On Friday’s New Day, CNN co-host John Berman and guest host Erica Hill joined forces with political correspondent Abby Phillip to forward Democratic talking points about President Trump objecting to sinking more taxpayer dollars into the postal service. The partisan hacks entered into tin-foil-hat territory when Hill claimed that Trump desires “to make sure that an American's right to vote isn't counted” and Berman declared that there is “a literal struggle over democracy and the ability to vote.”
Hill began the hackery by trying to scare viewers into thinking the legitimacy of the November election was at risk: "The President has gone from muddying the waters -- trying to sow, you know, discord and doubt, to blatantly saying we don't want to give the post office the money because we want to make sure that an American's right to vote isn't counted."
This statement is just a blatant lie. Trump objects to the idea of universal mail-in balloting, which is rife with failure and the possibility of fraud. In July, an Honest Elections Project study demonstrated states have sent ballots to deceased individuals and addresses where the intended recipients no longer reside. Furthermore, the group said that mail-in ballots enable people to send in ballots for dead people and to send ballots to multiple states.
For these reasons, 800 ballots were disqualified from an election earlier this year in Paterson, NJ and four people, including two city officials, face criminal charges for their involvement. President Jimmy Carter also chaired a 2005 commission that found that there are serious issues with the legitimacy of mail-in voting. In a viral news story, CBS tried a mail-in voting experiment, which went very badly. With these concerns, it begs the question as to why the leftist media is pushing for mail-in voting.
Phillip spewed Democratic garbage by claiming that Trump wants to defund the Postal Service in order to suppress the vote:
It's in the President's mind, is there a connection between the Post Office and its fate and this election, and then he comes out and says it -- that in his mind there is a connection. He -- he does not want to fund the Post Office so -- so that he can stop mail-in voting from being implemented across the country and hamper the Post Office's ability to process millions of ballots. I can't tell you how -- how -- how unusual and alarming that is, frankly.
This is another lie. The desire to defund the postal service is nothing new in both conservative and libertarian circles and has nothing to do with preventing people from voting. The Cato Institute found that the USPS loses billions of dollars every year and is extremely inefficient. But heaven forbid that Trump not want to waste more tax dollars.
Berman then amped up the fear mongering by insisting our very democracy was at stake:
There is a definitional struggle over democracy right now. A literal struggle over democracy and the ability to vote that's going on around the country, and some of it’s playing out right before our very eyes in explicit terms. That is what as you so rightly point out Abby was so stunning about yesterday. The President just flat out said it.
Phillip suggested that Trump “doesn’t seem to care about” people being exposed to coronavirus while voting and pushed more false claims about there being no evidence of fraud in mail-in voting:
This idea that the pandemic is simply going to go away in the fall is not true, and, in fact, there are even more concerns that it could be worse because we could be dealing with the flu -- the seasonal flu on top of the pandemic. I've talked to so many voters who are concerned because this is really life and death for them. They have immunocompromised systems, they are cancer survivors, cancer patients. They do not want to be going out and standing in line to vote by ballots and states don't want that either. The President doesn't seem to care about that at all, and we know why, Erica. He has said he thinks that mail-in voting will hurt Republicans. There is also no evidence of that. The -- the evidence suggests that mail-in balloting is a neutral -- it's a wash when it comes to partisanship, but the President is convinced about this as it relates to his own election prospects, and that is why all of this is happening. He is not -- not -- he claims he's concerned about fraud, but there is really no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud that he's been talking about. He's been making up all kinds of scenarios that have no basis in fact.
CNN doesn’t care about the facts. It just follows its marching orders from the Democrats.
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Read the full August 14th transcript here:
CNN's New Day
08/14/20
6:26:32 AM
ERICA HILL: Joining us now is CNN political correspondent Abby Phillip. Now Abby, we should point out that the Postal Service has said they're confident that they can handle the mail-in ballots this time around, but what’s fascinating that in the last 24 hours or so, the President has gone from muddying the waters -- trying to sow, you know, discord and doubt, to blatantly saying we don't want to give the post office the money because we want to make sure that an American's right to vote isn't counted.ABBY PHILLIP (CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT): Yeah, I mean, Erica, this is one of the -- those things people have been trying to figure out. Is in the President's mind, is there a connection between the Post Office and its fate and this election, and then he comes out and says it -- that in his mind there is a connection. He -- he does not want to fund the post office so -- so that he can stop mail-in voting from being implemented across the country and hamper the Post Office's ability to process millions of ballots. I can't tell you how -- how -- how unusual and alarming that is, frankly. I mean I think that the Post Office does not just process ballots, they also process mail for Americans on all kinds of different fronts. We're -- we’re talking about prescriptions, we're talking about checks, paychecks, tax checks, all kinds of things like that. But there have been some real questions about the President's influence in the post office and I think we're seeing now that he's clear that he wants to hold off on anything that could stabilize the post office's finances, whether it has to do with ballots or not, all because he thinks that this is the way to ensure that he has his best chances in November.
