Colorado Secretary of State Slams Trump’s Post Office Threat: ‘Voter Suppression, Plain and Simple’

Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold on Thursday bewailed President Donald Trump’s suggestion that he was prepared to defund the U.S. Postal Service to defeat mail-in voting initiatives.

“This is voter suppression, plain and simple,” Griswold said in a message on Twitter.

Trump made his remarks in a Thursday interview with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo.

“They want $25 billion for the post office. Now, they need that money in order to have the post office work so it can take all of these millions and millions of ballots,” Trump said. “Now in the meantime, they aren’t getting there. By the way, those are just two items. But if they don’t get those two items that means you can’t have universal mail-in voting, because they’re not equipped to have it.”

He added: “Now, if we don’t make a deal that means they don’t get the money. That means they can’t have universal mail-in voting. They just can’t have it. So, you know, sort of a crazy thing.”

Congress has been negotiating a budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins October 1. House Democrats are seeking to direct more than $3 trillion in aid to coronavirus relief programs, while Senate Republicans have proposed $1 trillion.

Trump said in Thursday’s interview the Democratic proposal requested $25 billion for the Postal Service, including $3.5 billion for mail-in voting. He also reiterated his critique of using that process in the election.

“Yesterday, Virginia, 500,000 applications for ballots got sent to everybody, nobody even knows,” Trump said. “Got sent to dogs, got sent to dead people. Nobody has no idea what happened. They say, ‘Oh, we made a mistake, I’m sorry.’ 500,000 ballots sent in Virginia,” he said. “How do you feel about Virginia going in there and you have 500,000 phony ballot applications, and this is all over.”

Watch above via Fox Business.