O’Rourke jokes that Booker should play him in biopic

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) quipped that his fellow Democratic presidential rival Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) should play him in a movie.

O’Rourke gave the answer in a wide-ranging interview with NowThis News in which he also described the evolution of his views on gun control.

‘I want to make sure our administration reflects the true genius and diversity of this country.’ — @BetoORourke explains why he changed his mind on guns, his universal health care plan, and his worst habit pic.twitter.com/xqSrUCMvGF

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) September 12, 2019

During the interview, O’Rourke said that while he once supported responsible ownership of assault-style rifles, he has moved to favoring buybacks of such weapons, particularly in the wake of the shooting in El Paso, Texas, last month that killed 22 people.{mosads}

The former congressman also discusses being “starstruck” when he met President Obama, as well as his changing thinking on efforts to combat illicit drugs as a result of his experience serving in the city government of El Paso, which is directly across the border from Mexico’s Ciudad Juarez, itself the scene of mass violence amid the cartel conflicts of the late 2000s.

O’Rourke told the outlet he came to “understand that we had some culpability” in the violence due to the United States’ status as the world’s most lucrative market for illegal drugs.

O’Rourke and Booker previously shared a viral moment at the first Democratic primary debate in June when Booker’s wordless reaction to O’Rourke speaking Spanish became a meme.

The two are slated to appear alongside eight other Democrats in the party’s third presidential primary debate on Thursday night in Houston.