Rep. James Clyburn: Trump is 'trying to do everything' he can to prevent a 'fair, unfettered election'

Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.), the third-ranking House Democrat, told The Associated Press on Wednesday he believes President Trump is trying to sway the election by scaring people into thinking mail-in voting isn't safe.

"We've got bar codes that can identify every stick of chewing gum in a grocery store and you are telling me that we cannot have bar codes to identify every ballot that goes out and certify it as it comes in?" he said on Wednesday. "We can do this. That's what we've got to do. Put the money in this budget. And so that we can have a fair, unfettered election. This guy is trying to do everything he possibly can to prevent that from happening."

Clyburn also told AP he won't attend the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, and said that if Trump does deliver his Republican National Convention speech from the White House later this month, it wouldn't be appropriate. "Let him do it from the golf course," Clyburn suggested.

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Regarding negotiations for a new coronavirus aid package, Clyburn said he thinks Democrats and Republicans will be able to soon come to an agreement, but it won't be easy as this is "a health care crisis wrapped into an economic crisis, and they are so interwoven. You can't solve the economic crisis without solving the health care crisis, and the problem we've got is that we do not have a national plan to deal with this virus. That's not the way you run a national government."

Things are "much, much worse" now than they were during the Great Recession, he added, and "our entire economy is at stake."