Joe Biden torched President Trump for opposing the United States Postal Service funding as the White House and Congress remain at loggerheads over another coronavirus economic relief package.
“Pure Trump. He doesn’t want an election,” Biden told reporters in Delaware on Thursday morning.
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The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was responding to Trump’s criticism of the $3.4 trillion coronavirus relief bill passed by House Democrats in May. That proposal would provide $25 billion to the Postal Service and $3.5 billion in election assistance to states.
“They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent,” the president told Fox Business. “That’s election money, basically. They want $3.5 billion for the mail-in votes. … They want $25 billion, billion, for the post office. Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots.”
Trump also described universal mail-in voting as “a crazy thing.” He and his allies insist that encouraging widespread use of the already available voting technique could create opportunities for voter fraud.
The Postal Service has been under pressure amid the pandemic, particularly with a staffing shortage. In the past few days, there have been severe mail delays in some parts of the country, including Kentucky and Maryland.
Trump signed executive orders and memorandums last weekend to help the unemployed, protect people from evictions, offer student loan assistance, and defer payroll tax payments. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer ripped Trump’s actions in a statement as “unworkable, weak and narrow policy announcements to slash the unemployment benefits that millions desperately need and endanger seniors’ Social Security and Medicare.”
Biden, a two-term vice president and 36-year Delaware senator, attended his first coronavirus public health and economic briefings with his running mate, California Sen. Kamala Harris, Thursday. Former Federal Reserve Board chairwoman Janet Yellen spoke during the briefing. The pair permitted the press in for two minutes at the start of the meeting before reporters were ushered out.
“We’re going to get what I get four times a week: a briefing on the state of coronavirus here and around the world and what we should and shouldn’t be doing,” Biden said. “And so it usually takes somewhere between an hour and an hour and a half.”
