“I’m trying to deal with the flag and nothing else,” Sen. Lindsey Graham said when asked about the statues. “That’s what I’m going to be focused on.”

His colleague in the senate, Tim Scott, said: “I’m not going to make a push to move them…The focus should be on the families.”

One South Carolina state legislator who plans to introduce a bill to remove the flag in Columbia said he had not considered the statues, but is worried about losing momentum on the flag initiative.

“There’s one symbol I want to remove, and that’s the Confederate flag,” said state Rep. Doug Brannon, who plans to introduce a bill to remove the battle flag from the Capitol grounds.

Requests for comment from other state legislators, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and the entire South Carolina House delegation were not returned.