It's Brian Lehrer, and this is my daily politics podcast from WNYC Studios. It's Thursday, April 9th.

President Trump is already angling to suppress the vote for when he and presumably Joe Biden face off in November. The president

claims widespread voting by mail is a risk for voter fraud. And he seemed to admit his real

motivation when he tweeted yesterday that mail in voting, quote, for whatever reason, doesn't work out well for Republicans.

And The Times Today has a detailed article about the lack of fraud in states that already use mail-in ballots.

I'll read a little bit of that New York Times article in this segment.

With me now on that.

And more is USA Today, Washington Bureau Chief, Susan Page.

Thanks so much for continuing to come on with us under all this pressure. Welcome back to WNYC, Susan.

Brian, it's my honor to be here with you. Why did this come up? The president and his last few

daily briefings and on Twitter there attacking mail and voting.

Well, the Republicans are focused on what's going to happen in November when the president

will be up for a second term. And of course, this is going to be a different kind of election day

given what will be a continued situation with the coronavirus, however, whatever course it takes over the next

few months.

Democrats are very interested in expanding the ways people can vote, especially mail-in ballots,

which is something that's worked with some success in states and is a way that eliminates

the health challenges of having

an election at a time of pandemic. And Republicans are aggressively opposing efforts in states

across the country to do that. Another piece of evidence of what this is really about,

in addition to Trump kind of revealing his hand

by tweeting for whatever reason this doesn't work out well for Republicans. Another piece of evidence

...