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With a little more than a month to go before Inauguration Day, President-elect Donald Trump and President Joe Biden both took steps on Monday that could affect the future of the U.S. Postal Service.
Trump nodded toward a possible move to privatize the Postal Service during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.
When asked about the agency, Trump said privatization was “not the worst idea I’ve ever heard,” adding that “we’re looking” at it.
“There is talk about that. It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time,” Trump said.
Privatizing the Postal Service would affect hundreds of thousands of jobs and risk upending a system that, founded in 1775, is older than the United States itself.
Though the USPS is a government agency with federal employees, it primarily relies on its own commercial activities, like selling postage, products and services, for funding.
The USPS did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s remarks.
Any effort to privatize the agency would require approval from its board of governors, comprised of 11 members and led by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, who Trump appointed during his first term in office. Members are nominated by the president and must be confirmed by the Senate.
Biden on Monday announced his intent to renominate Anton Hajjar to the Board of Governors — a move that would require quick action by Democrats to confirm him before Republicans take control of the chamber in the first week of January.
Hajjar previously served on the board of the USPS. Biden nominated him in 2021, and he was confirmed by the Senate in a voice vote, indicating little to no opposition. Hajjar served out the remainder of a term which expired in December 2023. If Hajjar’s renomination is confirmed by the Senate, his new term would last seven years.
Hajjar was formerly the general counsel of the American Postal Workers Union, representing unions and union workers.
Biden’s intent to nominate Hajjar marks an attempt to leverage control over the highly popular agency, which has not been profitable since 2006. The USPS ranks only second to the National Park Service in popularity among government entities, according to a survey this year by the Pew Research Center.
Trump has been openly critical of the agency, calling it a “joke” that “loses massive amounts of money.” While he was in office during the Covid pandemic, Trump opposed extending help to the agency and threatened to veto congressional measures that included aid for USPS during his first term.
His appointment of DeJoy in 2020 resulted in an unveiling of a 10-year plan to overhaul the USPS to address financial hardship and “modernize the postal service.”
Republicans more broadly have expressed discontent with the Postal Service, calling it “bloated, mismanaged and unaccountable.” GOP lawmakers grilled DeJoy during a House Oversight Committee hearing this month, saying Americans are enduring poor service and that the USPS is “hemorrhaging red ink.”
Democrats have opposed privatization, with Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., recently telling The Washington Post that privatization “is our big fear.”
Ultimately, the board of governors, Biden’s pick Hajjar among them if confirmed, would decide the fate of the agency, and whether the service — which provides private companies such as Amazon, FedEx and UPS with “last-mile” service in rural areas — is privatized or not.
Raquel Coronell Uribe is a breaking news reporter.
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