Postmaster general rejects Trump claims about ability to handle mail-in ballots
(WASHINGTON) — Postmaster General Louis DeJoy on Thursday said former President Donald Trump and others are “wrong” to question the Postal Service’s ability to deliver ballots ahead of the presidential election.
Asked by a reporter, at a virtual preview of the 2024 election, to respond specifically to Trump’s claim that the Postal Service might deliberately misplace mail-in ballots, DeJoy responded tersely: “My response is like my response to everyone who says that we’re not prepared for the election — it’s that they’re wrong,” he said. “I don’t know that I need to comment any more than that. They’re wrong.”
At the top of his prepared remarks, DeJoy pushed back on those engaging in rhetoric that undermines the public confidence in the Postal Service, which, DeJoy reminded reporters, had been delivering ballots since 1864.
“We recognize that election officials are under an extreme amount of pressure, and will remain so for at least the next two months,” he said. “We also recognize that the American public will become increasingly alarmed if there is ongoing dialogue that continues to question the reliability of the Postal Service for the upcoming elections.”
“Let me be clear,” DeJoy continued. “The Postal Service is ready to deliver the nation’s mail in ballots.”
DeJoy said the Postal Service delivered 99.89% of ballots from voters to election officials in the 2020 election, which he called a “highly sensitive, sensationalized environment.”
In an interview with right-wing outlet Real America’s Voice from Las Vegas last week, former President Donald Trump escalated false and baseless claims about mail-in voting, even suggesting a possible lawsuit.
“I read the post office is saying how bad it is. The post office is critiquing themselves, saying we’re really in bad shape. We can’t deliver the mail. And they’re not even talking about mail in ballots, right? We’re going to dump millions and millions of dollars,” Trump said, repeating false claims that the last election was “rigged” and that the U.S. voting system is “bad.”
(LA CROSSE, Wis.) — Former President Donald Trump introduced a new campaign platform on Thursday aimed at helping Americans with the cost of IVF.
At a town hall moderated by his supporter, one-time Democrat presidential candidate Tulsi Gabbard, Trump said he and his team have been exploring ways to help those wanting in vitro fertilization.
“I’ve been looking at it, and what we’re going to do is for people that are using IVF, which is fertilization … the government is going to pay for it, or we’re going to get — we’ll mandate your insurance company to pay for it, which is going to be great. We’re going to do that,” he told Gabbard.
“We want to produce babies in this country, right?” he added.
Trump first spoke about the idea of government-funded or insurance-covered fertility treatments earlier in the day during a campaign stop in the battleground state of Michigan.
When asked by NBC News if it would be the government or insurance companies paying for IVF, the network reported that Trump said it would be the latter, “under a mandate.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s camp on Thursday night walked back comments the former president made earlier in the day suggesting he did not support Florida’s now-implemented six-week ban on abortions.
“I think the six week is too short, there has to be more time and I told them I want more weeks,” Trump told NBC.
“I am going to be voting that we need more than six weeks,” he added, noting that he believes abortion should be a states’ issue, something he’s said before.
Later, though, Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt attempted to clarify the candidate’s remarks.
“President Trump has not yet said how he will vote on the ballot initiative in Florida, he simply reiterated that he believes six weeks is too short,” Leavitt said in a statement.
Susan B. Anthony, Pro-Life America, President Marjorie Dannenfelser also released a statement Thursday night saying she had spoken to the president, and he told her he hasn’t “committed” to how he’ll vote on Florida’s Amendment 4. The amendment, if passed, would insert language into the state’s constitution that abortions determined medically necessary by a patient’s healthcare provider would be permitted.
“He has not committed to how he will vote on Amendment 4. President Trump has consistently opposed abortions after five months of pregnancy. Amendment 4 would allow abortion past this point. Voting for Amendment 4 completely undermines his position,” her statement read.
(CHICAGO) — Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz will take the stage at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday to formally accept the vice presidential nomination and deliver a keynote speech.
Vice President Kamala Harris tapped Walz to be her running mate earlier this month, just a couple weeks after she became the presumptive Democratic nominee following President Joe Biden’s exit.
Walz, 60, gained traction during the veepstakes with his folksy mannerisms and viral comments advocating for the Democratic Party’s agenda and critiquing former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance. But nationally, he was a relatively unknown figure.
“When Harris announced that Tim Walz was running for vice president, I had absolutely no clue who this man was,” said Valerie Jencks, a moderate Democrat from Illinois who is supporting the Harris-Walz ticket.
Jencks and other local voters sat down with ABC News at Chicago’s Green Door Tavern to discuss the 2024 election.
Jencks said she was “personally relieved” that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was not selected because she’d like him to remain in his position leading the state, and said she was a strong supporter of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in the veepstakes.
