Bernie Sanders has said Donald Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting and his administration’s efforts to block funds for the US post office amount to “a crisis for American democracy” ahead of the November presidential election.
“What you are witnessing is a president of the United States who is doing everything he can to suppress the vote, make it harder for people to engage in mail-in balloting at a time when people will be putting their lives on the line by having to go out to a polling station and vote,” Sanders told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, referring to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is a crisis for American democracy. We have got to act and act now.”
The postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor and Trump ally, has been accused of deliberately making further recent cuts to the USPS. Congressional Democrats announced on Sunday that DeJoy and Robert Duncan, the chair of the postal service’s board of governors, have been invited to a 24 August hearing of the House oversight committee. The hearing will investigate the recent removal of mailboxes and shutting down of sorting machines nationwide.