Insiders who spoke with the Washington Post say Donald Trump is considering privatizing the United States Postal Service.
According to sources who spoke with the Post, the president-elect has eagerly discussed gutting one of the federal government’s oldest agencies, even gathering transition team perspectives on privatizing it earlier this month.
Trump discussed his plans to overhaul the department with Cabinet nominee Howard Lutnick at Mar-a-Lago, according to the Post.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the proposed Department of Government Efficiency, which will have a broad mandate to cut department budgets.
Trump said the federal government should not intervene to subsidize the service’s losses, which totaled $9.5 billion last fiscal year, a move that could devastate the agency tasked with delivering mail to every American.
Louis DeJoy, a Trump appointee and Postmaster General, defended the agency’s lack of profitability in a heated congressional oversight hearing on Tuesday, telling Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., that the Post Office provided an essential service before covering his ears.
“This Congress is to blame for the demise of the postal service. “I’m trying to fix the Postal Service,” DeJoy told McCormick.
During his first administration, Trump appointed DeJoy, a campaign donor, to oversee a series of budget cuts and delivery delays.
The then-president turned against DeJoy in the run-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, with a 72% approval rating according to a July Pew Research poll.