Still, she said she thought Walz was “a breath of fresh air.”
“He is knowledgeable about the issues. He has a very strong record, and he’s very personable and authentic,” Jencks said of Walz. “I feel like he really understands the issues of the everyday American.”
Last month, Trump announced Vance would be his running mate during the first day of the Republican National Convention.
Vance, a 39-year-old first-term senator from Ohio, has become a staunch ideological ally of the former president who rose to fame due to his memoir Hillbilly Elegy. But he was also not a big name in politics until he began to emerge as a top contender to join Trump on the ballot.
David Spada, a conservative Republican, said he was surprised by Trump’s pick and thought he would have picked a more moderate Republican such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
“He probably should have picked someone more towards the middle, rather than more towards the right, which I think might hurt him,” Spada said. “But again, you never know what Trump’s gonna do. He just does what he wants.”
A recent ABC News poll found Walz was getting a more positive public reception than his Republican counterpart in the initial rollout of their candidacies.
Thirty-nine percent of Americans surveyed had a favorable impression of Walz as a person, while 30% viewed him unfavorably. Vance, meanwhile, was viewed unfavorably by 42% of respondents compared to 32% who viewed him favorably. Though a sizable portion of respondents said they had no opinion of either candidate (31% in Walz’s case and 26% in Vance’s case).
(STATESBORO, Ga.) — Len Fatica is a member of a political species that’s practically extinct in deep red Statesboro, Georgia — a rural Democrat.
ABC News traveled to the biggest city in Georgia’s southeastern Bulloch County, with a population of around 34,000. It boasts four different Main Streets (one for each point of the compass) and a persistent gnat problem.
“People are, for the most part, very friendly,” Fatica, the Georgia Democratic Party’s rural council chair, told ABC News. “They will sit down and have a conversation with you even if they disagree with you.”
Plenty of people disagree with Fatica, who’s running for county commission and leading an initiative to attract rural voters to the state Democratic Party. They meet each week at a local coffee shop to talk strategy, and he acknowledged how difficult it is for Democrats to make inroads in rural areas.
“If you look at Bulloch County down here, we’re probably close to 70% that is Republican,” he said. “This is a deep Republican area.”
Fatica accepted the persistent criticism that Democrats left rural voters behind long ago in favor of urban populations, but he believes locals might be gradually drawn back — a possibility suggested when Joe Biden narrowly won the swing state in the 2020 presidential election.
“At one time, it was a Democratic county,” he said. “Talking to Republicans, they feel within 10 years, with the manufacturing jobs that are being moved in, this could become a Democratic county again.”
Fatica highlighted the importance of Democrats taking on Trump’s rhetoric, even when talking to deep red voters.
“We’ve got to punch back, and we’ve got to punch back on the falsehoods that are told,” he said.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ choice of running mate might also move the needle, according to Fatica. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who formally accepted the nomination at the Democratic National Convention on Wednesday, regularly highlights his rural roots in speeches and rallies.
“Growing up I spent the summers working on the family farm,” Walz said on Aug. 6. “My mom and dad taught us — show generosity toward your neighbors and work for the common good.”
Lifelong Democrats Robin Hutcheson and her daughter Aliya Johnson highlighted how unusual they are, living in Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s northwest Georgia congressional district.
“You see a lot of trucks with Trump flags and a lot of Trump flags in the yard, and we are like little blue dots in a big red sea,” Hutcheson said.
They agreed that Walz could appeal to rural Americans.
“I feel like Tim is genuinely a person who has high morals, who is a good, upstanding person,” Johnson said. “That kind of represents the older style of respectability that I think older voters got used to and that newer voters still want to lean on and believe is the right thing, and a good thing.”
The mother and daughter agreed that Democrats haven’t been this excited since Obama’s bids for the White House.
“This is the first time that we really feel like change is possible,” Johnson said.
Political strategist Fred Hicks noted his belief that Georgia has become competitive because many of the culture wars that defined America for generations have subsided — there are multiple issues rather than a single issue driving people to vote.
“The economic issue is really what’s, I think, pushing people because you have not had the economic growth outside of these urban nodes,” Hicks said of the rural areas.
Peter Fuller is the chair of the northeastern Jackson County’s Democratic Party and knows flipping any rural part of Georgia is a tall order. Trump won 78% of the Jackson County vote in 2020.
“These are counties that have been like this for a while. They are long-term projects,” he said. “Most of these communities are agriculture based. We have issues of either not having population growth, or loss in some cases. Health care is a big one.”
Fuller noted that translating some national policies into something relatable for Jackson County voters can be challenging.
“It’s a lot easier to do with somebody like Tim Walz,” he said.
What remains to be seen is whether the hope and excitement around the Harris-Walz ticket can translate into votes and victory for the Democratic Party in rural America.