News Clips

“We have seen already that the President’s rhetoric is affecting the confidence that voters have in vote-by-mail, particularly, and also in elections in general,” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, testified to Congress on Aug. 4.

As the COVID-19 death toll has continued to mount, Americans have waited for a sign that President Trump understands what we are enduring. Many have lost loved ones, jobs, health insurance and retirement savings, but those who are suffering have barely drawn a mention in the Rose Garden or as the president leaves the White House in a helicopter to play golf. Since the founding of the Republic, when tragedy has struck our nation, presidents have mourned with us, and they have vowed revenge on those days that will live in infamy. Never before has a president bemoaned the impact a national tragedy has had on his approval ratings or poll numbers.

This week Forbes broke the story that Jared Kushner, “de facto chief” of President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, has been speaking “regularly,” “almost daily,” with Kanye West since West’s July 4 tweet declaring that he is running for president. “Regular” conversations between the head of one presidential campaign and an opposing candidate looks like coordination and is highly irregular. Depending on what they’re talking about, they may be breaking campaign finance laws.

“States are already strapped for cash,” Sylvia Albert, director of voting and elections at Common Cause, said Tuesday. “At a time when the Congress has not appropriated sufficient funds to help election officials run these elections this November, it’s ridiculous to contemplate adding more to their budgets.”

Government watchdog groups have called Trump’s move an act of executive overreach that usurps Congress’ constitutional power to allocate federal funds. “Americans expect and deserve more from their President in the midst of a pandemic and an economic crisis,” Karen Hobert Flynn, president of Common Cause, said in a statement. “Unwilling and unable to negotiate with Congress to deliver a relief package to a nation reeling from COVID-19, President Trump resorted to unconstitutional half measures that will do little to address the serious issues facing the nation.”

“Usually we see a winning president begin to impose ethical restrictions during a transition, but I think this is unprecedented,” said Paul S. Ryan, the vice president for policy and litigation at Common Cause, a nonpartisan government watchdog. “The Biden campaign’s policy is a breath of fresh air after more than three years of a Trump administration that has been mired in conflicts of interest.”