Donald Trump (on August 9th): "You need the money"
Photo: JOSHUA ROBERTS / REUTERSA dispute is raging in the US Congress over financial aid for the Post, which is directly related to the presidential election. President Donald Trump told Fox on Thursday (local time) that his Republicans had rejected the Democrats' call for additional money for the post.
"You need the money so that the Post can handle the millions and millions of postal ballot papers," Trump said in a Fox interview. If his Republicans refuse to inject money, the US president added, "there can be no postal vote because they are unable to do so. They simply won't get the postal vote."
The Democrats accuse Trump of deliberately betting that the already poorly positioned company will face major problems with the expected postal ballot rush for the November election. Trump's current statements should support this allegation.
The dispute over aid to the Post is part of the overall infrastructure strengthening package that Democrats and Republicans are currently wrestling with. Specifically, it is about 25 billion US dollars for the US Postal Service and 3.6 billion to improve the election process in the individual states.
In polls, Trump is behind his challenger Joe Biden. Many Democrats are in favor of expanding postal voting to avoid large crowds. They also claim that African Americans and poorer citizens are harder hit by the epidemic - groups traditionally more likely to vote for Democrats.
Again and again allegations of alleged electoral fraud
Postal voting is particularly important this year because many US citizens want to avoid long queues in front of the polling stations in view of the risk of virus contamination. Some estimates suggest that around half of all US voters could cast their ballots in the mail.
Trump has repeatedly stated that he sees postal voting as an opportunity for electoral fraud, without explaining this in more detail or providing any form of evidence. In any case, it would be difficult to obtain such evidence, as investigations into postal votes in the past have shown only a negligible number of manipulation attempts. Twitter, among other things, punished him for his statements in the recent past.
Trump's opponents suspect that his constant claims are preparing a contestation of the election result after a possible defeat. So far he has avoided giving a clear answer to the question of whether he will accept the November election result without reservation.
Icon: The mirrorjok / dpa
