Representative Katie Porter
wanted to ask some questions about
what's been taking place
at the post office because chances
are you might have noticed that
it's taking a lot longer to
get packages to get your mail or
even to get your checks.
And so she wants to know if
the policies that louis Dejoy
the Postmaster General who was
appointed by donald trump has had
an impact on the ability for
the post office to perform its job
right and getting you the packages
that you need.
So she had written this on twitter
on time.
Mail delivery has plummeted under
postmaster louis.
Dejoy forcing veterans to wait
longer for prescriptions, seniors
to scramble to pay bills without
their Social Security checks and
communities to feel less connected.
Postmaster Dejoy needs
to go now whether or
not he will go is something that
we'll discuss in just a moment.
But before we do so,
I want to turn to this video of
Representative Katie Porter
speaking to Molina Molina Perez.
She is the Post Office's deputy
Inspector General for
auditing the post Office.
Just went through an audit and
you're going to get some details
about just how much the Post Office
has been harmed by De joys
policies.
Let's watch >> The audit found
that by the spring of 2020,
Mail Delivery was right around 92%.
That dropped to 80% by the fall of
2020 and by January of 2021 was
hovering at around 61%.
When did Mr Dejoy take over his
postmaster, do you know >> At
the summer of 2020?
The summer of 2020.
So June of 2020 and
what happened after he took over
city raid of anti mail delivery.
Go up or down, >> Went down >> And
I'm a professor and I used to
grade great do a lot of grading and
92% is considered widely like
an A minus 80 is considered hanging
on, hanging on to the lowest
possible be 60 is at best D minus.
The postal service delivers 48% of
the world's mail is an institution.
It is a civic treasure and we let
it get all the way what to found is
we get all the way to that D minus
level.
>> So she's serious when she's got
that white board ready.
And to be sure Louis Dejoy has
been pretty destructive to the post
office implementing policies that
lead to first of all banned late or
additional trips to deliver mail.
h He has decommissioned hundreds of
high speed mail sorting machines.
He's also removed some mail
collection boxes from the streets.
And these changes have led to
significant delays and
not to mention he's got all sorts
of business ties and
conflicts of interest that play
a role in this as well.
I'll give you more details on that
in just a second but
Jake why don't you jump in.
>> So DeJoy obviously got to go,
there's the issue of all the mail
being delayed and we used to have
the best post office.
I mean we were rightfully bragged
about how great our postal service
was and they would deliver and
rain, shine or snow sleet etcetera.
Boy did I bungle that one?
>> You nailed it.
>> Okay anyways and
now they don't why the republicans
destroy everything in government.
So they go government doesn't work
and they come in and
they smash it to pieces and
go see it doesn't work.
After you screwed it up that chart
was that she had on the white board
was perfect explanation of that.
But there's a reason why they're
doing it because it's not just
because they want to get rid of
the post office and and
have FedEx ups and other companies
pick up the slack and make much
more money charges a lot more and
Dejoy himself has companies that
compete with the post office.
It's mental it's absolutely insane
okay so they're destroying it on
purpose for private interests.
But also because the mail in
ballots and in the last election,
25-50000 ballots came in too late
to be counted because now the post
office sucks under.
Dejoy and that's on purpose so
in 2022 if they don't fix
it a lot more now that it's
deteriorated even more.
A lot more will come in too late
and not be counted and
now the male imbalance heavily
favoured democrats.
So Biden doesn't fix this he is
a moron of epic proportions and
like the most pathetically weak
leader we've ever had.
So this is a layup now, how you get
rid of Dejoy is difficult.
That part like the decision is
a lay up the execution is
difficult, but I can tell you how
to do that in a minute.
>> Right exactly and and
look before you do because I do
think that's important information.
I just want to kind of give
everyone a little more background
in regard to what Louis Dejoy
has been up to.
But more importantly, why it is
that the post office has been
under assault by Republicans right?
The biggest assault happened in
2006 under the Bush administration.
So I want to go to graphic five
here in the United States Postal
Service has reported net losses of
nearly $100 billion since 2007.
Now that stems in part from 2006
legislation that required
the agency pre fund more than $120
billion in retiree health care and
pension liabilities, a requirement
that labor unions have
called an unfair burden not shared
by other businesses and certainly
not shared by government agencies.
Remember the post office is a
government agency and it's expected
to run like a business that pre
funds pensions for retirees.
It's it's absolutely insane now in
regard to louis Dejoy.
What has he done specifically?
Well as Reuters had reported,
the US Postal Service reports $4.9
billion 2021 in net losses, right.
They also write that the United
States Postal Service implemented
new service standards that slow
some first class mail deliveries as
part of efforts to reduce red ink.
The new standards revised 123 day
service standards to 1 to 5 days,
impacting about 40% of first
class mail.
And as I mentioned,
postmaster louis Dejoy in March
announced a plan to cut one 160
billion dollars in predicted losses
over the next decade.
That means he's going to fire
a bunch of people.
He says we have years of inflicted
damage to fix that will necessitate
us taking some continued
uncomfortable actions DeJoy said.
So it's abundantly clear that his
first and foremost, like the first
priority he has is to dismantle
what's left of the post office and
also consider the fact that he has
those conflicts of interest.
