Trump Attacks the Post Office—and Democracy
Trump Attacks the Post Office—and Democracy
Dusting off his 2020 playbook, Trump is sowing doubts about mail-in ballots and toying with suing USPS.
NEW STATE AND NATIONAL POLLS are great for Kamala Harris. Voters noticed the beatdown she administered at last week’s debate, and more of them are choosing her because of it. Donald Trump can’t face the humiliation of another debate, and more than 14 million listeners heard Joe Rogan laughing about it.
So—seven weeks until Election Day—cue Trump attacks on the post office.
Someone has to take the blame if Trump loses on November 5. Preparations are necessary.
Building on his great success last time at snookering millions into buying his Big Lie, Trump is returning to his old reliable gripe—the danger of mail-in voting.
On Sunday at 4:29 a.m. Trump posted this to Truth Social:
It’s not clear whom Trump wants “HELP” from, but it’s clear he wants to blame the post office. Trump told right-wing media personality Wayne Allyn Root this week in an interview that he may have to sue.
“We have very bad elections. We have a bad voting system. We have mail-in ballots. You know it’s very interesting, I read the other day, the post office is saying how bad it is,” Trump told Root.
“The post office is critiquing themself saying, ‘We’re really in bad shape, we can’t deliver the mail,’ and they’re not even talking about mail-in ballots, ‘Well, we’re gonna dump millions and millions of ballots,’” Trump added. “And I’m saying to myself, ‘How can they be taking the vote?’”
Then there was this: “And I said, you know, we ought to go to court, and we ought to bring a lawsuit, because they’re gonna lose hundreds of thousands of ballots. Maybe purposely. Or maybe just through incompetence.”
We have very bad elections . . . they’re gonna lose hundreds of thousands of ballots.
The post office has not “admitted” it is a mess. Nor does it “run” presidential elections. The United States Postal Service did respond to a recent letter from the National Association of Election Directors that expressed concerns over slow processing, a lack of required training for post office workers handling election mail, and lost mail. The Director of Election Mail and Government Services responded to the organization with a statement saying: “We are ready to deliver. We were successful in 2020 delivering a historic volume of mail in ballots; also in 2022 and will do so again in 2024.”
Louis DeJoy, the postmaster general hired by Trump and retained by President Biden, assured the election officials in a letter that “You can rest assured that along with the entire United States Postal Service, I am personally fully committed to effective implementation of our longstanding processes and procedures designed to ensure that all ballot mail is delivered in a timely and secure manner.”
A spokesperson for the Postal Service added that: “As demonstrated consistently in previous elections, election mail routinely outperforms our regular service performance due to our long-standing processes and procedures.”
According to Postal Service analyses, in the 2020 election nearly 98 percent of ballots were returned to election officials within three days, while 99.9 percent of ballots were delivered within seven days.
In 2020, when the COVID pandemic produced an unprecedented number of mail-in votes, Trump began railing against mail-in voting, and the post office, long before he lost to Biden.
At the time the post office was struggling—due to declining volume and revenue loss—and was an easy target. As DeJoy, a Trump ally and GOP fundraiser, sought to overhaul the ailing agency, Trump worked to discredit it.
When Congress moved to bail out the agency, Trump admitted to Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network that he didn’t want any rescue funds going to help USPS because he wanted to slow or stop mail-in voting.
“Now they need money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” he said. If they don’t get the money, “you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”
At the time, DeJoy was under fire from critics who accused him of intentionally sabotaging the Postal Service to help Trump win—he had “told employees to leave mail behind at distribution centers if it delayed letter carriers from their routes, according to internal USPS documents,” the Washington Post reported.
DeJoy ultimately defended the integrity of the process before the 2020 election, telling the Postal Service Board of Governors in August 2020 “we continue to employ a robust and proven process to ensure proper handling of all election mail. . . . Although there will likely be an unprecedented increase in election mail volume due to the pandemic, the Postal Service has ample capacity to deliver all election mail securely and on-time in accordance with our delivery standards, and we will do so.”
Trump didn’t listen, and neither did his voters. They aren’t likely to listen this year either.
Meanwhile, Republicans have been stymied by Trump’s campaign against mail-in voting since his loss four years ago. From the Republican National Committee to Turning Point Action, Trump allies have worked to renew GOP voters’ faith in absentee voting and are devoting resources to turn out infrequent voters using all options including the mail. Trump even taped a video this summer for “Swamp the Vote USA,” a GOTV effort, stating “Whether you vote absentee, by mail, early in-person or on Election Day (Nov. 5), we are going to protect the vote.”
But months ago at a rally in May in Wildwood, New Jersey Trump sent a different message: “Mail-in voting is largely corrupt.”
These mixed signals will make it more challenging for Republicans to ensure they are banking every vote. But Trump doesn’t care, he wants the excuse. He says “we have the votes” and he just needs to stop Democrats from stealing them. He is far more concerned with a narrative that can stop the certification of a Harris victory later than he is with persuading undecided voters now.
And while he isn’t likely to actually sue the U.S. Postal Service, Trump also isn’t likely to stop accusing them of corrupting the results.
At least not before November 5.
And if he loses, not ever.