In Sparks, Heller stays mum on Trump's call to appoint his personal doctor to head the VA

U.S. Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev, says he hasn’t yet decided if he’ll support President Donald Trump’s latest pick to head the Department of Veteran Affairs.

Heller — reached after a Wednesday tour of a trucking facility in Sparks with the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao — said he’s yet to meet Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson, Trump’s personal doctor and a controversial choice to head the embattled federal agency charged with overseeing health care benefits for over 9 million military veterans.

The pick presents a particular dilemma for Heller, who is widely seen as the most vulnerable GOP incumbent up for re-election this year. 

After distancing himself from Trump in the past, Nevada’s senior senator has sidled up to the president in recent weeks and wouldn’t want to be seen rejecting one of his picks for a cabinet-level position.

But Heller — who helped clear a massive backlog of claims at Nevada VA hospitals in recent years — has also taken pains to appeal to veterans groups, many of which have come out loudly against Jackson’s nomination, citing concerns over his qualifications for the job.

Heller didn’t say anything to upset either group in brief remarks to reporters on Wednesday.

“I don’t know the nominee,” Heller said. “I will have him in my office, since I sit on the veterans committee, and then he’ll have his hearings.

“So I’ll postpone any opinion on this until I get a chance to have a one-on-one meeting with him.”

Heller was similarly noncommittal on the topic of congressional action on guns, telling the Reno Gazette Journal that it should be up to the state and local leaders to decide whether to arm school teachers or raise the minimum age to buy a gun to 21.

He said those officials should also be charged with regulating high capacity magazines, such as the ones gunman Stephen Paddock used during the Oct. 1 shooting that left 58 people dead at the Route 91 Harvest music festival in Las Vegas.

He took the same tack when pressed for specific proposals he would support to heighten school safety in the wake of February’s deadly mass shooting at a South Florida high school.

“I’m one of those guys who thinks the states themselves need to figure out what the best fix is for the schools,” Heller said. “Florida did it, after the shooting in Florida. I think the Nevada Legislature will come together and they’re going to have their discussion.”

Asked about universal background checks on gun purchases — a proposal that would close the oft-derided “gun show loophole” in the federal background check system — Heller said he supported the existing federal vetting method, one he described as “about as universal as it gets.”

He did not directly answer a question about whether he would vote against the DREAM act, a long-sought immigration reform that would grant legal status to undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.

Efforts to beef up border security should come before providing those deportation protections because, Heller said, “both sides have to give a little bit.”

“I’ve been a supporter of immigration reform for the last five years,” he added. “I think the goal on this is to make sure that we have border security and a process to make sure the Dreamers have an opportunity to have a pathway (to citizenship).

“That’s where the president is and I think if both sides give a little bit, we can get something done in Washington D.C.”

The senator has made few press-friendly appearances in Nevada since the start of his campaign. A Tuesday lunch Heller attended at the Nevada Republican Men’s Club in Las Vegas was no exception, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

The newspaper on Wednesday reported the event, which was open to the press in past years, was closed to reporters ahead of Heller’s appearance.

The Smith Valley senator said he had nothing to do with that decision.

“It was a private event,” Heller added minutes after finishing a tour of Reno-based ITS Logistics’ warehouse facility in Sparks. “It was a private group that decided they didn’t want the press to participate. … You’re going to be seeing me (during the campaign). You’re going to be complaining, you see so much of me.”

The warehouse tour, joined by Department of Transportation Secretary Chao, followed a morning press conference in Carson City, where the pair announced a $7.5 million grant to complete a road renovation project on the capital’s main drag.

Heller was eager to tout Chao’s visit as a harbinger of good things that may come to Nevada as part of a proposed $200 billion infrastructure spending package trumpeted by Trump.

Heller is expected to glide through a June primary election on his way to a likely November general election showdown with U.S. Rep. Jacky Rosen, D-Nev.