Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden on Monday slammed President Donald Trump’s recent statements about mail-in ballots, claiming the president is spreading “bald-faced lies” to distract from his failures to control the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak.

“He suggested we should postpone the election, full of just bald-faced lies about how mail-in votes were fraud, and how it was so terrible,” Biden said during a virtual campaign fundraiser.

“Well look, he’s calling out any effort to exploit this pandemic for political purposes. It distracts from his complete failure,” he continued.

In a provocative tweet last week, Trump claimed mail-in voting would make the election “fraudulent.” He has not provided any concrete evidence for his claims.

“With Universal Mail-In Voting (not Absentee Voting, which is good), 2020 will be the most INACCURATE & FRAUDULENT Election in history,” Trump tweeted early on Thursday. “It will be a great embarrassment to the USA. Delay the Election until people can properly, securely and safely vote???”

More voters are expected to request mail-in ballots as a safer alternative to physically showing up at a polling location during the pandemic. Trump’s attacks on mail-in voting could backfire and cause Republican voters to stay home, a report published by Politico on Monday suggested.

Trump's tweet prompted law professor Steven Calabresi, the co-founder of the right-wing Federalist Society, to contribute a scathing opinion piece Thursday in the New York Times.

"This latest tweet is fascistic and is itself grounds for the president’s immediate impeachment again by the House of Representatives and his removal from office by the Senate," Calabresi said.

Recent general election polls show Biden with a strong lead over Trump. The expected surge in mail voting may mean the Trump campaign will have little time to bounce back, as some vital states such as North Carolina begin sending out ballots in September.

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