(upbeat instrumental music)
- I think mail-in voting is gonna rig the election.
- With a presidential election right around the corner,
the big question is no longer
will Donald Trump try to cheat?
It's not become how will Donald Trump try to cheat?
And with more Americans than ever expected to vote by mail
due to coronavirus, it looks like he's zeroing in
on his plan.
- [Reporter] President Trump is stepping up his effort
to discredit mail-in voting as vulnerable to fraud,
ramping up attacks on Twitter and on television.
- I think mail-in voting is gonna rig the election.
I really do.
They want to steal an election.
That's all this is all about.
They wanna steal the election.
There is no way you can go through a mail-in vote
without massive cheating.
- Democrats are pushing to expand mail-in voting
and change existing voting laws to make it easier
for people to cast ballots at home
because of the coronavirus.
The president wants his political allies to fight back
against that and they have now pledged $20 million
for that effort.
- For real?
Only Donald Trump is weird enough to have beef
with the mail.
Every day he's less and less like a president
and more like a neighbor in a sitcom.
"Goddamn you, mailman."
(upbeat instrumental music) (audience laughing)
I mean, this guy is spending $20 million
to sue mail-in voting.
Normally when Trump spends that much money suing you
it's because you've seen him naked.
"I know what you saw last summer.
"You can't tell anybody.
"you can't tell them about this thing that I got."
So even though the president
and almost everyone in his administration votes by mail,
clearly he thinks that letting everybody else do it
would be bad for his reelection.
And because lawsuits alone won't stop mail-in voting,
the other part of Trump's plan is to just stop the mail.
- Tonight, a backlog of undelivered mail is piling up
in post offices around the country.
Workers are blaming the new postmaster general,
a top Republican campaign donor
who has given more than $1.1 million
to the Trump Victory fund.
- [Journalist] Louis DeJoy forced cost cutting measures,
leading to undelivered mail piling up at post offices
across the country.
And CBS News confirmed this internal
postal service directive that outlines an operational pivot
saying, "Extra trips to deliver mail
"are no longer authorized.
"And that we may see mail left behind
"or mail on the workroom floor or docks,
"which is not typical."
- [News Anchor] The service insists it's not intending
to slow down any delivery or risk any election mail,
but the stakes are high for the USPS to follow through
on its promise of on-time delivery.
32 states currently will not count ballots
that arrive after election day, even if postmarked earlier.
- Wow.
Even if you mail your ballot in on time,
32 states won't count them
if the post office gets them in late.
And that doesn't sound like an election.
That sounds like what happened to me in high school.
Yeah, I gave my friend a love letter to pass to my crush,
but then he decided to skip third period instead.
So she never got my letter.
So she went to prom with another guy
and then they ended up getting married and having a kid.
So that should have been my kid.
And that's what I told the cops
but they made me give the kid back anyways.
And that's why you gotta defund the police.
So look, if Trump and his cronies are trying to sabotage
the post office, there's only one solution
and I hate to say it folks,
but we have to let Bed, Bath, and Beyond run mail-in voting
because no matter how much I try to stop them,
I keep getting those coupons in the mail.
It's ridiculous.
I don't need all of this.
I don't need all of this mail.
I don't need to know that there's 35% of shower curtains.
Oh shit!
(chair clanging)
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It was expired.
Anyway, so Trump has been on a crusade
against mail-in ballots
and then he installed a close political ally
who just happened to start slowing down the mail,
which means that come November,
a lot of votes that are supposed to make it
by election day might not.
It also means that in the meantime,
all the other mail is getting delayed
and it's having a huge effect on people's lives.
- [Newscaster] In some parts of the country,
customers are waiting weeks for their mail.
- [Reporter] These neighbors in Chicago's
Dunning neighborhood want consistent
U.S. postal service mail delivery.
Susan Carter says when mail is delivered, it comes late
and sometimes it's not theirs.
- I just think the system fell apart.
And I don't think they care about us.
- All that stuff that's important to you
that nobody else should get may be going
to somebody else's house.
- [Journalist] In Baltimore, people waited two hours
in hopes of getting their mail that never showed up.
- [News Anchor] Many are getting bills and paychecks
on time, putting a strain on their homes and businesses.
- Survived COVID, survived everything.
The only thing I didn't survive was the mail.
- As a veteran myself, I get medication through the mail.
I rely on that and not to have it when I need it,
that's a travesty to a veteran.
- Yeah, you see a lot of people think
that mail is just a waste of paper,
credit cards that they're not gonna sign up for,
and ads for shit that they're not gonna buy.
But for many, many people,
that's how they get their medicine.
It's how they communicate with family members in prison.
And for many areas of the country, especially rural areas,
the post office is the only way they can receive mail.
