Late night hosts offer some theories on why Trump is trying to destroy the U.S. Postal Service

Late night hosts on Trump versus the mail

(Image credit: Screenshots/YouTube/The Tonight Show, The Daily Show, Late Night, The Late Late Show)

published 18 August 2020

"It was the first night of the virtual Democratic National Convention — because nothing quite fires up Americans like long speeches over Zoom," Jimmy Fallon deadpanned on Monday's Tonight Show. "There was wall-to-wall coverage on CNN and MSNBC. Meanwhile, on Fox News, there was a three-hour special called 'Kamala Harris: Where Do You Think She Was Born?'" The night's top draw was the previous first lady, he added, but "if you missed Michelle Obama's speech, don't worry, Melania will deliver the same speech at next week's Republican Convention."

"The other big story right now is the Postal Service," especially concerns "that budget cuts are going to hurt mail-in voting," Fallon said. "This is crazy. We can't send in mail-in ballots? Meanwhile, Americans can get drunk, go on Amazon, and eight hours later there's a new pair of sunglasses for their ferret waiting at their front door." Now "the House is cutting its vacation short to deal with this," he said. "You know 2020 is crazy when congressional hearings about the Postal Service are must-see TV."

"Trump is confident that the boater voters will put him over the top, but as a backup, he's also been moving ahead with Plan B: destroying the U.S. Post Office so that Democrats can't vote by mail," Trevor Noah said at The Daily Show. "People have all sorts of theories about why Trump is attacking the post office. One of those is that he wants to slow mail down so that ballots don't arrive in time to be counted. But another theory is that he just wants Democrats to think that the mail is going to slow down so that they don't trust the mail and they don't send their ballots at all."

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No, "Trump and the Republican Party are in lockstep behind a plan to dismantle the post office that is both an assault on Democracy and the culmination of a decades-long movement to privatize one of the country's most cherished public institutions," Late Night's Seth Meyers argued. "As an election approaches in which the incumbent president just happens to be trailing badly in the polls, conservatives are suddenly concerned that the post office loses money," but "it's not a business! It's so telling that you ghouls never say stuff like this about ICE or the police." Watch his closer look below. Peter Weber

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.