Trump adviser knocks universal mail-in voting, says US Postal Service won’t be ready

An adviser to President Trump predicted Sunday that the White House would not reach a deal with congressional Democrats on U.S. Postal Service (USPS) funding ahead of the November election, claiming that nothing could be done to prepare it for the massive undertaking that universal mail-in voting would require.

During an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Hispanic Advisory Council member Steve Cortes was asked by host Chris Wallace whether USPS funding could be an issue on which Trump could compromise with Democrats, an idea Cortes quickly dismissed.

“There’s no amount of money that could get the Postal Service ready for universal vote-by-mail,” Cortes said, pointing to the losses incurred by the service annually.

Cortes also said that outdated address systems and the realities of modern digital society meant relying on the mail for an election was not possible.

“We know that 17 percent of all ballots that were sent out…were returned as undeliverable,” he said of Clark County’s June primary in Nevada.

Cortes went on to say that Trump would be continuing to deliver his message around the country ahead of the election, projecting an image of the commander in chief taking an active role in the country’s affairs.

The president is set to visit Wisconsin and Minnesota in the coming days, two battleground states he won narrowly over Hillary Clinton (D) in 2016 that are seen as crucial to his reelection bid in 2020.

His arrival in Wisconsin on Monday will coincide with the start of the virtual Democratic National Convention, which was previously set to be hosted in-person in Milwaukee before concerns surrounding COVID-19 forced organizers to move to a remote gathering for the party’s nominating event.