#Trump accuses Democrats of blocking COVID-19 stimulus over mail-in ballot funds

President Trump blamed Democrats for holding up a coronavirus stimulus package over demands that additional funds be allocated for the Post Office and mail-in voting this November.

“They want $3.5 billion dollars 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,” Trump said during an interview Thursday with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network.

“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,” the president continued.

Stimulus talks have hit a stalemate in Congress over the amount of funding for a new spending package, with Democrats proposing $3 trillion and Republicans pushing for $1 trillion.

Trump went on to cite Democratic Rep. Carolyn Maloney’s win after weeks-long problems with mail-in ballots.

She was finally declared the winner of her contest with challenger Suraj Patel earlier this month, six weeks after the primary election.

He also pointed to Virginia where absentee ballot applications with incorrect information were sent out to more than 500,000 residents.

“Virginia, 500,000 applications for ballots got sent to everybody. Nobody would notice it got sent to dogs, got sent to dead people. Nobody has any idea what happened,” Trump said. “They said, ‘oh, we made a mistake.’ I’m sorry, 500,000 ballots sent in Virginia. How do you feel about Virginia going in there and you have 500,000 phony valid applications?”

Trump said there is nothing wrong with going to your local poll and casting a vote this November, even during the coronavirus pandemic.

“They voted during World War One and World War Two,” he said.