U.S. Sen. Cory Gard­ner, a Yuma Repub­li­can up for re-elec­tion this fall, faced sev­er­al ques­tions from reporters Mon­day about slow­downs at the U.S. Postal Ser­vice but gave few direct answers.

He did say he sup­ports leg­is­la­tion to give bil­lions of dol­lars more to the strug­gling USPS.

Gard­ner was in Auro­ra to tour med­ical facil­i­ties, after which he met with two local reporters for a series of ques­tions. His remarks came hours after the state’s top Democ­rats, includ­ing the gov­er­nor and sec­re­tary of state, held a press con­fer­ence about USPS slow­downs and the threat they pose to November’s elections.

Asked if Post­mas­ter Gen­er­al Louis DeJoy — a con­tro­ver­sial choice because of his appar­ent con­flicts of inter­ests and lack of USPS expe­ri­ence — is doing a good job, Gard­ner did not give a direct answer.

“Well, I think we have to under­stand what the post­mas­ter is try­ing to do. Is it over­time, is that what he’s try­ing to do?” Gard­ner said. “The post office is oper­at­ing right now at lev­els that are basi­cal­ly hol­i­day lev­els because of the crush of e‑commerce that they have. So, I think they need to make sure that we don’t have any kind of slow­down around elec­tions or mail. That’s the bot­tom line.”

When asked if he is wor­ried about USPS’s recent tra­vails, he told a child­hood sto­ry about rid­ing with his grand­fa­ther, a rur­al postal carrier.

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, whom Gard­ner has endorsed, claimed Mon­day on Twit­ter that elec­tions can be rigged through the cor­rup­tion of drop box­es. When told of Trump’s remarks, Gard­ner said he has spo­ken to the pres­i­dent about mail bal­lots on sev­er­al occa­sions and defend­ed Colorado’s elec­toral sys­tem, which relies in part on a net­work of hun­dreds of drop box­es around the state.

Democ­rats have railed against Trump and DeJoy as Amer­i­cans strug­gle to receive med­ica­tions or pay bills on time, and as state offi­cials wor­ry about the effect on elec­tions nation­wide if USPS ser­vice remains slow. Trump stat­ed Thurs­day that he is opposed to increased USPS fund­ing because it will be used, in part, to mail out bal­lots. Trump also faces re-elec­tion Nov. 3.

“For some rea­son, Don­ald Trump hates the Postal Ser­vice,” said Colorado’s oth­er U.S. sen­a­tor, Michael Ben­net, on KOA Mon­day. “Now the rea­son he’s say­ing he hates it is he thinks mail bal­lots are going to give Democ­rats an advan­tage. That’s A) absurd and B) his argu­ment that mail bal­lots are cor­rupt­ed is dis­proven by Colorado’s exam­ple. We have no cor­rup­tion here though we have mail ballots.”

Gard­ner was non­com­mit­tal Mon­day about William Per­ry Pend­ley, the act­ing direc­tor of the Bureau of Land Man­age­ment. Pend­ley was nom­i­nat­ed by Trump to be BLM direc­tor before his nom­i­na­tion was with­drawn over the week­end, but he will remain as act­ing direc­tor. Democ­rats opposed him due to his past remarks about the need to sell America’s pub­lic lands.

When asked three times whether he sup­port­ed Pendley’s nom­i­na­tion before it was with­drawn, Gard­ner nev­er direct­ly answered. Instead, he said Pend­ley would have faced a lot of tough ques­tions dur­ing the Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion process. Gard­ner then alleged that Joe Biden and John Hick­en­loop­er, his Demo­c­ra­t­ic oppo­nent, will move BLM’s head­quar­ters out of Grand Junc­tion if they are elected.

“I think it’s dev­as­tat­ing to pub­lic lands, I think it’s dev­as­tat­ing to Col­orado, should John Hick­en­loop­er and Joe Biden try to do that,” Gard­ner told reporters.

Hick­en­loop­er said in a state­ment that Gard­ner showed “cow­ard­ly silence” Mon­day by refus­ing “to speak out against Pres­i­dent Trump’s attacks on the USPS.”

“Sen­a­tor Gard­ner was elect­ed by vote by mail, and he knows Trump’s lies are dan­ger­ous,” Hick­en­loop­er added. “His silence shows a bla­tant dis­re­gard for those who rely on the post office for pre­scrip­tion drugs, to sell their prod­ucts, or rur­al Col­oradans who can’t always get deliv­er­ies from pri­vate carriers.”

Gard­ner was in Auro­ra on Mon­day to tour the Mar­cus Insti­tute for Brain Health and the Nation­al Men­tal Health Inno­va­tion Cen­ter on the Anschutz Med­ical Cam­pus. At the lat­ter stop, Gard­ner heard from researchers about the role tech­nol­o­gy can play in treat­ing men­tal ill­ness­es in vet­er­ans and oth­er civilians.

“I think we are going to see the biggest men­tal health cri­sis in the his­to­ry of this coun­try” as a result of the pan­dem­ic, Matt Vogl, exec­u­tive direc­tor of the inno­va­tion cen­ter, told Gard­ner and Sen. Jer­ry Moran, a Kansas Republican.

Gard­ner and Moran test­ed head­sets that are used by researchers to study the ben­e­fits of vir­tu­al real­i­ty in treat­ing post-trau­mat­ic stress dis­or­der, pho­bias, anx­i­ety and addic­tion, among oth­er men­tal ail­ments. They praised the center’s research.