Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke brought his gun-grabbing campaign for governor to a briefing on the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas on Wednesday afternoon, interrupting his gubernatorial opponent Greg Abbott as he was providing details of the attack and the ensuing investigation to the media and members of the community.

O’Rourke was ultimately escorted out of the briefing by security, but not before the mayor of Uvalde offered some choice words for the one-time congressman turned professional candidate.

“Sir, you’re out of line,” shouted Uvalde Mayor Donald McLaughlin, gesticulating. “You’re a sick son of a b-tch to do this to make a point.”

“You’re doing nothing,” O’Rourke continued, seemingly addressing Abbott as officers approached him. “You said this was unpredictable, it’s not. It’s totally predictable.”

You can check out O’Rourke’s idiotic and reprehensible display below.

BREAKING: Beto O'Rourke just disrupted Greg Abbott's press conference on the school shooting in Texas.

A Sheriff calls him a "sick son of a bitch." pic.twitter.com/KieQw9vITn

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 25, 2022

Price later clarified that it wasn’t the sheriff but the mayor who called out O’Rourke for crashing the decidedly non-political event, though there were plenty of others on the stage who also took issue with the Democratic candidate trying to get some earned media at the expense of a grieving community.

Some of the Republican officials onstage quickly denounced O’Rourke. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz told him, “Sit down and don’t play this stunt.” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick told O’Rourke he was “out of line and an embarrassment.” And Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin gave the most colorful response.

“I can’t believe that you’re a sick son of a bitch that would come to a deal like this to make a political issue,” McLaughlin said.

O’Rourke was eventually escorted out of the room. On his way out, he turned back to address Abbott again.

“This on you until you choose to do something different,” O’Rourke said. “This will continue to happen. Somebody needs to sand up for the children of this state or they will be continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”

Once the scene calmed down, Abbott called for unity.

“There are family members that are crying as we speak,” he said. “There are family members whose hearts are broken. There’s no words that anybody shouting can come up here and do anything to heal these broken hearts.”

O’Rourke has been trailing Abbott in polling in the Texas governor’s race, and clearly he sees the Tuesday’s murder of 21 individuals, 19 of them children, as a way to advance his political prospects by once again leaning into his support for more gun control laws, despite the fact that for much of the campaign the Democrat has been trying to downplay his previous boasts about “coming for your AR-15s”.

The media spin around O’Rourke’s campaign stunt has been predictable, with outlets like CNN describing the event as O’Rourke “confronting” Abbott, while most local news operations more accurately describing his actions as “disrupting” or “crashing” the briefing. Some gun control activists cheered on O’Rourke’s actions as well.

You are my hero @BetoORourke. From the bottom of my heart, for my daughter Jaime and all victims of gun violence, thank you. pic.twitter.com/zW3msBSmo3

— Fred Guttenberg (@fred_guttenberg) May 25, 2022

Even if I were fully in-line with O’Rourke’s views on gun control I would have found this to be an appalling and disgusting bit of political theater, but I guess one man’s SOB is another man’s GOAT. I personally think this was incredibly disrespectful to those on stage and in the audience, but also totally in line with who Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke is, as both a person and a politician. At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if Beto buys himself an NRA membership to try to crash the organization’s annual meeting in Houston this weekend instead of simply protesting outside the convention center downtown.