Lauren Egan, NBC News
President Donald Trump raised alarm Saturday as to when the country will know the results of the November presidential election, warning that it could take “months” or even “years.”
“Usually at the end of the evening, they say ‘Donald Trump has won the election, Donald Trump is your new president,'” Trump said during a press conference at his Bedminster, New Jersey, resort.
“You know what? You’re not going to know this — possibly, if you really did it right — for months or for years. Because these ballots are all going to be lost, they’re all going to be gone,” Trump said, repeating false claims about vote-by-mail ballots.
Trump said that the U.S. Postal Service did not have enough resources to collect the expected increase in mail-in ballots for year’s election, and it was the fault of Democrats that the agency continued to be underfunded.
“They want a trillion dollars to bailout sates … badly run Democrat states,” Trump said of Democratic lawmakers. “They’re not giving the money to the post office.”
Democrats for months have called for more funding for the USPS as well as funding to make sure states have the resources needed to prepare for an election amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Republicans have been reluctant to agree to these asks and the two sides have been unable for weeks to reach a deal on the next coronavirus relief bill.
Trump dismissed reporters’ questions Saturday about whether Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was purposefully trying to delay mail less than three months before the general election.
“He’s trying to streamline the post office and make it great again,” Trump said.
Numerous states have received letters from the Postal Service in recent days warning them that there is not enough time for ballots to be requested, completed and returned before the Nov. 3 presidential election, a startling development as many states have expanded mail-in voting because of the pandemic.
Trump also refused to knock down the baseless and racist claim he spread earlier this week about Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., being ineligible for the vice presidency or presidency because she was not born in the U.S., telling reporters, “I have nothing to do with that.”
