Gabe Vasquez

On Monday’s broadcast of MS NOW’s “Way Too Early,” Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) stated that the DHS shutdown “hurt more people than it actually helped, because it certainly didn’t help our negotiations.” And argued that Democrats should have taken the more aggressive tactic of using must-pass legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act or the farm bill to try to force changes to ICE that the party wanted.

Vasquez said, “I think, certainly, we could have had a much stronger posture, right? In those demands that we asked for, look, there [are] a lot of must-pass bills in Congress, the National Defense Authorization Act, the farm bill. There [are] other vehicles under which to negotiate and I don’t want to say hold hostage, but also use as tools for leverage and — to get these reforms in place. And so you have to have a playbook that meets the moment, and I don’t believe that we did. And the shutdown, I think, hurt more people than it actually helped, because it certainly didn’t help our negotiations.”

Host Ali Vitali then clarified, “Which shutdown, the DHS shutdown?”

Vasquez responded, “Yeah, the longest shutdown in American history.”