So the mail might mean nothing to you,
but it means everything to some people.
Think of it like a Wilson volleyball.
It might not mean anything to you,
but when Tom Hanks got trapped on that island,
it was his everything.
Do you think he was (beep) that volleyball?
Nah.
So look, it's becoming clear as day
that unless Trump changes his mind on the post office,
just like every other Trump business, it could be doomed.
So maybe to save themselves,
the postal service should do
what every foreign dictator does,
flatter the shit out of Trump.
(lively instrumental music)
- [Desi] Are you a Trump supporter who needs to mail
your electricity bill or an angry letter to CNN?
Then you're in luck.
Introducing the new President Trump commemorative stamps,
specifically designed by the U.S. postal service
in a desperate attempt to earn his approval,
each stamp commemorates
one of our president's great achievements.
Like the time President Trump defeated the sun
in a staring contest,
or the night that President Trump personally killed
Osama bin Laden,
and true collectors will cherish the stamp
featuring President Trump's stunning cameo
in the "WAP" video.
And if you order now, you'll also receive
a booklet of Mike Pence stamps that you can paste
next to Trump so he can forever gaze adoringly
at the greatest president of our lifetime.
Mike Pence stamps have no value.
So order now.
These stamps will only run until November 3rd,
or maybe 2024.
We'll see what happens.
- They want to steal an election.
That's all this is all about.
They want to steal the election.
- I think sometimes America gets so caught up
in its own exceptionalism that it ignores warnings
it could be taking from other countries.
You know, if America paid attention to Brexit,
it would have realized how social media can be used
to bamboozle people into voting for crazy candidates
who promise to fix everything.
If America paid more attention to China,
they would have realized that coronavirus is something
that could come to this country and screw everything up,
as opposed to something that only happens overseas.
And if America might think that rigged elections
are something that only happens in other places,
well in reality, it's already starting
to rear its ugly head right here.
- [Journalist] President Trump upped the ante
in his battle against mail-in voting today.
He appeared to say the quiet part out loud,
telling Fox News why he opposes a funding boost
for the U.S. postal service.
- They went $3.5 billion for the mail-in votes, okay.
Universal mail-in ballots.
Three and a half...
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.
But if they don't get those two items,
that means you can't have universal mail-in voting.
- Goddamn, I've never seen a villain
giveaway a plan like that
without seeing James Bond tied to a chair in front of him.
I mean because people, this is insane.
Trump got impeached for trying to secretly rig the election
and his response is to go,
"I learned my lesson.
"I won't rig an election in secret ever again."
And the truth is this effort to sabotage mail-in voting
is a real threat to America's election.
If Trump gets his way, they're gonna have to change
all the I Voted stickers to end in a question mark.
I voted?
I guess the one upside of Trump telling us
all of this right now is that it gives Americans
an opportunity to fight back and prepare.
Although the downside is that it's gonna put
a lot of TV detectives out of their jobs.
(tense instrumental music)
- President Trump is making big changes
to the U.S. postal service
that appear to be slowing down the mail.
But one big question remains.
Why is he doing it?
- In a new interview this morning,
President Trump explicitly said that he is opposing
a request for postal service funding
in the new relief package
because he wants to stop the expansion of mail-in voting.
- I guess we solved it.
It's a first for the franchise.
I'm gonna finish this sandwich now.
I thought I had some time, but I guess not.
(tense instrumental music)
- There is no way you can go through a mail-in vote
without massive cheating.
- Obviously Trump is very confident that the boater voters
will put him over the top.
But as a backup, he's also been moving ahead with plan B:
destroying the U.S. post office
so that Democrats can't vote by mail.
But over the weekend, attacks on the post office
became so brazen that the people started fighting back.
- The escalating showdown over the post office
and mail-in voting.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi he has cut short
the August recess, called the House back
into emergency session to confront the postmaster general
over cutbacks in service,
which could disrupt the delivery of mail-in ballots
and effectively deny some people the right to vote.
- [Newscaster] This morning House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
is taking the dramatic step of calling every member
of the House back to Washington
for a rare Saturday session this weekend
to address the crisis in the U.S. postal service
and growing questions about the November election.
- [News Anchor] After report surface in recent weeks
of postal workers removing those iconic
blue mail collection boxes from street corners
in multiple states,
the agency now says it will halt further removals
for 90 days citing, "Recent customer concerns."
- [Reporter] U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's home
was the target of protestors over the weekend
who accuse him of undermining the service
in order to suppress the votes.
- [Journalist] Banging pots and pans
before nine o'clock Saturday,
protestors marched to the front steps of what they say
is Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's D.C. condo.
- [Crowd] Hey hey, ho ho, Louis DeJoy has got to go!
