Gov. Gary Herbert didn’t miss a beat when asked if Vice President Mike Pence’s planned visit to Utah on Thursday might act as an antacid for Beehive State Republicans who suffer heartburn over President Donald Trump.
“I think so,” he said. In Utah, “I think some people will say they voted for Mike Pence for vice president, and Donald Trump came along as president.”
Pence is scheduled to speak at Merit Medical on Thursday in South Jordan — after spending Wednesday night in Salt Lake City — to promote ratification of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement on trade.
Herbert said seeing and hearing Pence may help Utahns become more comfortable with the Trump administration.
“I think what President Trump has done in many ways is really good — as far as what he’s doing,” the governor said at his monthly news conference at KUED. “We all have a little bit of a pause sometimes with what he says.”
But Pence meshes well with Utah culture, Herbert said, adding that what he and Trump do is a team effort.
“The vice president’s background and history lines up with culture of Utah very well. A religious man, he’s conducted his life in such a way as to be considered very honest,” Herbert said.
He also loves seeing Pence, former governor of Indiana, in the administration.
“I wish we had more governors back in Washington, D.C., who understand the important role states play and the concept of federalism,” he said. “The vice president gets that.”
Herbert also called for ratification of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, and said a visit to Merit Medical may highlight its importance because that company conducts business in all three countries — and shows the importance of allowing goods and services to move among the nations.
“I don’t know why Congress is dragging their feet” on approving that update to the North America Free Trade Agreement, Herbert said. “I think everybody understands the need to update it and modernize it, and we ought to just get Congress to pass the bill.”
Herbert — who has been an outspoken advocate for humane treatment of undocumented immigrants — spoke as the Trump administration on Wednesday unveiled a rule that would allow immigrant families to be detained indefinitely at the border.
The governor declined to criticize that when asked about it, but he did lament that politicians in both major parties seem to use immigration to whip up political support instead of solving it.
“Why we continue to kick this immigration issue down the road is puzzling to me,” Herbert said.
“A pox on both sides of the aisle because they use all this for political purposes rather than solve the problem,” he said. “It’s all about politics and the nation suffers and the people who want to come to America … are punished in the process, too.”
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