WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday defended his administration’s efforts to implement changes at the U.S. Postal Service ahead of November’s election, despite an outcry from Democrats and other critics, and said he would support efforts to expand in-person voting.
In an interview with Fox News, Trump said he would support more voting booths, early voting and other efforts but reiterated his attacks against mail-in voting.
Trump said he wants the postal agency to “run efficiently.”
“It’s not a ‘Trump thing’,” he added, saying that recent administrative changes were not an effort to “tamper” with ballot efforts ahead of the general elections.
Trump spoke hours before Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives were due to hold a conference call to discuss plans by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to recall lawmakers for vote later this week. The House is expected to consider legislation to protect the Postal Service from what Pelosi on Sunday called Trump’s “campaign to sabotage the election by manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters.”
Several Democratic state attorneys general are also considering potential legal action to stop Postal Service changes that could affect the election outcome.
Democrats have accused Trump, who is trailing presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden in opinion polls, of trying to hamstring the cash-strapped Postal Service to suppress mail-in voting. Trump has repeatedly and without evidence said that a surge in mail-in voting would lead to fraud.
(Reporting by Katanga Johnson and Susan Heavey; Editing by Toby Chopra and Nick Zieminski)
