For Immediate Release
July 15, 2016
SCDP STATEMENT ON DONALD TRUMP’S SELECTION OF MIKE PENCE AS HIS RUNNING MATE
Columbia, SC – South Carolina Democratic Party Chair Jaime Harrison released the following statement today on Donald Trump’s selection of Indiana Governor Mike Pence as his running mate:
“Mike Pence, an ultra right-wing ideologue, is the perfect running mate for Donald Trump. Like Trump, Pence shows a reckless disregard for facts—he claimed, in the year 2000, that smoking doesn’t kill. Like Trump, Pence shows a reckless disregard for working Americans—he has been a strong supporter of risking seniors’ Social Security in Wall Street stocks. Like Trump, Pence shows a reckless disregard for those who are different than him—last year he signed a law allowing discrimination against LGBTQ Hoosiers. And like Trump, Pence will not get anywhere near the White House—Americans will soundly reject them both at the ballot box this fall.
“As bad as Mike Pence has been on the issues, though, in one crucial area, Nikki Haley and South Carolina Republicans have been worse. While Pence has refused to acknowledge many obvious facts, even he had to acknowledge that there was no credible policy justification for failing to accept federal dollars to provide health insurance for hundreds of thousands of uninsured Hoosiers. Nikki Haley and South Carolina Republicans still have their heads in the sand even as their intransigence is costing jobs, forcing hospitals to close, and causing nearly 200 South Carolinians to die prematurely every year.
“Regrettably, Mike Pence’s one moment of sanity on this one issue has ended—he is joining a ticket that is promising to strip health insurance away from those recently insured Hoosiers and deny future South Carolina leaders the opportunity to do what he once did to save jobs and lives. We can’t let Mike Pence get elected Vice President and conspire with Donald Trump to reverse all of the progress we’ve made over the last eight years, and we can’t let South Carolina Republicans continue their lethal dominance of our state government. Enough is enough.”
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