White House staffer Mark Meadows on Sunday said the U.S. Postal Service would not move post-sorting machines between now and the election – and called on Democrats to make President Trump an offer to fund post offices for the November vote.
“There are no sorting machines that go offline between now and the election. That’s what my Democratic friends are trying to do to instill fear in them. That does not happen, ‘Meadows told CNN’s State of the Union.
“I can tell you that the sorting machines – listen, the volume of first class emails they have on the mail system at the moment, we have not seen that volume since I was 17 years old. It’s not a volume issue, ”he continued.
The network reported this week that hundreds of sorting machines are intended for “reduction” this year, and that the agency began removing them in June.
The news came amid criticism of other actions by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy aimed at making the Postal Service more efficient – including cutting back, shifting executive staff and allowing email to be left in distribution centers as it slows down letter carriers.
Democrats have raised questions about whether the service will be able to anticipate the expected millions of ballots being sent due to security concerns during the coronavirus pandemic.
But President Trump, who has warned that mass post-voting would be fraught with fraud, said last week that he would sign a spending plan passed by Congress to support the USPS accelerated cash.
House Democrats passed a $ 3.5 trillion stimulus bill in May that includes $ 25 billion in funds for the Postal Service. But talks between the Trump administration, the House and the House of Representatives have hit a wall over the price of the incentive package.
Meadows said Democratic lawmakers need to return to Washington and renegotiate.
‘If my Democrat friends are all over the place, come back to Washington, DC, where the President and I are right now … Let’s go ahead and get a stimulus check for Americans. Let us ensure that small businesses are protected with a comprehensive PPP program and put post-financing into it, ‘he said. ‘We will pass it on tomorrow. The president will sign it. ”
Chamber member Nancy Pelosi has said she may pay back legislators to return from their break in August to tackle the postal service controversy, and the House oversight and reform committee on Sunday demanded that DeJoy and other officials from USPS testifies at an emergency on August 24.
First Chamber member Chuck Schumer (D-NY) also accused DeJoy of trying to ‘undermine’ the USPS and called a hearing in the First Chamber this week.
“What has been – and remains – to continue with the postal service, the subversive and destructive policies that are so clearly intended to support a system that has worked for generations, simply had to stop,” the House of Representatives’ minority leader said during a news conference on Sunday.
“In short, we will not stand for the delay in the mail in the face and undermine Americans who depend on drugs, VA benefits, salary, even food, and we will not allow this all to take place in an attempt to hobble the November election – no way. ”
On Saturday, Trump, who appointed DeJoy in May, called him a “fantastic man” who “wants to make the Post Office great again.”
“The steps he is taking are trying to stop the huge losses that have taken place over many years,” he said.
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