Donald Trump is mulling privatization for the United States Postal Service, according to insiders who spoke to the Washington Post.
Sources who spoke to the Post claim the president-elect has eagerly discussed gutting one of the federal government’s oldest agencies, going so far as to gather transition team perspectives on privatizing the agency earlier this month.
Trump discussed his plans to overhaul and the department with Cabinet nominee Howard Lutnick at Mar-a-Lago, per the Post. He’s put forward a planned Department of Government Efficiency, headed by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, that would have a wide mandate to slash department budgets.
Trump said the federal government should not step in to subsidize the service’s losses – which totaled $9.5 billion last fiscal year – a move that could potentially destroy the agency tasked with delivering mail to every American.
Trump appointee and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy defended the agency’s lack of profitability on Tuesday in a heated congressional oversight hearing, explaining to Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., that the Post Office provided an essential service before resorting to covering his ears.
“This Congress is responsible for the fall of the Postal Service. I am trying to fix the Postal Service,” DeJoy told McCormick.
Trump picked DeJoy, a campaign donor, during his first administration to preside over a series of cuts and delivery slowdowns. The then-president soured on DeJoy in the lead-up to the 2020 election, waging war on the USPS and repeatedly questioning the security of mail ballots.
The Postal Service remains one of the most popular government agencies, logging a 72 percent approval rating in a July Pew Research poll.