Trump chief of staff says sorting machines will NOT be removed for the November election

The White House is open to Congress passing a stand-alone measure to ensure the U.S. Postal Service is adequately funded to manage a surge in mail voting in November, White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“The president of the United States is not going to interfere with anybody casting their votes in a legitimate way whether it’s the Post Office or anything else,” he said.

Meadows also pledged the Postal Service will not take offline before November any sorting machines that aid mail voting. He also insisted the earlier removal of sorters was part of a plan that predated the Trump administration.

Both statements would appear to step back from the president’s comments Thursday when he said he opposed Postal Service funding because he wanted to restrict expanding voting by mail.

Democrats have continued to express alarm over Trump’s comments. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said Sunday the president “is doing everything he can to suppress the vote.”

“And it is an outrage, Chuck, because this campaign is more than health care, it’s more than education, it’s more than the Postal Service,” Sanders told host Chuck Todd on NBC News’s “Meet the Press.” “It is democracy, and he is sabotaging our democracy.”

Meadows, meanwhile, insisted the president is only opposed to states sending ballots directly to all registered voters — not to a more common practice in which states send mail ballots only to registered voters who request them. Trump, however, attacked all forms of mail voting for months before recently dialing back his criticism in particular states, including Florida, where he voted by mail himself this year.

“The president doesn’t have a problem with anybody voting by mail if you would look at it in terms of a no-excuse absentee ballot,” Meadows said. “What he opposes is universal mail-in ballots.”

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