Real Clear Politics editor A.B. Stoddard had a warning for all of the complicit Republicans who have remained silent on Trump's destruction of the U.S. Postal Service.
August 15, 2020

During a panel discussion on MSNBC's Deadline: White House this Friday, Real Clear Politics editor A.B. Stoddard had a warning for all of the Republican lawmakers who have remained silent on Trump's overt destruction of the United States Postal Service, and the real harm it's doing to the only constituents that any of them seem to care about: stay silent on this, and you're going to own the well deserved outrage from your voters.

Sen. Susan Collins and a handful of other Republicans have finally expressed some "concern" over the deadly delays to mail service that is holding up everything from prescriptions to Social Security checks to utility bills. Democrats have demanded answers on the mail slowdown from Trump's lackey Postmaster Louis DeJoy, only to be stymied with DeJoy repeatedly refusing to honor their requests.

Apparently, most Republicans still believe any short term pain is worth the long term gain, but Stoddard called it a "boneheaded" political move as well, and I tend to agree with her.

MENENDEZ: A.B., to Donna's point, take a look at this headline from The Washington Post. Postal Service warning 46 states their voters could be disenfranchised by delay in mail-in ballots. I mean, how do you keep the public confidence when you see headlines like that, and is shaking their confidence in fact, part of the chaos that this administration is trying to sow.

STODDARD: Right, well I think Democrats are going to be very clear about messaging on this – how their voters need to find out about voting, whether it's requesting an absentee ballot, going to an early voting location so they are in shorter lines and safer from the fear of infection than they would be on election day, that everyone needs to take care of their vote plan now.

What's interesting about how early this has happened, when we woke up this morning, we had all only seen one account of state being warned that they weren't going to be able to have their ballots processed. That was Pennsylvania, and now, in the afternoon, it's 46. We're halfway through August.

The administration, the president seems to think he has snuck up with this plan on the American people. No. People in every community in this country are already noticing that their mail is slow. The veterans, who have representatives, unlike civilian seniors and sick people, have already reported their medication delays are two and three and four and five times what they used to be.

These things will be felt and noticed across not only the country, but the Trump coalition. People in rural communities, seniors, veterans. This is not only cruel, it's so politically boneheaded. It's amazing to me that Republicans have stood by in silence.

I want to give credit to Senators Daines and Murkowski and Blunt and Collins who have come out against this and said this is a huge problem because they represent rural communities that are gong to suffer. But if the other Republicans can't stand up and see how completely stupid this is, that they'll have to own this outrage if they don't stand up to the president who is trying to break the Post Office, every voter in their communities and their districts are going to feel this. It's going to wreck the economy more. It's going to make people sicker and it's going to be a huge scandal for anyone standing for election this fall.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon