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Vasquez EXPOSES Hegseth's Border Ignorance in Fiery Hearing - Liberal Lens [View all]
Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-NM) confronts Secretary Pete Hegseth with a reality that Washington rarely acknowledges: the U.S.–Mexico border is not a political backdrop — it is a living, complex landscape that demands real knowledge and real solutions. Vasquez, who grew up in this region and has worked with ranchers, landowners, wildlife biologists, and border agents for years, brings facts, geography, and lived experience that Hegseth simply cannot match.
When Hegseth cannot identify where the New Mexico border wall starts and stops, cannot describe the terrain, and cannot explain why the Bootheel remains unwalled, Vasquez lays bare the difference between governing by headline and governing by understanding. Vast stretches of mountains, narrow canyons, remote passes, and rugged wilderness cannot be solved with a one-size-fits-all wall. The “just build it everywhere” claim collapses the moment real geography is introduced.
Vasquez’s point grows sharper as the exchange unfolds: the Department of Defense has diverted more than a billion dollars away from troop housing, modernization, and quality-of-life programs to fund border deployments — yet the Secretary of Defense cannot explain basic border facts. Meanwhile, proven technologies like tethered aerostats and autonomous surveillance towers go underfunded despite being force multipliers that agents on the ground actively request.
Vasquez makes the tension unmistakable: billions are being spent based on political optics, not operational needs. The boots-on-the-ground reality does not match the rhetoric coming from Washington. And Hegseth’s lack of knowledge isn’t just embarrassing — it suggests that border policy is being crafted by people who haven’t bothered to understand the land, the communities, or the agents who live and work in these remote regions every day.
This hearing becomes a rare moment when lived experience overwhelms political talking points. Vasquez calls for something simple: less performance, more knowledge; fewer photo ops, more time on the ground; fewer slogans, more real strategy. And he forces the country to see how disconnected border politics have become from border reality. - 11/27/2025.
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