Barack Obama accuses Trump of attempting to 'actively kneecap' the US Postal Service to suppress mail-in votes

• Former President Barack Obama accused President Trump of trying to "actively kneecap" the US Postal Service to suppress votes at the upcoming election in November.
• In a podcast with his former campaign manager David Plouffe, Obama said: "What we've seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a president who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting."
• Trump this week said he did not want the USPS to get more funding because he doesn't want it to go toward mail-in voting, which he's baselessly said leads to voter fraud.
• In response to Obama's comments, Jared Kushner told CNN that Trump "is doing everything he can to make sure that they [US Postal Service] have the resources they need."

Former President Barack Obama accused President Trump on Friday of trying to "actively kneecap" the US Postal Service to suppress mail-in votes at the November election.

In a rare public rebuke against the president, Obama told his former campaign manager David Plouffe on a podcast that he "worries" about protecting the integrity of the election process amid a pandemic.

"What we've seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a president who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting," Obama said, according to USA Today.

"What we've never seen before is a president say, 'I'm going to try to actively kneecap the Postal Service to encourage voting and I will be explicit about the reason I'm doing it,'" he added. "That's sort of unheard of, right?"

Obama's attack comes days after Trump said he did not want the Postal Service to get much-needed funding because he doesn't want it used for mail-in voting, which he's baselessly stated will lead to voter fraud.

While Trump hasn't responded to Obama's criticism yet, his son-in-law Jared Kushner spoke about the former president's comment to CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Friday.

Kushner told Amanpour that Trump "is doing everything he can to make sure that they [US Postal Service] have the resources they need."

"You can argue it just the other way, Christiane, which is this is an unprecedented attempt by people to use an unproven method that, quite frankly, they don't have the time or infrastructure to set up correctly," he said.

"I think what you're seeing on both sides is a lot of posturing: you see that from what President Obama has said, you see that from what President Trump has said. But at the end of the day, what everyone wants is just a fair election, where we know what the rules are, where people are not playing games, and trying to create opportunities," Kushner added.

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