Arkansas Governor Reflects on SOTU and a Year in Office and a Trip to Cuba

The Brian Lehrer Show | Jan 13, 2016

Republican governor of Arkansas Asa Hutchinson discusses President Obama’s last State of the Union address and Nikki Haley’s Republican response to the Nation. 

In terms of Haley's call to Republicans to accept responsibility for the "the erosion of the public trust in America’s leadership," Governor Hutchinson agrees that Republicans need to think about the "civility of their discourse," but also blames the problem on Obama "trying to bypass the usual order of congress by enacting executive orders." 

When asked about his former position as undersecretary for Border & Transportation Security at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the hardest part of sealing the border, Hutchinson says, "There’s so many different ways in this mobile society to evade the law... If you can’t enter through the Mexican border, you can just fly to the Canadian border and enter through there.  We need to focus on technology at the borders and not just people.” 

"I totally love and am focused on what I'm doing in Arkansas," Governor Hutchinson, who has endorsed Mike Huckabee as the Republican nominee, replies when Brian asks if his trip to New York has anything to do with a spot as Vice President on the Republican ticket. A focus this year was a trip to Cuba: "It was very productive," the governor says, "In the sense of of marketing Arkansas rice, poultry and agriculture."

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