(CNN) Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, President Donald Trump's ally who in the 1990s presided over one of the longest government shutdowns in US history, said Wednesday that Trump should stop negotiating with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and instead ramp up the pressure on rank-and-file Democrats.

Gingrich said he would advise Trump to hold political rallies in Democratic districts where the President performed well in 2016, with the goal of winning just enough Democratic support to break the current impasse.

"My advice would be: Why don't you schedule three rallies in three Democratic districts and have people show up -- see how Democrats feel about that kind of direct pressure?" Gingrich told CNN in a phone interview Wednesday. "He ought to start planning right now. Reaching out to individual Democrats and ignoring Pelosi and Schumer."

The partial government shutdown stretched into its 26th day on Wednesday. The previous record was a 21-day shutdown in 1995, when Gingrich was House speaker and Bill Clinton was President and Clinton and the Republican Congress clashed over the federal budget.

Public opinion polling at the time found Americans overwhelmingly blamed congressional Republicans for the shutdown. The impasse eventually ended with an agreement to balance the budget in seven years.

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