Jeffries bashes Trump as hypocrite for voting by mail: ‘King-like behavior’

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) bashed President Trump on Tuesday for voting by mail while simultaneously fighting to prevent others from doing the same.

“For years, Donald Trump has been railing against voting by mail, only to turn around and vote by mail in the special election that’s taking place today in Florida,” Jeffries told reporters in the Capitol. “That’s king-like behavior.”

Trump has a long history of criticizing mail-in balloting, claiming without evidence that it leads to widespread election fraud. Yet Trump voted by mail in a special election on Tuesday for a statehouse seat representing Palm Beach County, the home of Trump’s Mar-o-Lago resort and residence.

“Rules for me that don’t apply, but not for thee. That’s his position,” Jeffries charged.

Trump’s mail-in vote comes as he’s ramping up pressure on Congress to prohibit the practice in most cases.

This month, amid the fight over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), he is pushing lawmakers to bar mail-in balloting nationwide except in certain specific cases — a pressure campaign that’s creating headaches for many Republicans on Capitol Hill who hail from states where mail-in voting is popular and prevalent.

Trump is also demanding the passage of the Save America Act, a package of tougher election guidelines including a new national voter ID requirement. Jeffries noted that Republicans frequently oppose such sweeping federal mandates in favor of states rights, and wondered why they’ve abandoned that position when it comes to the Save America Act.

“This is a state’s rights issue. What happened to the days when Republicans actually supported states rights?” he said. “These people are phony.”

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