Barack Obama took aim at Donald Trump in a podcast with former campaign manager David Plouffe that was taped on Thursday and released on Friday, CNN reported. In particular, the former president criticized Trump for his attacks on the United States Postal Service (USPS) ahead of the November election.
“What we’ve seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a President who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting,” he said. “What we’ve never seen before is a President say, ‘I’m going to try to actively kneecap the postal service to encourage voting and I will be explicit about the reason I’m doing it. That’s sort of unheard of.”
Trump recently expressed opposition to the $25 billion in USPS funding that Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Party are pushing for in the planned coronavirus aid package, which has yet to pass the negotiation stage. According to Obama, Trump is attempting to “starve” the USPS as part of an extended GOP plan to limit votes.
“My question is what are Republicans doing where you are so scared of people voting that you are now willing to undermine what is part of the basic infrastructure of American life?”
Trump recently told Fox Business that he believes the Post Office won’t be able to handle the large number of mail-in ballots in the upcoming election if it doesn’t receive the previously mentioned funding that Democrats are pushing for.
Obama also called out Vice President Mike Pence and suggested that the real estate mogul might be planning to replace him in an effort to reverse recent polling that put the campaign behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden .
According to The Guardian , a top Trump re-election adviser allegedly admitted in a private event last year that the Republican Party has “traditionally” relied on voter suppression to help it compete in battleground states.
Trump has claimed that vote-by-mail is susceptible to fraud and accused Democrats of trying to expand the process in order to rig the upcoming election. Despite his attacks on vote-by-mail, he used the process himself in the Florida primary.
As The Inquisitr reported, speculation has swirled around the possibility that Trump will lose Florida due to his attacks on vote-by-mail, which is supported and used by many Republicans in the state. According to former Republican Rep. David Jolly, the GOP is currently attempting to mobilize the process in the region.
