WATCH: Maxine Waters Says Trump’s ‘Henchmen’ Are Stopping People From Getting Their Mail

Rep. Maxine Waters appeared on MSNBC this week and accused President Donald Trump of tampering with the United States Postal Service.

Waters, a California Democrat, was speaking with Ali Velshi on "All In" on Monday night about what she suspected were Trump’s voter suppression plans for the November election.

  • "The first thing we should be doing now is understanding what the president is already doing to the U.S. Postal Service," she said. 
  • "He has sent his henchmen over to run it, and I'm already getting complaints from people who are saying that they believe that the president of the United States is managing the delivery systems, slowing it down, interfering with people being able to get their mail."

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee and donor who took office last month, has moved to cut costs at the Post Service amid deep revenue losses.

  • A number of Democrats, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, have suggested the Trump administration could make it harder for Americans to vote by mail during the coronavirus pandemic.
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Trump targets mail-in voting: But the president has repeatedly argued voting by mail, which many states have lately embraced, is the real threat to American democracy.

  • During an interview with "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace last weekend, Trump said, "I think mail-in voting is going to rig the election."
  • The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee have filed lawsuits to stop vote-by-mail legislation in places like California and Pennsylvania, and Republicans are fighting attempts to expand the option in Texas.

Some experts, while acknowledging the risks of increased voting by mail, have downplayed the possibility it could lead to widespread fraud, saying it has not been seen to do so in the past.

  • Others have pointed to the public unpopularity of mail-in-voting and warned of its potential to promote voter disenfranchisement and mistrust.

In Atlanta earlier this month, a man's dead cat received a voter registration form by mail.

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