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Facing a public backlash over mail disruptions, the Trump administration scrambled to reply Monday because the House ready an emergency vote to halt supply delays and repair modifications that Democrats warned might imperil the November election.
The Postal Service mentioned it has stopped eradicating mailboxes and mail-sorting machines amid an outcry from lawmakers. President Donald Trump flatly denied he was asking for the mail to be delayed at the same time as he leveled recent criticism on common ballots and mail-in voting.
“Wouldn’t do that,” Trump instructed reporters Monday on the White House. “I have encouraged everybody: Speed up the mail, not slow the mail.”
Embattled Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will testify subsequent Monday before Congress, together with the chairman of the Postal Service board of governors.
Democrats and a few Republicans say actions by the brand new postmaster general, a Trump ally and a significant Republican donor, have endangered hundreds of thousands of Americans who depend on the submit workplace to receive pharmaceuticals and different wants, together with an anticipated surge in mail-in voting this fall.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is looking the House again into session over the disaster on the Postal Service, establishing a political showdown amid rising issues that the Trump White House is attempting to undermine the company forward of the election.
Pelosi lower brief lawmakers’ summer season recess with a vote anticipated Saturday on laws that will prohibit modifications on the company. The bundle may also embrace $25 billion to shore up the Postal Service, which faces continued monetary losses.
The Postal Service is among the many nation’s oldest and extra in style establishments, strained lately by declines first-class and enterprise mail, however now hit with new challenges throughout the coronavirus pandemic. Trump routinely criticizes its enterprise mannequin, however the monetary outlook is much extra advanced, and consists of an uncommon requirement to pre-fund retiree well being advantages that advocates in Congress need to undo.
Ahead of the election, DeJoy, a former supply-chain CEO who took over the Postal Service in June, has sparked nationwide outcry over delays, new costs and cutbacks simply as hundreds of thousands of Americans will probably be attempting to vote by mail and polling locations throughout the COVID-19 disaster.
Trump on Monday defended DeJoy, but additionally criticized postal operations and claimed that common mail-in ballots could be “a disaster.”
“I want to make the post office great again,” Trump mentioned on “Fox & Friends.”
Later on the White House, Trump instructed reporters he needs “to have a post office that runs without losing billions and billions of dollars a year.’‘
The decision to recall the House carries a political punch. Voting in the House will highlight the issue after the weeklong Democratic National Convention nominating Joe Biden as the party’s presidential pick and pressure the Republican-held Senate to respond. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell sent senators home for a summer recess.
“In a time of a pandemic, the Postal Service is Election Central,” Pelosi wrote Sunday in a letter to colleagues, who had been anticipated to be out of session till September. “Lives, livelihoods and the life of our American Democracy are under threat from the president.”
At an occasion in his home-state Monday, McConnell distanced himself from Trump’s complaints about mail operations. But the Republican chief additionally declined to recall senators to Washington, vowing the Postal Service “is going to be just fine.”
“We’re going to make sure that the ability to function going into the election is not adversely affected,” McConnell mentioned in Horse Cave, Ky. “And I don’t share the president’s concerns.”
Two Democratic lawmakers referred to as on the FBI to examine actions by DeJoy and the board of governors to sluggish the mail. “It is not unreasonable to conclude that Postmaster General DeJoy and the Board of Governors may be executing Donald Trump’s desire to affect mail-in balloting,” Reps. Ted Lieu of California and Hakeem Jeffries of New York wrote in a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Senate Democratic chief Chuck Schumer and different Democrats, in the meantime, urged the postal board to use authority underneath a 1970 regulation to reverse operational modifications put in place final month by DeJoy. If he declines to cooperate, “you have the authority, under the Postal Reorganization Act, to remove the postmaster general,’‘ the senators said in a letter to board members.
Outside a post office in Baltimore, Rep. Kweisi Mfume, D-Md., called on DeJoy to resign.
“Don’t tell me or others that you’re just trying to make the post office make money. The U.S. post office is not a business. It is a service. And it is a service to Americans that we must always protect,’‘ Mfume said Monday.
Congress is at a standoff over postal operations. House Democrats approved $25 billion in a COVID-19 relief package but Trump and Senate Republicans have balked at additional funds for election security. McConnell held a conference call Monday with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and GOP senators on the broader virus aid package.
The Postal Service said Sunday it would stop removing its distinctive blue mailboxes through mid-November following complaints from customers and members of Congress that the collection boxes were being taken away. And White House chief of staff Mark Meadows pledged that that “no sorting machines are going offline between now and the election.’‘
The legislation set for Saturday’s vote, the “Delivering for America Act,” would prohibit the Postal Service from implementing any modifications to operations or degree of service it had in place on Jan. 1. The bundle would come with the $25 billion in earlier funds which might be stalled within the Senate.
DeJoy, the primary postmaster general in practically twenty years who was not a profession postal worker, has pledged to modernize the money-losing company to make it extra environment friendly. He eradicated most extra time for postal employees, imposed restrictions on transportation and diminished of the amount and use of mail-processing tools.
Trump mentioned final week that he was blocking emergency support to the Postal Service, in addition to a Democratic proposal to present $3.6 billion in further election cash to the states to assist course of an anticipated surge of mail-in ballots. Both funding requests have been tied up in congressional negotiations over a brand new coronavirus reduction bundle.
Meanwhile, the Postal Service is looking for a short-term fee enhance that will increase costs on industrial home aggressive parcels, together with Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, first-class bundle service, Parcel Select and Parcel Return Service. The company cited elevated bills, heightened demand for on-line packages due to the coronavirus pandemic and an anticipated enhance in vacation mail quantity.
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Associated Press writers Darlene Superville and Jill Colvin in Washington and Bruce Schreiner in Frankfort, Ky., contributed to this report.
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