Hillary Clinton has criticized GOP
rival Donald Trump's choice for vice president.
Trump announced on Friday that he had
picked Indiana Governor Mike Pence to be his running mate.
About 15 minutes later, the Clinton
campaign blasted Pence in a statement, describing him as the “most
extreme VP pick in a generation.”
“Trump has doubled down on some of
his most disturbing beliefs by choosing an incredibly divisive and
unpopular running mate known for supporting discriminatory politics
and failed economic policies that favor millionaires and corporations
over working families,” Clinton spokesperson John Podesta said in
an email to supporters.
The campaign also released a one-minute
video in which it criticized Pence's decision last year to sign a
so-called religious freedom bill that opponents argued allowed
businesses to discriminate against the LGBT community. Pence at
first defended his decision to sign the bill, but a growing backlash
pushed him to call for a “fix” to the law. “As governor, Pence
was willing to shut down Indiana's economy to allow discrimination
against LGBT people,” the campaign said in the
video.
Pence also opposes marriage rights for
gay couples and gay troops serving openly in the military. While
serving in Congress, Pence opposed adding sexual orientation to the
federal hate crimes law, calling it an attempt to “advance a
radical social agenda.”
Last month, Trump claimed that he was a
better friend to the LGBT community than Clinton, his Democratic
rival.
Megan Robertson, a Republican
strategist in Indiana, told
Reuters that picking Pence shows that Trump “maybe doesn't care
about that community as much as he tried to profess that he did.”