During Trump’s interview with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo on Thursday, he addressed Democrats’ demands for more money for mail-in voting and for the struggling United States Postal Service.
“If we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money,” Trump said. “That means they can’t have universal mail in voting; they just can’t have it.”
Trump claimed the postal service wants three and a half-billion dollars for mail-in votes, the universal mail-in ballots, and $25 billion for the Post Office.
“Now they need that money in order for the Post Office to work so it can take all these millions and millions of ballots,” he said, later adding, “They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent. That’s election money, basically.”
According to Deadline, the Democrats’ requests came as part of negotiations over another pandemic relief bill, after negotiations last week came to a halt. Some are worried that the stall out is linked to the badly needed funds for the USPS with an expansion of mail-in voting, which Democrats feel is essential during the pandemic.
Trump “is sabotaging a basic service that hundreds of millions of people rely upon … because he wants to deprive Americans of their fundamental right to vote safely during the most catastrophic public health crisis in over 100 years,” Andrew Bates, rapid response director for Joe Biden’s campaign said in a statement.
Meanwhile, Biden said the move was “Pure Trump. He doesn’t want an election.”
Democrats were already upset over the changes made by Postmaster General Louis Dejoy. In a letter sent out on Wednesday, they expressed concerns over the reconstruction, claiming it “will weaken the ability of the postal service to respond to local needs.” They also warned that a policy to no longer treat election mail as First Class will “disenfranchise voters and put significant financial pressure on election jurisdictions.”
Trump remains firm on his stance of mail-in voting, perhaps because he can’t rig it.
