ABC News reporter Paula Faris labeled Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Texas) a “rock star” during an interview with the Senate hopeful that aired Sunday on the network’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”
“You’re a rock star,” Faris said to O’Rourke as the two walked past supporters cheering the candidate.
“No, no. There is just so many great people,” O’Rourke replied.
{mosads}“No you really are,” Faris insisted.
Faris was a co-host on “The View” before leaving the program earlier this year for a role as an ABC news anchor and senior national correspondent.
The perspective comes with the midterms just over two weeks away and O’Rourke looking to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz in the deep-red state, which hasn’t had a Democratic senator since 1993.
O’Rourke raised more than $38 million in donations last quarter and was featured in a nationally televised CNN town hall last week.
Cruz, who was elected to the Senate in 2012 and tallied the second-highest amount of delegates in his failed run for the Republican nomination against Donald Trump in 2016, leads O’Rourke in the RealClearPolitics polling index by 7 points.
Cruz was asked by Faris in an interview that also aired Sunday if President Trump was his friend or foe.
“Is [Trump] your friend, is he your foe?” Faris asked Cruz. “How do you describe the relationship?”
“He’s the president,” Cruz replied. “I work with the president in delivering on our promises.”
Trump will hold a rally for Cruz at the Toyota Center in Houston, which holds more than 19,000 people.