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Trump calls USPS 'one of the disasters of the world'

Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman joins Zack Guzman to break down the latest developments USPS funding, after President Trump referred to the postal service as "one of the disasters of the world" during an interview on Fox News.

Video Transcript

ZACK GUZMAN: As discussions in Washington have shifted away from the next round of stimulus here tied to the pandemic, now with a focus on what's going on at the US Postal Service, as Democrats take issue with changes ongoing there to reel in the losses-- President Trump has talked about this for years-- at the USPS. Of course, that agency has posted 13 consecutive years of net losses in the billions of dollars, as well as a task force digging into this too. So it's not necessarily a new issue.

But now that this is an election year, Democrats are not happy with the idea of disenfranchising voters out there with the issues, and noted that the USPS has warned states that it might not be able to deliver mail-in ballots there. President Trump defending on what's going with the cost cutting measures right now at the USPS. For more on this, want to bring on Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman.

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And Rick, we've heard plans from House Democrats. Speaker Pelosi bringing them back to vote on a bill that could potentially shift the money, the $25 billion dollars we're talking about here in aid and funding for the USPS into a standalone bill from that stimulus bill that they proposed. I mean, what's the right way to go about this? Because, as we know, the issues at the USPS have been long standing here. But it is an election year and a lot of different things going on right now.

RICK NEWMAN: Man, what's the right way to go about this? It's a thorny problem, Zack. I mean, just to address what Trump is talking about. The Postal Service has been a basket case for a long time.

But the main issue there is that it's a quasi-independent agency that's not allowed to act like a real business. I mean, it has to get permission from Congress to do things like close post offices. They can't sell anything at the post office other than postal products, so on and so on. So they're not allowed to run like a real business. That's the basic problem.

And when you have the Postmaster, who is not a longtime postal worker or executive-- it's an outside guy who was a huge donor to the Trump campaign coming in and suddenly making all these changes three months before the election. I mean, obviously that is the wrong time to do it, if you're sincerely trying to fix the Postal Service's problems. So what looks like the House is going to try to do is instead of that $25 billion for the Postal Service being in the big stimulus bill, it sounds like they're going to take that out and put that in its standalone bill. I would imagine there's going to be a lot of other stuff in this bill as well, such as things that tell the Postal Service they cannot make some of these changes they've been making until after the election.

What the postal service has been doing is cutting overtime for postal workers. So if the mail is not processed in a given day, instead of finishing the job, it just sits there until the next day and piles up. They've been removing some of these expensive sorting machines. Not clear why they're doing that. They've also been taking away some of those blue postal boxes you see all over the place. Not clear why they're doing that either.

So it looks like the House Democrats are going to try to at least put a stop to all of that. The question, obviously, is whether the Senate will do anything. And we don't know yet.

There are some Republicans who are a little anxious about what's happening at the Postal Service. But Mitch McConnell's in charge. And we don't know if he's going to let a bill come up for a vote in the Senate.

ZACK GUZMAN: Well, and we know about how both chambers were supposed to be on recess, and Pelosi recalling the House for this issue. But as we talked about it, it does seem like one of those things where it's a complicated thorny issue, but the fact that it is an election year makes it very political here. But both sides understand the issues going on. When you think about that loss at the USPS, it ballooned last year, to $8.8 billion, up from $3.9 billion the year prior.

And we know this is an issue that President Trump has not just brought up out of the blue. So I kind of get both sides, when we're talking about it being an issue. But the timing of it seems rather precarious as we approach the election.

The task force digging into these issues published their results at the end of 2018. To be getting around to them now-- as you said, it's complicated, it's Congress. But what's your take on that?

RICK NEWMAN: Which part of that?

ZACK GUZMAN: All of it, Rick Newman.

RICK NEWMAN: You're bringing in all these issues that have been out there for 25 years, really. There is no shortage of smart, coherent plans for how to fix the Postal Service. It just takes Congress and it takes the Postal Board of Governors to do it, and they've not.

So now is not the right time for just one guy, and that's the Postmaster General. His name is Louis DeJoy, the Trump donor. It is the wrong time for one guy to be raising his arms like Superman and saying, I alone can fix this problem.

It has clear echoes of Trump. Nobody addressed this until I came along. If you're serious about it, wait till after the election and don't change anything until we have an election.

Just to give you some context here, Zack, there's a huge gap between the portion of Democrats who say they intend to vote by mail, which is a large majority, almost 3/4, and Republicans who say they intend to vote by mail, which is only about one quarter. So if you're Trump, and your re-election looks shaky, it is actually somewhat logical. It's nefarious, but it's logical to say, wow, more Democrats are going to vote by mail. If we could prevent some of those people from voting, it would probably work to our advantage. So I think that is possibly what is going on here.