On Wednesday, President Trump stated that he would not approve $25 billion in emergency funding for the United States Postal Service (USPS), or $3.5 billion in supplemental funding for election resources, citing prohibitively high costs, “they don’t have the money to do the universal mail-in voting. So therefore, they can’t do it, I guess.” President Trump’s remarks came after congressional leaders from both parties intensified calls for more oversight of the agency and the new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a major Republican donor and Trump ally. House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Democratic Leader Schumer indicated that changes imposed by the new Postmaster General, “threaten the timely delivery of mail — including medicines for seniors, paychecks for workers and absentee ballots for voters — that is essential to millions of Americans.’’ In addition, two Montana Republicans, Senator Steve Daines and Representative Greg Gianforte, urged the USPS to reverse the July directive which eliminates overtime for hundreds of thousands of postal workers and mandates that mail be kept until the next day if distribution centers are running late.
