What did Donald Trump do today?

He explicitly said he was starving the Post Office so that it couldn't deliver ballots.

In a phone interview on Fox Business today, Trump said out loud what critics have been saying for weeks: that he's trying to sabotage the Postal Service's ability to deliver ballots on time.

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. Now, if we don’t make a deal, that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting, they just can’t have it. Sort of a crazy thing. If they don’t get those two items, that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting because they’re not equipped to have it. 

 

With more than 170,000 Americans dead from COVID-19, and polling places expected to be crowded—especially in Democratic strongholds in cities—voting by mail has taken on an unusually partisan dynamic. Trump appears to be counting on winning the election-night vote, claiming victory, and then spoiling the mailed ballots that would cost him the race.

Later, Trump partially backtracked, saying that—in essence—he was merely holding the election hostage as leverage in negotiations over the next pandemic relief bill.

That message was amplified by Trump's economic advisor Larry Kudlow, who was asked about progress on that bill today. "So much of the Democratic asks are really liberal, left wish lists — voting rights," he responded. "That's not our game."

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pointed out, the request for $25 billion to keep the USPS functioning came from its board of governors, every single member of which is a Trump appointee.

Trump received his own mail-in ballot for an upcoming Florida election at his luxury resort in Florida yesterday.

How is this a problem?

• The only reason to sabotage voting is if you think you'll lose if you don't.