Press Release

DFL Party Chairman Ken Martin issued the following statement on Vice President Mike Pence’s visit to Minnesota tomorrow:

“Vice President Pence will never be anything more than Donald Trump’s most embarrassing lapdog. If Pence thinks his record of failure in the White House, his attacks on LGBTQ Americans, and his repeated efforts to cut Social Security and Medicare will help him win the presidency, he’s in for a very long two years.”

Background

One of Mike Pence’s first proposals in the 2024 presidential campaign involves partially privatizing Social Security.

Semafor: “Mike Pence isn’t running from his old fiscal conservatism. Instead, he’s seemingly leaning into it by talking about privatizing Social Security, an idea the party largely abandoned after a politically damaging push in 2005.

“‘I think the day could come where we can replace the New Deal with a Better Deal,’ he said during an interview in February. ‘Literally give younger Americans the ability to take a portion of their Social Security withholdings and put that into a private savings account that the government would oversee.’”

The Trump-Pence Administration proposed cutting Medicare and Social Security every year they were in office.

Washington Post: “His avowed stance, however, is at odds with Trump’s own record as president: Each of his White House budget proposals included cuts to Social Security and Medicare programs.”