On Tuesday’s broadcast of Bloomberg’s “Balance of Power,” House Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said that the DHS shutdown “is about what helps the American people and what…[shines] a bright light on the issues that we have in front of us.”
Aguilar said, “Democrats put ten issues on the table. We know the White House has responded to one or two items, and we appreciate that. But they need to address the rest of these items, and they need to decide whether they want to look like a real law enforcement agency or whether they want to look like a rogue vigilante group that they have been, where there are no rules, and they feel seemingly free to shoot U.S. citizens.”
He added, “If the president wanted to lead, the president should tell Congress, look, separate these issues out. And there’s no reason why we can’t fund DHS [or] Coast Guard, TSA, FEMA, Secret Service.”
Co-host Joe Mathieu then cut in to ask, “Does every Democrat support that, because we’ve heard some who were skeptical about that idea that you would effectively lose leverage?”
Aguilar answered, “The chair of the — this isn’t about leverage. Democrats don’t wake up every day thinking about, like, what leverage is the best. This is about what helps the American people and what puts — [shines] a bright light on the issues that we have in front of us.”
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