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Postmaster General: Election mail will be delivered 'on time'

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy says he has ‘no plans’ to reinstall mail-sorting machines and explains that the election mail will be delivered 'on time'. Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel weigh in.

Video Transcript

JULIE HYMAN: The Postmaster General of the United States, Louis DeJoy, testified this morning before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. And he attempted to reassure the committee that he is not kneecapping the postal service. Listen in.

LOUIS DEJOY: As we head into the election season, I want to assure this committee and the American public that the postal service is fully capable and committed to delivering the nation's election mail securely and on time. This sacred duty is my number one priority between now and election day.

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JULIE HYMAN: So I suppose the question is what is actually happening on the ground. He did push back against questions he got from senators throughout the hearing. Rick Newman, what's actually happening on the ground? There's certainly a lot of reports about mail delays. There was a whole report about chicks that were destined for various farms in the Northeast that were dying because they weren't making it there on time. How much credibility does he have at this point?

RICK NEWMAN: Big question. I'm not sure he gained any credibility from this hearing. And I actually don't think it went particularly well for the postmaster general. I mean, we have many confirmed reports of postal drop boxes-- the blue boxes-- being removed or locked. And then there are all these sorting machines that are just being, in some cases, removed from postal facilities, some cases, sold to other logistics type companies or broken up for spare parts.

And he just didn't have any good answers about that. He actually said, theoretically, because of the changes that he has been overseeing, he said theoretically, people should be getting their mail faster. But that's not happening. And we're going to have a House hearing sometime next week, and they're not going to be as friendly as some of the Republican senators were. Democrats, of course, have the majority in the House.

And I think what we're going to see in the House is they're going to pick up on some of the things he said today and really hammer him on it. So he's got a few days to get ready for what's going to be probably a hotter hot seat than he was in today.

DAN HOWLEY: Rick, do you see that kind of anything being rolled back? I mean, I know DeJoy said he's not going to replace machines or the blue boxes that have been removed. Do you think that with enough uproar, that decision would be reversed?

RICK NEWMAN: I think that's what a lot of the critic-- of DeJoy's critics are trying to get accomplished. And so far, he has said, no, he doesn't plan to reverse anything. He said he's going to stop all the changes he's in the midst of making until after the election. But you know, so if all these machines have been removed and drop boxes have been removed, is he just going to leave things the way they are, so we're going to have kind of a sustained slower pace of mail delivery? Or is he going to put them back? And he has not said he's going to put them back, and a lot of members of Congress want him to do that. And he said he won't.

I would point out he also said that he was not aware of some of these changes that were happening at postal facilities, which raises an obvious question, which is if you're running the organization and you're not aware, there seems to be a problem. And if you are aware and you're just lying about it under oath, there's also a problem.

So that is a big question that I think came out of these hearings. What does he really know about what's going on? And I think, again, the House next week, they're really going to drill into that.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Rick, who are the winners and losers from this whole thing?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, the losers are everybody who gets the mail. And I think President Trump, who's been a vocal critic of the mail all along, did not think this through really well. Because think about who probably relies most on the mail. It's people who live in rural areas who happen-- tend to be Trump voters. It's probably senior citizens who, by habit, use the mail more than younger people. Trump is now losing that cohort to Joe Biden, according to polls.

Military veterans, disabled people, people who get medications through the mail-- I mean, the postal service has not been a political issue up till now, and I just don't think it is going to turn out to be a winning political issue for Trump, because it turns out the postal service is something people really need.