There should be an investigation
into whether or
not under his leader leadership.
These contracts are being given by
the post office to the corporations
of the companies that he has
ties to.
>> Okay, so
now how do you get rid of?
First difficulty is the President
cannot directly fire the Postmaster
general?
That's because we want that post to
remain independent
of day to day politics now did
trump keep it independent.
No, he put a guy who wants to
destroy the postmaster office for
his own profit into that position.
But it is true that the president
cannot fire the postmaster general
so that you can't undo that it is
what it is okay.
And you have to be fair in how you
assess whether the president is
taking aggressive action enough.
Like if if I thought he could
fire Dejoy and he wasn't,
I'd go nuts, which is fire and
what the hell is wrong with you?
But he can't right, okay.
So does that for most democrats,
that's the end of the conversation.
They're like, well, okay,
that's good enough for
a surrender, right?
No so who can fire Dejoy because
obviously can be fired like
anybody else?
Well, there's a nine person board
and whoever is the president,
that party gets to have five out of
the nine seats.
Now, here comes Democratic
incompetence three of
the Democratic seats are vacant.
Obama tried to fill them senate
republicans blocked it because they
actually care about their jobs and
they care about their base.
And they said,
why don't we don't care we're going
to block everything including
the post office democrats when
trump was in charge of like
couldn't block a goddamn thing
trump packed that board with not
only five republicans and
when he was in charge, but
he put he replaced a democrat that
was leaving with a democrat,
>> Someone who supports trump a so
called moderate.
>> Who actively supports Dejoy.
>> Exactly.
>> So now almost everybody on
the board is that supports Dejoy
because trump packed it and
the democrats have done nothing,
to fight back.
There's just a grotesquely
incompetent party.
Okay, now here's
what they could do.
It's actually now
relatively simple.
You fill the three seats,
you have another democrat on there.
And by the way, if you wanted,
you could actually replace that
democrat to be extra safe, right?
If you needed to.
And then trump appointed republican
is going to step down in December.
That's it now if Biden doesn't do
this, that's then he's the most,
weakest, least intelligent
president we've ever had.
Okay, so then you appoint
a republican that is against Dejoy.
There's a million republicans who
are never Trumpers etcetera,
etcetera.
Super easy to find if you can't
pull that off trump,
did it trumps barely conscious.
He's like one of the least
intelligent people you've ever met
in your life.
And and he got a democrat to say
he'll vote with trump every time,
right?
So if democrats can't do the same,
they're just they don't want to
win it.
So it's next month,
let's see if Biden does it.
But how democrats are.
I'd be pretty shocked if he did
just elementary things to appoint
those five guys get rid of Dejoy
and bring the post office backs to
competence for both the mail
reasons and mail in ballot reasons.
>> Look, there's, there's one key
difference between Donald trump and
Joe Biden and
honestly Joe Biden can be replaced
with any other generic democrat.
Donald trump regardless of how much
you might like him or hate him.
Doesn't matter Okay he's
a steam roller.
And if he wants something doesn't
care about what the laws are,
doesn't care about what
the rules are.
He just goes for it and
no one stands in his way.
Whereas democrats, it's almost as
if they pre-emptively look for
excuses for why they can't do.
>> Not almost that's exactly what
they do, >> That's true.
And and part of the reason is, and
other republicans do this too.
It's not just trump.
McConnell is a great job of
steamrolling.
>> McConnell
is a little more sophisticated.
>> McConnell is part of the people
who did this and
protect Dejoy et cetera why?
Because corporate republicans would
love to destroy the government and
that's what they're doing here and
they want to privatize everything
so their donors can make more
money in the case of Dejoy.
He is the donor.
He's a republican donor who runs
these businesses, etcetera.
So, but the democrats, their donors
tell him no, don't take any action.
Hey, I got shares in Fedex,
I got shares in ups, I got this,
I got that.
You better not take any action.
So if they even do anything
slightly aggressive.
Their donors yell at him at the top
of their lungs and
then guys like biden who
are already like by nature
weak like daughter yelled at me.
So I know they won't
fundamentally change.
I'll keep everything trump
kept in place.
Look his,
it's not even proving us wrong.
I'm saying I'm giving
him the benefit of the doubt.
I'm saying basically you don't have
to be a moron not to
fix this next month.
But if he doesn't do it,
then hey man,
it's a layup at this point yes.
You can't fire Dejoy, but you can
definitely do the board by the way.
If none of that worked for
mysterious reasons and,
because all they're trying
to do is find excuses.
Right?
If you really wanted to do it,
here's what you can do whether it's
Dejoy or any board member.
Let's look into your business
interests.
I bet we find something interesting
there right?
And the minute you publicize
a couple of things, they've done
wrong in business because there's
no way in the world that DeJoy
didn't do things wrong in business.
In fact, I think we covered that
earlier during the trump era and
then you start to put pressure on,
he said, okay, Okay.
Okay I'm leaving.
I was going to leave anyway right?
But that's hardball tactics.
I would do in one second flat.
That biden would never do in
a million years.
But it doesn't matter,
he doesn't need to do that.
He could just replace the board
members if he has a pulse.