Gov. Joe Lombardo said he supports stricter immigration reform but raised concerns about how resource-intensive President Donald Trump’s idea of mass deportations would be, and said the state would likely have to cut services if the Trump administration slashes federal funding.

In a wide-ranging interview with Nevada Independent CEO Jon Ralston on Tuesday, the Republican governor was largely defensive of Trump, while saying he supported deploying the Nevada National Guard to the southern border and said that vaccines should be a “personal choice.”

The more than 90-minutes long IndyTalks discussion at the National Automobile Museum in Reno came in the second week of this year’s legislative session and about one month after Lombardo’s State of the State address, during which he struck a largely conciliatory tone with legislative Democrats (who have majorities in both legislative chambers) after a contentious end to the 2023 session. Lombardo is up for re-election in 2026 and plans to run again.

The event also comes one week after Lombardo’s office resolved a $335 million structural deficit in his originally proposed budget by using more than $520 million of one-shot appropriations, including for state-funded prekindergarten, that will not be automatically baked into future budgets.

He acknowledged Tuesday that there were many errors with the original budget submitted to lawmakers, but defended his staff from criticism about the deficit. 

Lombardo also touted the rollout of the state’s new finance system, while confirming that payroll issues (which stem from the original system) will persist until a new human resources system replaces it this summer. 

He also pushed for changing the deadline to receive mail ballots — currently at four days post-Election Day, initially instituted during the pandemic — as a way to minimize the perception of election fraud and reiterated his push for a gubernatorial line-item veto — this time in the context of housing bills that he vetoed in the 2023 session.

Read below for main takeaways from Lombardo’s remarks.

‘Slicing and dicing’ of services if federal funds wither?

Amid the ongoing effort by the Trump administration and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to slash federal funding, Lombardo said it would be “malpractice” for the state to not have a contingency plan in place — about one-third of the state’s budget comes from the federal government.

He said this plan would likely involve a reduction in full-time state employees and determining which state-funded services are more important than others before “slicing and dicing.”

This contingency plan would not involve raising taxes.

“I’ve stated this publicly, and I’ll stand by it — no new taxes,” Lombardo said to cheers from the audience.

Lombardo also said potential cuts to Medicaid — a concern among Democrats given Trump’s desire to chop federal spending and initial confusion regarding an extremely broad memo freezing federal funding that was later rescinded by the White House — would “absolutely” be catastrophic for the state. 

About a quarter of Nevadans are Medicaid recipients, and he likened any change in their funding situation to “Armageddon.”

“Imagine that were to occur to individuals and providers. There's a significant number of doctors who have providers that provide Medicaid or to keep their doors open,” Lombardo said. “So those emergency plans that we just … discussed earlier have to be in place.” 

Senate Majority Leader Nicole Cannizzaro (D-Las Vegas) indicated during a meeting last week that if federal cuts happen outside of a legislative session, the Legislature may need a special session “to cut significantly budgets that we have.”

Defense of Trump

Lombardo was largely defensive of Trump, whom he joined at a rally in Las Vegas in late January and endorsed for president. But he said “nobody in their right mind can figure out his timeline,” a comment he said was not “derogatory” but meant Trump had a lot on his plate.   

"He's a disruptor. But I think it's important that people realize he's doing exactly what he said he would do in the campaign,” Lombardo said. “Now, the delivery of it could use massaging."

He added that "the delivery was poor" about the Trump administration's effort to roll back federal funding.

"It was all encompassing versus strategic,” Lombardo said.

He says that he is in contact with Trump's staff about the effects of federal funding cuts on Nevada.

On the topic of releasing federal land for housing development, which would require Congress and Trump’s cooperation, Lombardo said it could happen in “short order.” He has called on legislative Democrats to urge the federal government to open up land for development.

But he admitted this was no sure thing.

"Nobody in their right mind can figure out his timeline — and I don't mean that to be derogatory, there's a lot of stuff going on,” Lombardo said.

Asked whether he meant renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” Lombardo was silent before chuckling.

