President Donald Trump threatened Michigan Wednesday, saying that if they continue to send applications for vote-by-mail ballots, he will take away their federal funding. While the president is dodging accusations of another quid pro quo, former Justice Department spokesman Matt Miller explained that this is just more of the same from the Republican Party trying to keep voters from the polls.
"Look, I think this tweet today was in some ways the modern GOP in a nutshell," said Miller. "You have Trump taking what has been really a modern Republican Party's orthodoxy for a while, that it ought to be harder for people to vote and then putting his own thuggish brand on top of it by actually threatening to withhold resources from states trying to make it easier for people to vote in the middle of a public health and economic crises. I think what that means for the fall is we have seen the Republican Party for the last few years try and make it harder to vote by restricting polling hours and barriers like voter I.D., and I think you'll see an effort from the president on down, especially if the prospects start to look worse and worse for them."
He went on to say that he anticipates Republican senators will panic if they begin to see their grasp on the senate slipping away. At that point, he expects Republicans to go more on the attack to restrict people's rights to vote by mail. He said that it likely wouldn't happen in states like Michigan, but it will in states where Republicans control the vote.
"It's an absolute threat to democracy in this country and to your point, I think very worrisomely when you see the person at the head of government who's supposed to be charged with faithfully executing all the duties he swore to uphold in the constitution trying to undermine the most sacred right in a democracy, it's a concern," Miller continued.
Former Republican Party chairman Michael Steele noted that it is ironic that Trump was crying fraud when he got his absentee ballot mailed to him at the White House. He went on to say that every American deserves access to the ballot box.
Watch the video below:
