The quiet parts loud, vote suppression edition

Donald Trump is refreshingly candid about why increased funding for the USPS has been a major sticking point in negotiations over a new relief bill:

While President Trump has long railed against mail-in voting, falsely claiming it leads to rampant fraud, he appeared to confirm Thursday morning that he opposes Democrats’ proposed boost in funding for the U.S. Postal Service because he wants to make it harder to expand voting by mail.

Trump gave that explanation during an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network after she asked why the White House and congressional Democrats are still miles apart on approving a new stimulus deal.

Trump said one major factor is the Democrats’ push for an injection of funds into the U.S. Postal Service to expand voting by mail.

“They [the Democrats] want three and a half billion dollars for something that’ll turn out to be fraudulent — that’s election money basically,” Trump said.

Continued the president: “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. Now, in the meantime, they aren’t getting there. 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.”

Note that there’s no substantive difference between Trump and most elite Republicans on the issue of vote suppression; he’s just willing to say it. And this also illustrates why Pelosi and Schumer are 100% right to hold out for a comprehensive stimulus bill.