- Man, you gotta admit there's few things that suck more
than being neighbors with a Trump appointee
because you know at some point
people are gonna be protesting the shit
out of your building.
Not to mention Russian politicians always showing up
at the wrong apartment.
"I'm here for secret, but totally legal, meeting."
"Ah, you want apartment 7D, not 7G."
"Oh, my bad, my bad.
"But now that you have seen face,
"I offer you drink that is not poison."
But, but for real though, can anyone tell me why
they're removing mailboxes?
Like if they don't actually need them,
then why don't they repurpose them, you know?
Turn them into a trash can or a flower pot
or a new apartment for Oscar the Grouch.
I mean, maybe he'd be a little less grouchy
if his house was filled with postcards
instead of bags of dog shit.
Now Trump is claiming that the reason he's going after
mail-in votes is that it has too much fraud,
but no one has ever been able to find evidence
of that claim.
So yesterday, Trump's chief of stuff said this.
- Do you realize how inaccurate the voter rules are
with just people just moving around,
let alone the people that die off.
But sending ballots out just based on
a voter roll registration.
Anytime you move, you'll change your driver's license,
but you don't call up and say,
"Hey by the way-" - There's no evidence
of widespread voter fraud though.
But there's no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
- There's no evidence that there's not either.
That's the definition of fraud, Jake.
- Wow, so there's no evidence of widespread voter fraud,
but there's also no evidence that there isn't
widespread voter fraud.
I mean, once you go into that argument,
there's nothing you can't claim anymore.
I mean, sure I haven't seen any evidence
that aliens are cloning humans and making them compete
in talent competitions in space.
But I also haven't seen any evidence
that aliens aren't cloning humans and making them compete
in talent competitions in space.
So clone Trevor if you're watching this,
you give them hell in that dance off, buddy.
And listen, people have all sorts of theories
about why Trump is attacking the post office.
One of those is that he wants to slow mail down
so that ballots don't arrive in time to be counted.
But another theory is that he just wants Democrats to think
that the mail is gonna slow down
so that they don't trust the mail
and they don't send their ballots at all.
Which is why over the weekend,
the king of the Democrats Barack Obama came out
with a different message.
- If you're in a state where you have the option
to vote early, you need to do that now
because the more votes are in early,
the less likely you're gonna see a last minute crunch,
both at polling places and in those states
where mail-in ballots are permitted.
As much as possible, we wanna relieve that pressure.
- America really is an upside down place.
The Black president is telling everyone to vote early
and the white president is trying
to make sure everyone's late.
And Obama's right, waiting until the last minute
never works out.
Like that one year I waited until July to get my beach body,
but then all the beach buddies were sold out.
So in the face of all kinds of voting obstacles,
that is President Obama's advice,
which he reiterated on Twitter,
"Vote early if you can,
"and then tell everyone you know to do the same thing."
Which I guess I'm doing right now.
You guys have basically everyone I know,
but just in case, I'm gonna try to tell more people.
Hey everyone, don't forget to vote as soon as you can.
- [Neighbor] How about you shut the (beep) up
as soon as you can?
- Okay, thank you, sir.
- I know very little about a postage stamp.
- Democracy in America isn't defeated just yet
because yesterday Democrats in Congress
called the Postmaster General Louis DeJoy
to get answers out of him about what the hell is going on
with the USPS.
- Postmaster General Louis DeJoy appearing on Capitol Hill
yesterday to defend recent changes
to the U.S. postal service ahead of the November election.
The hearing before the house oversight committee
was at times combative
and an exchange with Congressman Katie Porter of California,
DeJoy acknowledged a lack of familiarity
with some basic aspects of the postal service.
- You don't know the cost to mail a postcard.
- (laughing) I don't.
- What if it's like one of those greeting cards
that's a square envelope, then what is the postage?
- I'll submit that I know very little about a postage stamp.
- Within a million or so,
can you tell me how many people voted by mail
in the last presidential election?
- No, I cannot.
- To the nearest 10 million?
- (chuckling) I will be-
- [Katie] Is that a no, Mr. DeJoy?
- I would be guessing and I don't wanna guess.
- I'm glad you know the price of a stamp
but I'm concerned about your understanding of this agency.
- Goddamn.
This guy's like the worst person
to bring to a trivia night.
"Okay, the next question is
"what do you call the box that you put mail in?
"Oh my God, thank God we've got the postmaster general
"on our team.
"What do you think, DeJoy?"
"Um, okay, I know this one.
"They're blue.
"Oh, I'm taking all of them away.
"Oh, I should know this."
But in a way, this is kind of refreshing to watch.
I mean, we're so used to seeing guys in power mansplaining
and going, "Well actually."
It's refreshing to see a man who's just like,
"Look lady, you tell me.
"I don't know shit."
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