WASHINGTON –  DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz issued the following statement:

“With his choice of Mike Pence, the most extreme Vice Presidential pick in a generation, Donald Trump has doubled down on the very qualities that make him unfit for the Oval Office. In Pence, Trump now has a running mate equally committed to pitting the American people against one another with discriminatory politics, and with backwards policies that rig the economy in favor of those at the very top.

“An early member of the Tea Party, Pence’s record is littered with extreme stances and troubling failures of judgment that mirror Trump’s. As governor, Pence spearheaded Indiana’s law to discriminate against LGBT-Americans, which cost the state jobs and tens of millions of dollars, and he inappropriately used his office to stand in the way of a woman’s right to choose. While Trump said women should be punished for abortions, Pence said Roe V. Wade should be sent to the ash heap of history, and he co-sponsored a bill to allow hospitals to refuse to perform one, even if the woman’s life is at stake. While Trump said that wages are too high, Pence pushed to reduce wages for hardworking Hoosiers. And while Trump defrauded seniors and veterans at Trump University, Pence slashed his state’s higher education budget by millions of dollars.

“Hardworking Americans are still recovering from the last Republican administration’s Great Recession. The last thing we can afford is to let either of these two men anywhere near the White House.”