President Donald Trump stunned many observers on Wednesday morning when he threatened to cut off federal aid to Michigan at a time when the state is dealing with both the COVID-19 pandemic and mass flooding caused by a burst dam.
"Michigan sends absentee ballots to 7.7 million people ahead of Primaries and the General Election," the president wrote. "This was done illegally and without authorization by a rogue Secretary of State. I will ask to hold up funding to Michigan if they want to go down this Voter Fraud path!"
Trump's threat against Michigan was sparked by Michigan sending out absentee ballot applications to all of its registered voters as a way to give them the opportunity to vote by mail and thus avoid having to head to the polls in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Many Twitter users responded to Trump's threat by pointing out that he incorrectly said that Michigan residents were getting ballots when they were actually just getting applications, while others said that the president threatening a state's funding was an abuse of power similar to the one he was impeached for when he held up aid to Ukraine until it launched an investigation into presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden.
Check out some reactions below.
This is objectively nuts and the exact sort of scenario that the constitutional law professors warned about during… https://t.co/TJMGsQZICt— Sam Stein (@Sam Stein) 1589976493.0
So much for states’ rights. https://t.co/dZvBCv1E6r— Benjamin Dixon (@Benjamin Dixon) 1589976928.0
If Trump were as interested in fighting viruses as he is in fighting voting, a lot more Americans would be alive right now.— LOLGOP (@LOLGOP) 1589976998.0
Wrong again dickhead. They're sending applications, but keep attacking Michigan. https://t.co/sYF8wqtcHV— John Weaver (@John Weaver) 1589976940.0
This would be a bad tweet even if it were true. But Michigan is sending out absentee ballot -applications- to those… https://t.co/o0ZVVZiLU6— Hayes Brown (@Hayes Brown) 1589976987.0
When you’re complaining about more Americans having access to voting what you’re really doing is telling on yourself https://t.co/16cwdY6Phj— Michael Cohen (@Michael Cohen) 1589976615.0
@realDonaldTrump Breaking: You’re the biggest fraud on the planet, you’ve might have fooled me in 2016, but I’ll be… https://t.co/vDiR8p4oHY— David Weissman (@David Weissman) 1589975577.0
