Former Reps. Mia Love (R-Utah) and Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.) have joined CNN as political commentators after leaving Congress this year.
The two former members of the House made their debuts Monday morning on CNN’s “New Day” program.
{mosads}Love lost her reelection bid on Nov. 6 to Democrat Ben McAdams. Gutiérrez announced in 2017 that he planned to retire from Congress and did not seek reelection in 2018.
Both Love and Gutiérrez left office last week after the new Congress took office.
Love made headlines late last year after she exchanged criticisms with President Trump following the midterm elections.
Trump singled her out for not embracing him enough on the campaign trail.
“Mia Love gave me no love, and she lost,” Trump said during a news conference. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.”
Love responded later that month, saying that Trump’s brand of politics were “insufficient.”
“No real relationships, just convenient transactions,” she said. “That is an insufficient way to implement sincere service and policy.”
In her first day as a commentator for CNN, Love opined on the ongoing partial government shutdown that is now in its third week.
The shutdown was prompted because Trump said he would not sign a spending bill that didn’t include $5 billion in funding for a wall along the southern border.
In a televised Oval Office meeting with Democratic leaders Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) before the shutdown began, Trump said he was “proud to shut down the government for border security.”
Referencing that meeting, Love said Monday that “this thing was set to fail right when it started.”
“You have a president that says, ‘If you don’t give me a wall, I will own a shutdown.’ … There was no leverage,” she said. “There was nothing that would even set the precedent for a really good deal or a compromise.”