Politico | Obama says Donald Trump is trying to ‘kneecap’ US Postal Service ahead of presidential election
- Criticism comes after president admits he opposes additional funding for the federal agency amid coronavirus pandemic
- Mail-in voting in spotlight because of increased infection risk at physical polling locations
This story is published in a content partnership with POLITICO. It was originally reported by Quint Forgey on politico.com on August 14, 2020.
Former US president Barack Obama condemned President Donald Trump in a new interview over his efforts to “actively kneecap” the United States Postal Service to frustrate mail-in voting ahead of the November election – casting the manoeuvres by his White House successor as “unique to modern political history”.
The criticism from Obama came in response to Trump’s admission Thursday that he opposes additional federal funding for the Postal Service and election security grants because those provisions would help facilitate voting by mail amid the global coronavirus pandemic.
“What we’ve never seen before is a president say, ‘I’m going to try to actively kneecap the Postal Service to [discourage] voting, and I will be explicit about the reason I'm doing it.’ That’s sort of unheard of,” Obama told David Plouffe, his 2008 campaign manager and long-time adviser, in a podcast interview released on Friday.
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Obama went on to praise congressional Democratic leaders, who since last Friday have remained at an impasse with White House negotiators over the next stimulus measure. Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have “been very clear, and they want to do what’s right by the American people”, he said.
In May, Pelosi and the Democrat-controlled House passed the Heroes Act – their opening offer for relief talks with the Republican-led Senate – which allocated US$3.6 billion in grants that election administrators could use to prepare for an influx of mail-in ballots, to protect in-person voting and to buy personal protective equipment for poll workers.