Meadows: Democrats’ Postal Service funding bill meant to make a political statement

White House chief of staff Mark Meadows on Sunday decried Democratic leaders’ legislation on U.S. Postal Service funding, calling it a “political statement.”

“The $25 billion largely messaging bill” proposed by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “has nothing to do with voting,” Meadows said on “Fox News Sunday,” and “has everything to do with a political statement.” 

“I offered $10 billion plus reforms for the Postal Service that they’ve been asking for for a long time to Speaker Pelosi and [Senate Minority Leader] Chuck Schumer [D-N.Y.], and when we offered that, there was another thing that came along with that. The postmaster general said he was willing to pay whatever overtime is needed to make sure we deliver the mail on time,” Meadows said.

{mosads}“The Speaker said she was not willing to do anything piecemeal, and yet we have a piecemeal piece of legislation on a Saturday,” he continued, blasting Pelosi for not introducing similar standalone bills on issues such as enhanced unemployment. “If we’re going to be serious about this, let’s be serious about this.”

The House on Saturday passed a $25 billion bill that would prevent the Postal Service from making any changes to its operations that could slow the delivery of mail-in ballots for this fall’s elections.

Host Chris Wallace also questioned Meadows on Sunday about comments President Trump made to Fox News’s Sean Hannity suggesting he would deploy law enforcement to the polls on Election Day.

“I think what we have is we need to make sure our polls are safe, and we need to make sure the polling places continue to be there,” Meadows responded. “I think what the president was really addressing is to make sure if you want to show up and vote in person, we need to make sure that that is safe.”

The White House chief of staff went on to suggest law enforcement presence would be necessary because “sometimes … because of social distancing we see a lot more aggressive behavior than I’ve ever seen in a grocery store.”

“To the extent that we’re going to deploy thousands of sheriffs, no,” he added.