JOHN BERMAN: There is a definitional struggle over democracy right now. A literal struggle over democracy and the ability to vote that's going on around the country, and some of it’s playing out right before our very eyes in explicit terms. That is what as you so rightly point out Abby was so stunning about yesterday. The President just flat out said it. But there’s also stuff happening that a lot of people aren't seeing. The Post Office has removed across the country several machines that have the ability to sort large quantities of mail, and now postal workers are concerned that could slow down the balloting. That's happening on one side. On the other side of this definitional struggle over democracy, Pennsylvania overnight -- and this is a big deal -- Pennsylvania is asking the state Supreme Court there to extend when ballots can be accepted, mail-in ballots can be accepted in that state. They will no longer have a deadline as they do on 8:00 election night. They will now be able to receive ballots up to three days after Election Day. That's the other side of this, and that's a big deal, especially in a swing state.
PHILLIP: Yeah, there is this tug-of-war going on, and you're seeing it. We are getting reports from all over the country about concerns that postal officers are having about mail delays. And that key Pennsylvania decision or not decision, but filing last night that we reported on, basically it says that the state wants to be able to accept ballots after election day up to three days because they have been informed by the Postal Service that the Postal Service's delivery speeds will not get ballots back to them in time to meet these deadlines of a receipt by Election Day. That's really significant, and it's something that the Trump campaign on -- on -- on behalf of President Trump has been fighting in court, not just in Pennsylvania but also in other states. Look, there are two main things here. One, we can either improve the way that the postal service works so that these ballots get where they need to go and this process has a chance to go more smoothly, or you can get in the way of that, and it seems very much like the Trump campaign and the President is interested in getting in the way of that and so it leads to real questions about whether he has any desire at all to let this process -- to -- to allow people to cast ballots that in many of these states, they are legally permitted to cast these ballots just like he is when he requested his ballot in Florida, and -- and it will be arriving to him probably in the next few days via the mail.
HILL: Which is so important to point. You know, the other thing is, we can't ignore the fact that all of this is happening, as John pointed out at the top of the hour, with the backdrop of the pandemic, and that is why we are seeing more states address the need for mail-in voting or an increased need in their states for mail-in voting. That's why they need more money, to make sure that each American's vote is counted if they choose to vote by mail. And yet the President yesterday, when he was pressed by our colleague Kaitlan Collins in the briefing, she asked him specifically, what happens about Americans who may not feel comfortable voting in person, and Abby, he was very clear, well they should just get comfortable with it. That also is telling in terms of not only how he looks at voting but also how he is, again, addressing the pandemic and its impact.
PHILLIP: Absolutely. This idea that the pandemic is simply going to go away in the fall is not true, and, in fact, there are even more concerns that it could be worse because we could be dealing with the flu -- the seasonal flu on top of the pandemic. I've talked to so many voters who are concerned because this is really life and death for them. They have immunocompromised systems, they are cancer survivors, cancer patients. They do not want to be going out and standing in line to vote by ballots and states don't want that either. The President doesn't seem to care about that at all, and we know why, Erica. He has said he thinks that mail-in voting will hurt Republicans. There is also no evidence of that. The -- the evidence suggests that mail-in balloting is a neutral -- it's a wash when it comes to partisanship, but the President is convinced about this as it relates to his own election prospects, and that is why all of this is happening. He is not -- not -- he claims he's concerned about fraud, but there is really no evidence of the kind of widespread fraud that he's been talking about. He's been making up all kinds of scenarios that have no basis in fact. Again, this is about how he feels about his chances. This wouldn't be happening, Erica, if the President didn't think that he was at risk of losing this election.
