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SALT LAKE CITY — Mia Love has a new job.
CNN announced Monday the former Utah congresswoman and former Illinois congressman Luis Gutierrez were the cable news outlet’s newest political commentators. Both left office last week.
Love was asked what it was like to see the newest Congress sworn in without her during her first segment on the network. She called it “surreal” and “bittersweet.” She said she watched the ceremonies with her children so they could see the democratic process firsthand.
“There was one point where I sat there and thought, ‘gosh, thank goodness. I’ll let them have that,’” she said. “There are other moments where you feel like we accomplished something.”
"We'll teach you the secret handshake after the segment."@JohnBerman welcomes fmr. Congress members - and new @CNN political commentators - Mia Love and Luis Gutierrez.
— New Day (@NewDay) January 7, 2019
On shutdown, Love says if she and Gutierrez were still Reps., "we would get it done!"https://t.co/h0K8EFBBArpic.twitter.com/7NtwOXPSSG
The swearing-in ceremony included Rep. Ben McAdams, who narrowly defeated Love for Utah’s fourth congressional seat in November.
Love also chimed in about the government shutdown, which entered Day 17 on Monday. She said the negotiations for the national budget, which have been centered mostly around border wall funding, were “set to fail right when it started.”
She praised the bill Republicans passed in the House of Representatives in December and argued that too much of the Republican negotiations have been given to the Trump administration.
“It’s really frustrating to me because we’re leaving everything in the hands of the administration and that’s where it shouldn’t be,” Love said. “Whenever you consolidate too much power in the White House, it’s doomed to just fail.
Love had held the House of Representatives seat since 2015. She was mayor of Saratoga Springs prior to her time in Congress. She also joins former Utah congressman Jason Chaffetz, who resigned from office in 2017, as political commentaries on network television. Chaffetz has been a regular face on Fox News since he left office.
