Democratic leaders in Congress claimed President Trump is purposely undermining the Postal Service to prevent mail-in balloting and ordered him to cut it out.
“House and Senate Democrats call on the President to immediately cease his assault on the Postal Service, make clear that he will allow the 2020 election to proceed without his sabotage tactics and enable the American people the same opportunity he and the First Lady requested this week to vote by absentee ballot,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement on Friday.
Democrats were responding to Trump’s comments in a Fox Business interview explaining why he did not support a Democratic proposal to provide billions in new funding to the financially troubled U.S. Postal Service.
“Now, they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots … But if they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting,” Trump said.
Trump is opposed to the effort to allow universal mail-in balloting, which has been difficult to implement in primary elections so far.
Democrats want to allow mail-in balloting across the United States in time for the Nov. 3 election in order to spare people from having to show up at the polls because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Former President Barack Obama joined Democrats in condemning Trump’s resistance to augmenting Postal Service funding, accusing him of trying to “kneecap” mail delivery to influence the election in his favor.
House and Senate Democrats included $25 billion in funding for the Postal Service in their coronavirus aid package, and it is one of the main sticking points with the GOP and Trump administration officials, who say the Postal Service is in need of reforms to keep it financially viable.
Trump-appointed Postmaster General Louis DeJoy vowed to make reforms to cut costs, but the GOP donor’s efforts are meeting backlash from postal union officials who say it is hindering mail delivery.
