Trump admits he's refusing to fund the US Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting
- President Donald Trump told Fox Business on Thursday morning that he would block additional funding and election assistance for the US Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting.
- On Wednesday and Thursday, Trump said he would not sign off on any relief bill that includes emergency federal funds for the USPS and more money to process election-related mail.
- "They want $25 billion — billion — for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots," Trump said on Thursday, adding, "But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting."
- Under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the cash-strapped USPS has implemented cost-cutting measures that experts say could harm the delivery of election-related mail.
President Donald Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo on Thursday morning that he would block additional funding and election assistance for the US Postal Service to sabotage mail-in voting.
Throughout the pandemic, Trump has rejected giving emergency funds or grants to the cash-strapped USPS, which has seen a major revenue shortfall. He has also aggressively spread false and exaggerated claims that voting by mail is inherently fraudulent. In reality, rates of fraud are extremely low, and there's no evidence that expanding voting by mail hurts or benefits either political party.
Trump said in a press conference on Wednesday evening that he would not sign off on either the $25 billion in emergency funds for the USPS or the $3.5 billion grant to help it process election-related mail that Democrats have advocated in a federal COVID-19 relief bill.
He said the same thing during the Fox Business interview on Thursday morning.
"They want $25 billion — billion — for the post office. Now they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots," Trump said. "Now, in the meantime, they aren't getting there. By the way, those are just two items. But if they don't get those two items, that means you can't have universal mail-in voting ... because they're not equipped."
Trump has previously opposed measures to help the Postal Service. He said he would refuse to sign the Cares Act stimulus package in March if it included a bailout for the agency, The Washington Post reported on April 11.
"We told them very clearly that the president was not going to sign the bill if [money for the Postal Service] was in it," an administration official told The Post. "I don't know if we used the v-bomb, but the president was not going to sign it, and we told them that."
The Post reported that while Congress initially intended to give the Postal Service a $13 billion grant, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin stepped in to quash the measure, telling lawmakers, "You can have a loan, or you can have nothing at all."
Under Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a North Carolina shipping-and-logistics executive and a prolific Republican donor with no experience working at the Postal Service, the USPS has implemented cost-cutting measures including limiting overtime for postal carriers, cracking down on late trips to deliver mail, and freezing hiring. Critics have said the measures are slowing mail delivery in some areas and could prevent voters' ballots for the November election from being delivered on time.
The reasoning behind Trump's opposition to more USPS funding is faulty. The United States does not have "universal mail-in voting." Before the pandemic, five states mailed all registered voters a ballot that could be returned by mail or put in a ballot drop box; Washington and Oregon have done so for decades.
Four more states — Nevada, Montana, California, and Vermont — and Washington, DC, have said they will mail all or most registered voters a ballot while also offering scaled-back in-person voting for the November election.
Ten more states are planning to send all or most active registered voters a ballot application in the mail, The Post reported.
And while the USPS policy changes appear to be slowing down timely mail delivery in some areas, experts have disputed Trump's assertion that the Postal Service cannot handle an additional load of ballots.
Amber McReynolds, the former director of the Denver Elections Division and the CEO of the National Vote At Home Institute, told Insider in April that, when properly funded, the USPS is a remarkably effective tool for administering mail-in elections.
"They have the ability with their equipment and everything to run it at a level that must of us would never expect — it's massive," McReynolds said. When put into perspective, she said, the number of ballots the Postal Service processes is just a blip on the radar.
"The Postal Services estimates they process about 140 billion pieces of mail a year. And when we talk about 250 million mail ballots for, say, every American, that's only about 0.2% of their normal volume," she said.
If you plan to vote by mail this November, experts recommend requesting your ballot as soon as possible and returning it in the mail at least a week in advance, or delivering it to your local elections office or a ballot drop box if it's an option in your state.