President Obama been pretty quiet up to this point…
Barack Obama issued a rare public rebuke of President Trump on Friday, accusing him of trying to “kneecap” the US Postal Service to suppress votes at the November election.
The criticism was lobbed during a podcast interview with the former president just days after Trump said he was opposed to increasing funding for the Postal Service and mail-in voting, which he believes enables voter fraud.
“What we’ve seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a president who is explicitly trying to discourage people from voting, right?” Obama told his former campaign manager David Plouffe on his podcast “Campaign HQ.”
“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 continued.
The former president said he was “worried” about protecting the integrity of the election process amid a pandemic, including protecting the health of polling workers and making sure votes are counted.
Obama called on younger people to volunteer as poll workers, calling it “hugely important.”….
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Jonathan Bernstein: “The thing is that Trump, by opposing money for the U.S. Postal Service and supporting ‘reforms’ that have slowed it down, is just handing former Vice President Joe Biden yet another easy campaign issue. Democrats may or may not be able to overturn new procedures that are causing significant problems, but they certainly can make sure that anyone who’s waiting on a letter or a package thinks that Trump is responsible when it doesn’t show up on time. And that’s not the kind of thing politicians want voters to blame them for.”