Coronavirus relief package: White House ready to compromise on USPS

Coronavirus, relief package, Trump, compromise, USPC, mail-in voting

Last week there were reports that President Donald Trump is blocking the next stimulus package as he doesn’t want to give funds to the USPS for the universal mail-in voting. However, on Sunday, the White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows suggested that the President is willing to compromise over post office funding to pass the coronavirus relief package.


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Coronavirus relief package: will Trump compromise?

Trump last week blamed Democrats for holding up the stimulus package over absurd demands, including funding for the USPS (United States Postal Service) to carry out mail-in voting.

“They want $3.5 billion for something that will turn out to be fraudulent, that’s election money basically,” Trump told Fox Business. “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.”

Meadows, however, suggested that Trump could be willing to compromise on the coronavirus relief package, including agreeing on postal funding.

“Let’s go ahead and get a stimulus check out to Americans. Let’s make sure that small businesses are protected with an extended [Payroll Protection] Program and put the postal funding in there. We’ll pass it tomorrow. The president will sign it.” Meadows told CNN.

“This will all go away because what we are seeing is Democrats are trying to use this to their political advantage,” Meadows continued.

On Friday, during a press conference, Trump made a similar assertion as well. When Fox News’ John Roberts asked if he would compromise on the $25 billion funding for the USPS, provided Democrats agree to some of Trump’s demands, Trump said, “Sure, if they give us what we want,”

“And it’s not what I want, it’s what the American people want,” Trump added while discussing a potential coronavirus relief package compromise.

Mail-in voting: how things could go wrong

Talking about the mail-in voting, Meadows noted that Americans should give a thought to the possible voter fraud through universal mail-in voting this November.

Explaining how things could go wrong, Meadows said millions of ballots would be sent to the voters, irrespective of whether they have asked for it or not. Moreover, these ballots are not always accurate because “People move, people die.”

“And yet when we are going to send out ballots all across the country, that’s not just asking for a disaster. It really is knowing that what you’re sending out is inaccurate,” he said.

Further, he said the “disaster” could also be in the form of not knowing the results for months. This could result in the House, which is currently dominated by Democrats, deciding the next president in case neither candidate wins the majority in the electoral college.

On the topic of mail-sorting machines, Meadows asserted that no machines will be removed between “now and the election.” According to CNN, the USPS could remove 671 sorting machines this year.

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