Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam is introduced at at Rotary luncheon at the Chattanooga Convention Center on Thursday, June 16, 2016, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Gov. Haslam, who recently met with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump along with several other governors, said he has no interest in being Vice President but suggested Sen. Bob Corker as a possible candidate.Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam continued on Thursday to avoid endorsing presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. But in a speech to the Rotary Club of Chattanooga at the Chattanooga Convention Center, he didn’t avoid other difficult topics, including raising the state’s gas tax and expanding TennCare, the state’s Medicaid program.
Haslam and five other Republican governors met with Trump on Tuesday in New York. When asked what he talked about with Trump, he joked, “When you are with five governors and Donald Trump, the chances to share are pretty limited. That sort of defines the definition of limited air time.”
But he added that he and the other governors discussed with Trump the way they would like to see the federal government deal with state governments in several key areas, such as health care and education, by giving states the power to modify federal programs to better meet their needs.
As to an endorsement, Haslam repeated what he said earlier this week: “The reality is, he is going to win Tennessee and my endorsement is not going to be a big deal one way or another.”
Haslam talked for about 10 minutes about the state’s accomplishments during the five years he has been in office, including keeping taxes low while building up a sizable budget surplus, and earning Tennessee’s state-issued bonds a Triple A rating on Wall Street. He also touted his success in winning legislative approval to provide two years of free college or technical education to Tennessee high school graduates, and putting significantly more money – some $730 million- into the budget for education.