Obama went on to praise Democratic leaders, who have been at loggerheads with White House negotiators since last Friday over the next incentive measure. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (DN.Y.) have been “very clear, and they want to do what is good by the American people,” he said.
In May, Pelosi and the Democratic-controlled House passed the HEROES Act – their opening bid for relief talks with the Republican-led Senate – which had allocated $ 3.6 billion in subsidies that election officials could use to prepare them for a stream of post-in-votes, to protect voting rights in persons and to purchase personal protective equipment for interviewers.
The House’s bill also included a $ 25 billion payment to the cash-strapped Postal Service “for revenue lost due to coronavirus.” Trump, who claimed that mail-in votes lead to widespread election fraud, referred to those funding figures Thursday in an interview with Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.
“[Democrats] wants $ 3 billion for something that will prove fraudulent. That’s election money, in principle. They want $ 3 billion for the post-in votes, OK? Universal post-in ballots. “They want $ 25 billion – billion – for the Post Office,” Trump said.
“Well, they need that money to work the Post Office so it can take all those millions and millions of votes,” he added. “By the way, those are just two articles. But if they do not get those two items, that means you can not have universal mail-in-voice. ”
Several states have moved to expand mail-in voting as Covid-19 caseloads continue to spike across the country, with physical polling stations posing increased risks of infection. But Trump has declared that e-mail voting “does not work well for Republicans,” and Americans have urged them to cast their personal votes.
A recent study found that voting by post does not benefit one party over another, and cases of electoral fraud in the US are extremely rare. Experts recognize that there are some higher fraud risks associated with mail-in balloting, but only if proper security measures are not in place.
On Friday, Obama asserted Republican lawmakers, claiming that the Postal Service “is not only a delivery system for mail-in mail,” but also “sends out critical benefits” and acts as a “lifeline” for seniors and those who are unable to pay. the fees charged by companies for delivery services.
“What are Republicans doing where you are so afraid of people voting that you are now ready to undermine what is part of the basic infrastructure of American life?” he said, adding that “there must be some basic shared assumptions that bind us together. And one of them is that we do not actively hurt people or undermine important parts of our lives just for the partisan advantage.”
