Amid a national debate on the future of Confederate statues across the US, Vice President Mike Pence said on Tuesday he believed the fate of the monuments should be decided at the local level, adding that he viewed such works as an important part of American history.

"I'm someone who believes in more monuments, not less monuments," Pence told Fox & Friends. "What we ought to do is we ought to remember our history. But we also ought to celebrate the progress that we've made since that history."



At least 25 Confederate monuments across the US have been removed following the Aug. 12 violence in Charlottesville, in which a young woman was killed while demonstrating against a white supremacist rally.



President Trump was condemned last week by both Republicans and Democrats for defending the white supremacists who protested in Charlottesville against the removal of a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee.

"This week it's Robert E. Lee, and this week, Stonewall Jackson. Is it George Washington next?" Trump asked, noting the country's first president had owned slaves. "You have to ask yourself, where does it stop?"

Asked by Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt how he felt about the media continuing to talk about Charlottesville after Trump's Monday evening address on Afghanistan, Pence said "criticism comes with the job."

"The president couldn't have been more clear since that terrible day in Charlottesville, that tragic day, that we condemn bigotry and hate and violence in all its forms," Pence said. "We denounce white supremacists, the KKK, and neo-Nazi organizations."

In fact, Trump took two days to explicitly denounce white supremacist groups after Charlottesville, then used an Aug. 15 press conference at Trump Tower to again compare such groups to the anti-racist demonstrators.

At a CNN event on Monday night, House Speaker Paul Ryan was critical of Trump's statements.

"I do believe that he messed up in his comments on Tuesday, when it sounded like a moral equivocation, or at the very least moral ambiguity, when we need extreme moral clarity," Ryan said.