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Barack Obama accuses Donald Trump of trying to 'kneecap' postal service ahead of election

Obama
Obama

Barack Obama has accused Donald Trump of trying to "actively kneecap" the US postal service ahead of the presidential election, which is expected to be dominated by mail-in voting.

Mr Trump has repeatedly attacked the suggestion that more people should vote by post due to the pandemic.

He has argued that it would lead to chaos and voter fraud.

Mr Obama said: "What we've seen in a way that is unique to modern political history is a president who is explicit in trying to discourage people from voting.

"What we've never seen before is a president say, 'I'm going to try to actively kneecap the postal service to encourage voting and I will be explicit about the reason I'm doing it.' That's sort of unheard of."

Numerous states have extended their mail-in voting programmes because of the virus.

Mr Obama, speaking to his former campaign manager David Plouffe on the Campaign HQ podcast, accused Republicans of trying for years "to discourage people’s votes from counting in all kinds of ways."

He said: "What are Republicans doing where you are so scared of people voting that you are now willing to undermine what is part of the basic infrastructure of American life?

"I mean, it'd be the equivalent of 'We're not going to repair highways because people might drive to the polling places so we'll just let massive sinkholes in the middle of the interstate linger, because we're worried that folks might use those roads to vote.'"