Donald Trump admitted he’s blocking money for the U.S. Postal Service to prevent Americans from safely exercising their right to vote via mail. Trump toady and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo helped legitimize his pro-death, anti-democracy agenda.
At about 10:25 in her 41-minute chat with Trump, Bartiromo asked what is preventing a deal on a COVID relief package. Trump immediately began whining about mail-in voting, a process he, along with many members of his top staff engage in, themselves. Not surprisingly, loyal sycophant Bartiromo didn’t embarrass Dear Leader with those inconvenient facts.
TRUMP: They want $3.5 billion for something that’ll turn out to be fraudulent. That’s election money, basically. They want $3.5 billion for the mail-in votes, OK? Universal mail-in ballots. They want $25 billion—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. 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. …
BARTIROMO: This is what’s holding up money for the American people? They want mail-in votings and they want money for the post office? This is one of the sticking points that’s holding back stimulus for Americans during this coronavirus?
TRUMP: Oh yeah, that’s one of ‘em. That’s one of ‘em. That’s one of ‘em. That’s right. … Maria, how would you like to have $3.5 billion – billion - for mail-in voting? Billion! Do you know how much that is? Nobody has any idea, you people, Oh, you know, 3½ billion. They want $25 billion for the post office, because the post office is going to have to go to town to get these ridiculous ballots in.
You know, there’s nothing wrong with getting out and voting. You get out and vote. They voted during World War I and World War II. And they should have voter ID, because the Democrats scam the system. But two of the items are the post office, and the $3.5 billion dollars for mail-in voting. 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.
Trump, who expressed no concern for sick and dying Americans anywhere in this interview, now acknowledged he’d rather more Americans get sick and die than exercise their right to vote the same way he does.
But Bartiromo was all on board with the pro-death agenda. Her next question validated Trump’s assault on the ability to vote. She also lent a helping hand to pre-delegitimize an unfavorable outcome for her favorite p***y grabber. “How many states are going to be doing mail-in voting, Mr. President? [Attorney General] Barr told me that this opens the floodgates of fraud."
You can watch the pro-death, anti-democracy propaganda below, from Fox Business Network’s August 13, 2020 Mornings with Maria.
The sheer number of vicious statements and wild bald-faced lies coming out of the Pence White House has been truly staggering. It’s finally gotten to the point that most people are simply deadened to it. Which may be the point for the Far Right Wing – to have most people just shrug at all the bad behavior, throw up their hands and say “government doesn’t get anything done anyway.”
The amount of damage that angry Right Wingers have done to this country is staggering, particularly in how quickly they’ve done it. It will take years to start to clean up the mess they’ve made.
At this point, there will be no stimulus bill likely to happen at all this year. McConnell adjourned the Senate this afternoon until the middle of September, and went off to enjoy his vacation. Mark Meadows has been on vacation this entire week. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer have stuck around more for the show of it than anything else, given that there is no chance of any actual negotiating happening. There was a two minute phone call yesterday with Mnuchin but it apparently just consisted of him trying to bully Pelosi, failing at that attempt and everyone just hanging up.
When the Congress returns in mid-September, there will be no time to discuss stimulus issues because they’ll need to get on funding the government and all the usual appropriations by September 30th or we’ll have another shutdown. Given the intransigence of the Right Wing, and given that Pelosi will try to insist on the stimulus bill being included, there is a very strong likelihood that we’ll be looking at a partial government shutdown in October and November, with the Pence White House and McConnell repeatedly trying to point their fingers at the Democratic Party for the mess.
The one path out of this mess that I can see will be for voters to actually make their voices heard in the swing states and across the country on November 3rd, so that we can start to clean up the mess next year. But I would not anticipate any stimulus or actual relief for most Americans until late January or early February. That’s gloomy, but the GOP isn’t looking like they particularly care about the reality of that.
