Trump says the USPS is too poorly funded to handle mail-in voting — while opposing additional funding for it

• President Donald Trump told reporters Wednesday that the US Postal Service did not have the funds to cope with increased mail-in voting.
• "They don't have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can't do it, I guess," Trump said.
• There are proposals to better fund the service, but they are being blocked by Republicans in Congress. Trump attacked Democrats for seeking more money for the USPS.
• Trump again claimed mail-in votes were vulnerable to mass fraud, a concern election officials say is groundless.
• Democrats have accused the president of seeking to delegitimize an expected surge of mail-in ballots in a bid to retain power.

President Donald Trump argued Wednesday that the US Postal Service did not have the money required to process mail-in votes for the presidential election — while also making clear that he opposed giving it more money.

"They don't have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can't do it, I guess," Trump said of the agency. "Are they going to do it even if they don't have the money?"

Several US states are seeking to expand mail-in voting because of the coronavirus crisis. An analysis by The New York Times on Wednesday found that 76% of Americans would be eligible to vote by mail in November and predicted that the number of mail-in votes for the coming presidential election could be twice that of 2016.

Democrats have proposed more funding for the USPS as part of a forthcoming stimulus package. But the stimulus is being blocked by congressional Republicans, who oppose parts of it.

The president has for months been railing against mail-in votes, claiming they are susceptible to fraud.

He has even floated delaying the election to ensure it is not "rigged." He does not have the authority to do that, however, and quickly dropped the idea after mentioning it in July.

"It's going to be the greatest fraud in the history of elections," Trump claimed Wednesday, attacking Democrats for seeking a funding boost to cope with the surge of mail-in votes.

"For example, they've asked for a ridiculous $3.5 billion, that's billion, $3.5 billion for universal mail-in voting, a system riddled by fraud and corruption," he said.

Election officials and experts have said that overall voter fraud is vanishingly rare, even though it does occur slightly more frequently in postal voting.

Speaking with FactCheck.Org, experts said there was no evidence to support the president's sweeping voter-fraud allegations.

Some Republicans believe that increased mail-in voting disproportionately benefits Democrats by helping economically disadvantaged Americans who traditionally vote in lower numbers. This assumption, however, has been challenged in recent years, FiveThirtyEight reported in May.

Critics, including the presumptive Democratic nominee, Joe Biden, are accusing Trump of attempting to delegitimize thousands of ballots before they are even cast in a bid to cling to power if he loses in November.

Trump has trailed Biden in national polls for months.

Even though Trump made the case Wednesday that the USPS didn't have the funds to cope with increased postal votes, in Congress Republicans are continuing to block a coronavirus relief package that Democrats say needs to include increased funding for the Postal Service, NPR reported on Wednesday.

"The White House is not budging from their position concerning the size and scope of a legislative package," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a joint statement.