60 Minutes Archives: Beto O'Rourke said he wouldn't run for president in 2020
Thursday morning, Beto O'Rourke announced he is running for president. The former Texas congressman is just three and a half months removed from a narrow loss for Ted Cruz's Senate seat after a campaign that made the 46-year-old a national figure. While reporting on that race, 60 Minutes correspondent Jon Wertheim asked O'Rourke if he had plans to run for president in 2020. O'Rourke said, win or lose, "I'm not running in 2020." Below is a transcript of that exchange.
JON WERTHEIM: We've heard a lotta people speculate that you and Sen. Cruz may face each other again, not in a Senate rematch but running for a higher office. What are your thoughts on-- on running for president?
BETO O'ROURKE: I don't wanna do it. I will not do it. Amy and I are raisin' an 11-year-old, a 10-year-old and a 7-year-old. And we spent the better part of the last two years not with each other, missing birthdays and anniversaries and time together. And we-- we-- our-- our family could not survive more of that. We, we need to be together.
JON WERTHEIM: Is that reversible? You're saying you'll, you'll never run for president?
BETO O'ROURKE: I'm saying that if elected to the Senate, I'll serve every day of that six-year term, that I'm not lookin' at 2020. And, and, in fact, am completely ruling that out, not going to do that.
JON WERTHEIM: No matter what? Win or lose you're not gonna run--
BETO O'ROURKE: Win or lose--
JON WERTHEIM: --in 2020?
BETO O'ROURKE: Win or lose, I'm not-- I'm not running in, in 2020. I gotta tell you, it's incredibly flattering that anyone would ask me the question or that that's even up for discussion. But, but since people have asked, the answer's no.
JON WERTHEIM: You didn't sidestep that.
BETO O'ROURKE: No.