Donald Trump’s newest comments come amidst a confusing set of messages from the President concerning mail-in voting.
What We Know:
- Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, President Trump has come out against mail-in voting while standing by absentee voting. This comes at a time when many citizens are calling for a universal mail-in voting program to ensure that every registered voter can safely cast their vote.
- It appeared as if the President was tentatively supportive of the United States Postal Service (USPS) in April when he tweeted that he “will never let our Post Office fail” while also stating that he would not approve bailout funding for the USPS until they raise prices.
- Early last week we learned that President Trump was in favor of mail-in voting, but only in Florida because of their Republican governor.
- In an interview with Fox on Thursday, President Trump discussed his plans to withhold funding to the United States Postal Service in order to prevent universal mail-in voting.
“They [the Democrats] want $25 billion for the post office. Now they need that money in order to make the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots… But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting…”
- On Friday, former President Barack Obama weighed in to share his disappointment with President Trump’s actions with the post office. “What we’ve seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a President who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting,” he said in a podcast with his former campaign manager David Plouffe.
- One key fiscal challenge facing the USPS is their retiree medical promises fund. In 2006, a Republican-led Congress voted that the USPS is required to fund retiree medical promises for all employees, regardless of their retirement status. Private sector companies can be relieved of this burden by merely canceling this benefit, but only an act of congress would enable the USPS to do the same.
- Many took to Twitter on Thursday to request that FedEx get involved in this situation by offering free delivery of mail-in ballots.
Raise your hand if you think FedEx should offer FREE mail-in vote delivery to help save America. 🤚
— BrooklynDad_Defiant! (@mmpadellan) August 14, 2020
- Though it may seem like a good move, the capacity of the private shipper is much smaller than that of the USPS. FedEx averaged 6.2 million parcel deliveries per day in 2019, or approximately 2.26 billion units for the year. The USPS handled 143 billion units in 2019 alone.
After facing pushback from his comments to Fox earlier in the day, Trump spoke to reporters on Thursday and said he would not veto the newest coronavirus relief bill only because it included funding for the USPS. It was unclear if President Trump’s intention is to veto the bill for other reasons.
