Veterans Group Mocks Trump for “Finally” Going to War––Against USPS

Progressive PAC VoteVets has released a new ad repudiating President Donald Trump for his attacks against the United States Postal Service (USPS).

The video features narration highlighting the military deferments Trump received when he was younger (he crafted the now-infamous “bone spurs” excuse to get out of serving in Vietnam. The narrator also points out how much veterans depend on the Postal Service for prescription deliveries and for receiving their ballots. An estimated 100,000 veterans also currently work for the Postal Service, according to its official website.

“This is just a warmup for the fall,” the narrator says. “Donald Trump plans to disrupt absentee ballots and vote-by-mail for millions of Americans in the middle of a pandemic he failed to control,” the voice-over concludes. “Because Donald Trump knows if the mail delivers ballots to America’s veterans, we’ll deliver a message right back — you lose.”

You can watch the ad below.

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The ad follows remarks Trump made in which he appeared to admit sabotaging the postal service to disrupt the 2020 election.

Trump made the controversial remarks yesterday morning during an interview on Fox Business.

“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 told host Maria Bartiromo. “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.”

“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,” he added. “They just can’t have it. So, you know, sort of a crazy thing.”

The president and Republicans have repeatedly disparaged vote-by-mail options in response to criticisms from voting rights advocates who’ve expressed safety concerns during the coronavirus pandemic.

A study released in April from Stanford University’s Democracy and Polarization Lab found that contrary to the widely-held belief among the GOP that vote-by-mail gives Democrats an advantage over Republicans, vote-by-mail options do not benefit one party more than another.

“By comparing counties that adopt a vote-by-mail program to counties within the same state that do not adopt the program, we are able to compare the election outcomes and turnout behavior of voters who have different vote-by-mail accessibility but who have the same set of candidates on the ballot for statewide races,” researchers wrote.