Pro-stricter immigration reform

Lombardo, who has cast some doubt on the feasibility of Trump’s plans to greatly increase deportations, clarified that while he believes in stricter immigration enforcement, the number of people eligible for removal is huge and it would be backwards to pursue mass deportation without first securing the southern border.

“It’s a resource nightmare,” Lombardo said. “In its current form, it can’t be done.” 

Rather, Lombardo said that he believes stronger border control is key to quelling a rise in unauthorized immigration, which he largely blamed the Biden administration for, and said he was open to deploying Nevada’s National Guard to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with border control efforts.

Lombardo added a caveat that the support is contingent on the state being able to recall the National Guard in a time of emergency and federal monetary support for federally mandated deployment.

“In my opinion, we have a porous border. We have individuals who have committed crimes that the majority of folks in the nation, including immigrants, support the removal of,” Lombardo said. Lombardo also said he was against deploying immigration officials in schools and churches, saying that enforcement should be more “strategic,” referring to Trump’s recent reversal of a 2011 policy that banned ICE from “sensitive spaces.” He also said that he will leave it up to county sheriffs to dictate their communities’ immigration policies.

School choice conviction

Lombardo addressed the recent findings of a state commission on school funding that recommended revamping Nevada’s tax system — reducing property tax breaks and expanding the sales tax base — to achieve optimal per-pupil funding.

Lombardo, who has pledged in office and on the 2022 campaign trail to not raise taxes, indicated that their plans were a nonstarter.

“They're smart people, but it’s also my responsibility to take it as advisement, not as a mandate,” Lombardo said.

It stems from Lombardo’s position that funding itself will not solve the state’s K-12 education issues — something he instead hopes to address this session by increasing school choice options and holding low-performing schools accountable.

“'Money is gonna fix the problem' — no. Process is gonna fix the problem,” he said. “We're stuck in the system that we have, trying to put a Band-Aid on, little duct tape here, it's not working."

As he did in his State of the State address last month, Lombardo placed less of an emphasis on Opportunity Scholarships, the state program that provides students from low- and middle-income households with scholarships to attend private schools. Any expansion of that program would be dead-on-arrival in the Democratically controlled Legislature.

Instead, he called for open zoning policies, which would allow for students to attend schools that they are not assigned to, and for funding transportation to charter schools.

"It's not necessarily vouchers and Opportunity Scholarships, what it is is an expansion on ability to learn,” he said.

He also condemned legislative Democrats for their opposition to an expansion of school choice.

"The ability to just say, 'No, we don't support it’ and not justify their lack of support ... it's malpractice,” he said.

Improving insurance approvals, no vaccine mandates

On his proposal to split the state’s Department of Health and Human Services, Lombardo said it would mitigate an “overwhelming” amount of responsibility falling on the head of the department.

The idea, Lombardo said, came from state employees and placing all the state’s insurance purchasing power under one roof would be “better management.”

He also touted his proposal to require insurers to follow a standardized, digitized prior authorization process, or when an insurer requires approval for specific treatments or prescriptions, by 2028 to reduce care delays for patients and providers.

Lombardo said the proposed split was not a “knee-jerk” response to the murder of the United Healthcare CEO in December, but something he’s been wanting to change for several years following a family member’s inability to receive care because of prior authorization issues. 

“Unfortunately I went through a personal experience on that,” he said. “Quite often, we don't pay attention to things until it actually becomes detrimental, right, or life-threatening.”

Asked about childhood immunization and adult vaccine rates in Nevada lagging behind national averages, Lombardo said he hasn’t given the issue much thought. 

He acknowledged that it was an important issue but that there are other problems nationwide regarding vaccines and whether they’re positive or negative, later clarifying that he thought vaccines were positive.

“There's a lot of history associated with vaccines but I think it’s still a personal choice,” Lombardo said. “I don't think the government should have to mandate anybody in that endeavor outside of educating; I think the role of government is to educate.”

Asked about mandating childhood vaccines, Lombardo said he believes parents should play a role in that decision and people shouldn’t be “marginalized” because of their support or lack of support for vaccines.

This story was updated at 4:25 p.m. on 2/12/25 to clarify paraphrases of Lombardo’s comments on immigration, a federal funding freeze and an IT upgrade.