WASHINGTON _ Beto O'Rourke has ended a prolonged television drought that has coincided with sagging poll numbers, sitting down with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow to discuss the state of his campaign and fending off tough questions on ABC's "The View."
"This is your relaunch today, maybe?" Whoopi Goldberg, co-host of "The View," put it to O'Rourke, a former Texas congressman whose White House bid hasn't sparked the national interest he enjoyed last fall when he challenged Sen. Ted Cruz.
"If you want to be president, you gotta talk to everybody," he responded on his first daytime TV segment since launching his campaign two months ago.
Maddow posed much the same question the night before, when he broke his cable news moratorium, asking if he is now launching a "re-introduction" in hopes of giving a jolt to his flagging campaign.
"I've been on the road now for eight weeks and traveled to over 15 states, have held more than 150 town halls," he said. "I recognize I can do a better job also talking to a national audience, beyond the town halls in New Hampshire and Iowa and Nevada and South Carolina and Minnesota and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania."
O'Rourke has spent the first two months of his White House bid focused on retail level stump appearances. He quickly blew past nearly all of his rivals in the number of town hall meetings, including some who had been stumping for nearly a year, fielding hundreds of questions from voters.
In three trips to Iowa, he's already stumped in 34 of 99 counties, the most of any 2020 contender.
But he has avoided Sunday shows and cable network appearances that can entail tougher questions, with demands for details and follow-ups forcing him to explain inconsistencies, and differences with opponents.
That has fueled perceptions that he is lighter on policy than he should be and has remained in a comfort zone.
The tactic is shifting, starting with the Monday night slot on "The Rachel Maddow Show" and Tuesday morning's appearance on "The View."
CNN and the O'Rourke campaign announced Monday that he will take part in a live town hall from Iowa next week _ the sort of showcase that most top-tier Democratic contenders have already done. Dana Bash will moderate from Drake University in Des Moines on May 21.
As recently as this weekend in New Hampshire, O'Rourke faced questions about his heavy focus on intimate campaign events _ house parties that draw as few as two dozen potential supporters.
He defended his approach, saying it's a way to build a network that will pay off later.
On "The View," O'Rourke's trial by fire started with co-host Meghan McCain asking about early missteps, such as telling Vanity Fair he was "born" to run for president, and joking about the heavier child-rearing load shouldered by his wife, Amy.
"No one is born to be president of the United States of America, least of all me," he said. And, projecting contrition for the show's predominantly female audience about a joke that drew much derision at the time, he said, "You're right. There are things that I have been privileged to do in my life that others cannot."
Co-host Joy Behar pressed him to explain a comment suggesting that he would consider Stacey Abrams, a black Democrat who narrowly lost a bid for George governor last year, as his running mate.
Former Vice President Joe Biden had floated Abrams as his own running mate. O'Rourke's comments were different. Unlike Biden, he hadn't preemptively floated her or anyone else's name. Rather, he'd been asked at a New Hampshire house party whether he would choose a woman for vice president, and responded by expressing admiration for the women running for the nomination and also for Abrams, who is not running.
She "is a real hero to me," he said on "The View," adding, "If I were fortunate enough to be the nominee, it's hard to imagine a scenario" where he wouldn't pick a woman as his running mate, whether a fellow 2020 candidate or another "extraordinary" option because "it's very important that our government looks like the people of this country."
Co-host Ana Navarro noted that he's polling between 2% and 5%, and asked what it would take for him to drop out.
O'Rourke cited a recent CNN poll showing that in a head-to-head race against President Donald Trump, he would win by 10 percentage points, the best margin of any Democrat in the race, including all of those higher on the list of choices for primary voters.
In a speed round focused on policy, he avoided a call for direct monetary reparations for descendants of slaves, explained his support for a plan that would let people keep their current health insurance while expanding Medicare for others, and reversing Trump's immigration policies.
Navarro pressed him to clarify whether he wants to abolish the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, an idea he once loosely indicated he would be open to, though he has always emphasized that its enforcement duties would never go away.
"We should not abolish ICE," he said, but he said he would end family separations and dramatically curb deportations, focusing efforts on immigrants who "pose a violent threat risk."
Maddow noted that former Vice President Joe Biden leads in Texas. Biden launched his bid on April 25. An Emerson College Poll conducted April 25 to 28 showed Biden at 23% in Texas, with O'Rourke at 22%. She devoted roughly 15 minutes of her show to the O'Rourke interview.
Maddow peppered him with questions about President Donald Trump's foreign policies.
O'Rourke called Trump's policies "a complete disaster," including the "worst idea" _ threatening U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. Although he echoed the administration's recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaido, he called for more collaboration with allies to create pressure needed to oust President Nicolas Maduro.
"I don't know what the president's strategy is," O'Rourke said.
The Texan, who served three terms in Congress before running a near-miss challenge last fall against Cruz, blasted Trump for "cozying up to strongmen" around the world, including Russia's Vladimir Putin, Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. On Monday, Trump met with Hungary's autocratic prime minister, Viktor Orban.
"His signal to the world is there's an open question about whether the future is authoritarian or democratic ... because at the same time he has turned his back on our allies," O'Rourke said.
O'Rourke also touched on immigration, blasting Trump for harsh policies toward asylum-seekers crossing the border from Mexico, most having made a long trek from Central America.
"We don't need to greet them with cages for their kids or walls," he said.
