Jim Webb: 2016 decision coming ‘in the next few days’

Former Sen. Jim Webb of Virginia said Tuesday a decision on a presidential run is coming in “the next few days.”

We’re probably going to “get a lot busier over the next week or so,” Mr. Webb said at the National Sheriffs’ Association’s annual meeting in Baltimore, later telling reporters he expects to announce a decision in “the next few days.”

Mr. Webb also told reporters that while he thinks President Obama’s executive actions on immigration were legal, he would “look at them” if elected president, according to MSNBC.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, has embraced Mr. Obama’s actions and has said she’d like to go even further if elected to the White House.

Mr. Webb said “what you’ve seen from some other people is they’re saying they’ll even go further than that,” and that “I think we’ve got to be very careful about timelines.”

He pointed out that he introduced an amendment during the immigration debate of 2007 that said from the date of passage of the legislation, “if you have been here more than five years, if you can demonstrate that you’ve put down roots in your community, a job, language, education … then you should have a path toward citizenship.”

Mrs. Clinton devoted the first major policy speech of her campaign to criminal justice reform — an issue Mr. Webb focused on during his single term in the U.S. Senate from 2007-2013.

“If you’re looking for the kind of leadership that changed the national dialogue on this discussion, we’ve shown it — we did it,” he said.

A former secretary of the Navy, Mr. Webb said he was “proud” to have worked in the Reagan administration. He recently issued a statement urging respect for the “complicated history” of the Civil War and noted Tuesday that conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer had written a recent piece in line with his position on the Confederate flag, according to MSNBC.

Mr. Webb would join a Democratic presidential field that includes Mrs. Clinton, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent, former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley, and former Rhode Island Gov. and U.S. Sen. Lincoln Chafee.

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a 2016 GOP presidential candidate, addressed the sheriffs’ association Monday and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, another Republican presidential candidate, also spoke Tuesday.