This article originally appeared on Time.
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President Mike Pence says state and local authorities should make decisions about Confederate statues, and he calls himself “someone who believes in more monuments, not less monuments.”
As for the fate of Confederate statues at the U.S. Capitol, Pence says it’s up to states to pick the figures represented.
He tells “Fox & Friends” that “what we have to walk away from is a desire by some to erase parts of our history just in the name of some contemporary political cause.”
Pence recalls traveling to Selma, Alabama, in 2010 to walk with civil rights leader John Lewis, and the vice president favors monuments honoring those “who’ve helped our nation move toward a more perfect union.”
The violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, has renewed calls to remove Confederate statues.