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Funding for the US Postal Service and to shore up election infrastructure turned a significant sticking level in congressional talks on coronavirus reduction, as President Donald Trump on Thursday vowed to block any cash to facilitate mail-in voting.
The Republican president has been railing in opposition to mail-in ballots for months as a attainable supply of fraud, though there’s little proof it takes place and thousands and thousands of Americans – together with a lot of the army – have used the put up workplace to solid absentee ballots for years.
Trump mentioned his negotiators have resisted Democrats’ calls for extra cash to assist put together for presidential, congressional and native voting throughout a pandemic that has killed greater than 165,000 Americans and introduced extreme logistical challenges to organizing giant occasions just like the Nov. 3 election.
“The items are the post office and the $3.5 billion for mail-in voting,” Trump instructed Fox Business Network, saying Democrats need to give the put up workplace $25 billion. “If we don’t make the deal, that means they can’t have the money, that means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. It just can’t happen.”
The sum of money in query is lower than 1% of both get together’s present proposed response, with Senate Republicans having unveiled a $1 trillion response whereas the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives in May handed a $Three trillion invoice.
Democrats have cried foul, accusing Trump and his get together of attempting to make it tougher for Americans to vote, as opinion polls present him trailing his Democratic rival, former Vice President Joe Biden.
“I initially was hopeful this wasn’t an intentional effort to throw the election. I am gravely concerned given the recent changes in the leadership of the Postal Service that we’ve seen by the postmaster general, who I’ll remind you was a major Trump campaign contributor,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons mentioned on MSNBC.
The means to vote with out going to a polling place is very vital this yr as Americans look for methods to vote with out risking being contaminated by the novel coronavirus.
The White House negotiating workforce of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has not met with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in six days.
Pelosi mentioned any coronavirus reduction invoice ought to embrace billions of {dollars} to shield not simply Americans’ proper to vote but in addition important companies, like mailing prescription medicines, through the pandemic.
“The president has stood in the way of any money for the Postal Service,” Pelosi mentioned on MSNBC.
When the congressional Democrats and Trump’s negotiators final met in individual on Friday, they had been some $2 trillion aside of their negotiating positions. A Reuters/Ipsos ballot this week confirmed that Americans blame each events for the standoff, which has led to the expiration of a $600-per-week lifeline to unemployed individuals.
New Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who has donated $2.7 million to Trump and his fellow Republicans since 2017, has ordered operational adjustments and a clampdown on additional time in a bid to repair the financially troubled Postal Service, which reported a internet lack of $2.2 billion within the final quarter.
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