Trump holds up coronavirus aid to block funding for mail-in voting
Send a link to a friend
[August 14, 2020]
By Patricia Zengerle and David Morgan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald
Trump said on Thursday he was blocking Democrats' effort to include
funds for the U.S. Postal Service and election infrastructure in a new
coronavirus relief bill, a bid to block more Americans from voting by
mail during the pandemic.
Congressional Democrats accused Republican Trump of trying to damage the
struggling Postal Service to improve his chances of being re-elected as
opinion polls show him trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe
Biden.
Trump has been railing against mail-in ballots for months as a possible
source of fraud, although millions of Americans - including much of the
military - have cast absentee ballots by mail for years without such
problems.
Trump said his negotiators have resisted Democrats' calls for additional
money to help prepare for presidential, congressional and local voting
during a pandemic that has killed more than 165,000 Americans and
presented logistical challenges to organizing as large an event as the
Nov. 3 elections.
"The items are the post office and the $3.5 billion for mail-in voting,"
Trump told Fox Business Network, saying Democrats want to give the post
office $25 billion. "If we don't make the deal, that means they can't
have the money, that means they can't have universal mail-in voting."
Trump later said at a news briefing that if a deal was reached that
included postal funding, he would not veto it.
The amount of money in question is less than 1% of either party's
current proposed aid package for Americans struggling because of the
pandemic. Senate Republicans have floated a $1 trillion response while
the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a $3 trillion
bill in May.
The White House negotiating team of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and
Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has not met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in six days.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Thursday said the
Republican-controlled Senate was leaving Washington until September,
unless there was a coronavirus relief agreement that required a vote.
"I’m still hoping that we’ll have some kind of bipartisan agreement here
sometime in the coming weeks," he told reporters.
'PURE TRUMP'
Democrats have cried foul, accusing Trump and his party of trying to
make it harder for Americans to vote, as experts said concern about
catching COVID-19 could keep up to half of the electorate from voting in
person.
"Pure Trump. He doesn't want an election," Biden said, when asked about
Trump's comments before a campaign appearance.
[to top of second column]
|
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks about stalled
congressional talks with the Trump administration on the latest
coronavirus relief during her weekly news conference on Capitol Hill
in Washington, U.S., August 13, 2020. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger
Roughly one in four U.S. voters cast ballots by mail in 2016, and
Trump has voted by mail. Trump has also criticized state efforts to
make voting by mail more widely available, saying without evidence
it could lead to widespread fraud. Evidence shows mail voting is as
secure as any other method.
Pelosi said any coronavirus relief bill should include billions of
dollars to protect not just Americans' right to vote but also
essential services, such as mailing prescription medicines.
"You would think they'd have a little sensitivity, but so obsessed
are they to undermine absentee voting that this is their connection
there," Pelosi told a news conference. "So the president says he's
not putting up any money for absentee voting and he's not putting up
any money for the Postal Service, undermining the health of our
democracy."
White House spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany doubled down at a news
briefing, saying the administration opposed any additional funding
for election security in a coronavirus relief bill.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed that Americans blame both
parties for the standoff in negotiations, which has led to the
expiration of a $600-per-week lifeline to unemployed people and the
end of a moratorium on evictions.
New Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has donated $2.7 million to
Trump and his fellow Republicans since 2017, has ordered operational
changes and a clampdown on overtime in a bid to fix the financially
troubled Postal Service, which reported a net loss of $2.2 billion
in the last quarter.
Those measures have led to mail delays across the country, which
could complicate voting by mail. State election officials have
scrambled to expand mail voting capacity.
(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle, Susan Cornwell and David Morgan;
Additional reporting by Andy Sullivan, Jason Lange, Lisa Lambert,
Susan Heavey, and David Shepardson in Washington and Trevor
Hunnicutt in Delaware; Writing by Patricia Zengerle; Editing by
Scott Malone, Steve Orlofsky, Jonathan Oatis and Daniel Wallis)
[© 2020 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2020 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content. |