MIAMI _ Beto O'Rourke was answering a question about raising taxes on the rich when he suddenly stopped speaking English early in the first Democratic presidential debate.
"Necesitamos incluir cada persona en el exito de este economia," he said, befuddling rivals and television viewers who don't speak Spanish.
His accent and grammar received mixed reviews online. "We need to include every person in the success of the economy," the former congressman from Texas said.
Yes, the debate Wednesday was in Miami, where much of the population is Latino. And many Spanish-speaking voters will cast ballots in some of the Democratic primaries.
But apart from that, it was not entirely clear why O'Rourke was answering a tax question in Spanish. The stunned looks on the faces of Sens. Cory Booker and Elizabeth Warren turned into instant memes.
Nonetheless, Booker soon took the opportunity to flaunt his own Spanish skills _ in response to an immigration question.
"La situacion ahora es inaceptable," he said, lamenting the current turmoil at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Booker tweeted last week that he once did "immersion Spanish language study" in Ecuador. "Lived with a family and really improved my abilidad," he said.
O'Rourke, a former mayor of El Paso on the Mexican border, learned Spanish in high school.
Julian Castro, the only Latino in the Democratic contest, is admittedly shaky in Spanish. A former mayor of San Antonio, Castro is the grandson of a Mexican immigrant. The former HUD secretary told the audience in his closing statement that he was running "por presidente de los Estados Unidos."
Marianne Williamson, the self-help author who will take the stage on Night 2 of the debate on Thursday, tweeted: "I need to learn Spanish by tomorrow night at 9."
The Democrats' use of Spanish marks a contrast with last election's Republican primary. Donald Trump berated his rival Jeb Bush for speaking Spanish on the campaign trail.
"He's a nice man," Trump told Breitbart in 2015. "But he should really set the example by speaking English while in the United States."
