who just turned 18 bought an AR-15 and took it into an elementary school and shot kids in the face and killed them. Why are we letting this happen in this country? Why is this happening in this state? Year after year, city after city, this is on all of us if we do not do something and I am going to do something and I'm not alone. The people of Texas are with us. The majority of the people of Texas are with us. So you can clearly see the political intensity of what this event is triggering here in Texas. Beto O'Rourke, of course, facing off against Governor Greg Abbott in the November election. Abbott is up for re-election this year, Beto O'Rourke running against him and you can imagine that this is going to be one of the key campaign issues that Beto O'Rourke will continue to carry on. But remember, this is a state that is extremely conservative. This is a county that voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and there have been many thoughts and Beto O'Rourke has talked about taking away AR-15s. He has taken a great deal of criticism on that from Texas Republicans, but clearly Beto O'Rourke leaning into that and feeling very comfortable making that a campaign issue going into the rest of this year. Ed, I remember in 2019 hearing something similar from Beto O'Rourke when he was running for president after the El Paso shooting there and still here we are several years later with another mass shooting there in Texas. Ed Lavendaire, thank you. Alistair, thank you.