Funding for the US Postal Service and to shore up election infrastructure is the main sticking point in talks between the White House and top congressional Democrats over a fresh round of coronavirus relief, President Donald Trump said on Thursday (Aug 13).
Mr Trump said his negotiators have resisted Democrats' calls for additional money to help US election officials prepare for a presidential contest during a pandemic that has killed more than 165,000 Americans and presented severe logistical challenges to organising large events like the Nov 3 election.
"The items are the post office and the US$3.5 billion (S$4.8 billion) for mail-in voting," Mr Trump told Fox Business Network, saying Democrats want to give the post office US$25 billion.
"If we don't make the deal, that means they can't have the money, that means they can't have universal mail-in voting. It just can't happen."
Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed without evidence that mail-in voting, a way to allow citizens to take part in the election without creating crowding that raises the risk of transmitting Covid-19, is likely to be rife with fraud.
Experts who study elections say there is little proof that this is the case.
The White House negotiating team of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Chief of Staff Mark Meadows has not met House of Representatives Speaker cy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in six days.
When the two sides last met on Friday, they were some US$2 trillion apart in their negotiating positions.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll this week showed that Americans blame both parties for the standoff, which has led to the expiration of a US$600 per week lifeline to unemployed people.
New Postmaster-General Louis DeJoy, who has donated US$2.7 million to Trump and his fellow Republicans since 2017, has ordered operational changes and a clampdown on overtime in a bid to fix the ficially troubled Postal Service, which reported a net loss of US$2.2 billion in the last quarter.