Amid Donald Trump’s continued opposition to funding sought by the Democratic Party to help the U.S. Postal Service as part of the next coronavirus relief package, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have offered harsh words for the president. In a joint statement released on Friday, the Democratic congressional leaders accused Trump of waging an “all-out assault” on the post office in an effort to secure his own re-election.
“The President, his cronies and Republicans in Congress continue to wage their all-out assault on the Postal Service and its role in ensuring the integrity of the 2020 election. Yesterday, the President threatened to further starve the Postal Service of the funds that it needs to deliver the absentee ballots necessary to ensure that people do not have to choose between their health and their vote this fall – threats that he doubled down on last night,” the statement read.
The president came under fire on Thursday after calling into Fox Business Network’s Morning with Maria and lamenting the fact that $3.6 billion of the $25 billion in funds that Democrats are seeking for the USPS would be earmarked for the handling of mail-in ballots in the upcoming election.
Trump detractors have opined that those statements are akin to an admission that he is seeking to stymie the post office because he is against voting by mail and its potentially negative effect on his re-election chances.
During the segment, Trump seemingly indicated that the funds would be necessary to ensure that the post office “can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.”
In their statement, Pelosi and Schumer chastised Trump for what they considered to be an overt example of his “abuse of power” and further asserted that he is openly manipulating the operations of the USPS in an effort to disenfranchise voters who are planning to cast their ballots for presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
As shared previously by The Inquisitr , U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a former Trump donor, has instituted policies at the USPS that could potentially hinder the organization’s ability to handle a massive influx of mail-in votes. Yale professor Timothy Snyder, an authoritarian regime expert, has argued that this is an effort by Trump to create crisis in his attempt to maintain power.
Pelosi and Schumer also lamented DeJoy’s ties to Trump and his policies, which they feel have “accelerated the crisis.” The duo concluded their statement by joining with House and Senate Democrats to demanding that the administration cease the “assault” and make clear the fact that Trump will allow the election to proceed without his “sabotage tactics.”