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Trump’s USPS Takeover Plan a ‘Reckless Power Grab’ Endangering Mail-In Voting: Critics
President Donald Trump is expected to announce plans to take over the U.S. Postal Service, an independent agency that has its roots in the U.S. Constitution, and absorb it into the Commerce Department. Congress, not the executive branch, has primary control over the USPS, although the president nominates members of the USPS Board of Governors, who must receive Senate confirmation.
Critics are calling it a “reckless power grab” and warning that it could disenfranchise the millions of Americans — nearly half of all voters — who vote by mail, and threatens to disrupt the lives of millions of Americans, especially seniors, veterans, and rural residents, who receive “about a billion shipments of prescription drugs” through the mail.
According to The Washington Post, which first broke the story, the move “would probably violate federal law,” and throw “the 250-year-old mail provider and trillions of dollars of e-commerce transactions into turmoil.”
For decades, Republicans have wanted to privatize the USPS, at one point restructuring it and forcing it to effectively “bank” a continuous 50 years’ worth of pension and health care funding, something no other agency has ever been required to do. Calling the Postal Service “essential,” President Joe Biden signed the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022—legislation that passed with massive bipartisan support—which eliminated the pre-funding requirement, providing the agency with far greater stabilization.
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President Trump for years has blasted the Postal Service, and weaponized his criticism into attacks on Amazon and its founder, Jeff Bezos, one of his prominent critics. (Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post, more recently has appeared to adopt a more supportive tone.) Amazon is one of the top customers of the Postal Service, and Trump tried to force the USPS to increase the rates that the company, one of the nation’s top retailers, has to pay.
Trump in 2018, for example, wrongly claimed that “the Post Office is losing billions of dollars … because it delivers packages for Amazon at a very below cost,” Factcheck.org reported. “He also said taxpayers are ‘subsidizing’ Amazon’s deliveries, but the U.S. Postal Service does not receive any federal funds for its operating costs and hasn’t since 1982.”
The Postal Service’s governing board, “is planning to fight Trump’s order, three of those people told The Washington Post,” the paper reported. “In an emergency meeting Thursday, the board retained outside counsel and gave instructions to sue the White House if the president were to remove members of the board or attempt to alter the agency’s independent status.”
“This is a somewhat regal approach that says the king knows better than his subjects and he will do his best for them. But it also removes any sense that there’s oversight, impartiality and fairness and that some states wouldn’t be treated better than other states or cities better than other cities,” James O’Rourke, who studies the Postal Service at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business, told the Post. “The anxiety over the Postal Service is not only three-quarters of a million workers. It’s that this is something that does not belong to the president or the White House. It belongs to the American people.”
CRITICS RESPOND
Critics immediately blasted President Trump upon hearing news of his plans to take over the Postal Service.
“Now he’ll control mail-in voting. Right out of the autocrat’s playbook,” remarked journalist and author Craig Crawford.
“This is insane,” declared U.S. Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA). “Now Trump wants to seize the Postal Service, dismantle its independence, and throw mail delivery into chaos. This isn’t reform—it’s an incompetent, reckless power grab. We will use every tool at our disposal to fight back.”
“USPS, despite its faults, delivers hundreds of millions of pieces of mail on a *daily* basis, and as a small percentage of that volume, is also the literal backbone of our entire elections, voter registration, and political campaigning system in America,” observed Nick Lima, Registrar/Director of Elections for the City of Cranston, Rhode Island.
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“Taking over the USPS would be plainly contrary to the 1970 Postal Service law. Is the President is betting he can do it and that Congress will do nothing & that maybe the SCOTUS will declare the 1970 statute’s method of appointing the PMG [Postmaster General] unconstitutional?” noted Dr. Kevin R. Kosar, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he studies the U.S. Congress, the administrative state, American politics, election reform, and the U.S. Postal Service.
“The Postal Service is one of the largest employers of Veterans in the country. Hundreds of thousands of Veterans rely on USPS to deliver medications, benefits, and critical information. We won’t stand by and let this happen. We WILL fight this!” announced the progressive political action committee (PAC) VoteVets.
TRUMP, COVID, AND THE USPS
During the summer of 2020, during President Trump’s first term, as the COVID-19 pandemic raged, many more Americans turned to the Postal Service to obtain their prescription medications.
Documenting that phenomenon, Popular Science, citing Michael Pignone, a doctor in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Texas’s Dell Medical School, reported that the USPS is “part of the healthcare system.”
“You can think of the post office as just this incredibly well-distributed last-mile logistics network,” Pignone said. “There are all kinds of possibilities of what the postal service can do.”
WIRED magazine, also in 2020, reported on the ” little-known Postal Plan, which dates back to the Clinton era,” that “charges mail carriers with delivering critical supplies—like vaccines—as a last resort.” It also cited “a little-known Obama administration plan, ‘Executive Order 13527: Medical Countermeasures Following a Biological Attack,'” where “it would fall to the Postal Service to be the first-line responders to a widespread biological terror incident—think an anthrax attack, where the post office shows up at your door with Cipro. Those plans could potentially be dusted off to help respond to disease epidemic or pandemic.”
In its report on Trump’s plans to take over the Postal Service, The Washington nPost also noted that “Republicans have grown wary of [outgoing Postmaster General] DeJoy and the Postal Service’s close ties to the Biden administration. The two partnered to deliver nearly 1 billion coronavirus test kits, the largest expansion of postal capabilities in a generation, and to fund a fleet of more than 60,000 electric mail delivery vehicles, though those were plagued by delivery delays.”
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Trump had one of the worst responses compared to other similar nations. He infamously begged officials to slow down testing for the coronavirus, and said, “by having more tests, we have more cases.”
READ MORE: ‘Cowardice’: GOP Faces Backlash After Report Suggests Death Threat May Have Swayed Vote
Image via Reuters
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U.S. Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) blasted a Fox News host for minimizing the potential lethal consequences to American service members that he says could have resulted from the Trump national security team’s use of Signal to plan out the recent bombing on Yemen. One of the participants of that chat was in Moscow, having visited with Russian President Putin, within hours of the 18-member chat.
Fox News host Will Cain chastised the Democrats’ anger and outrage over what is being called Signalgate, alleging it was “to score political points, the first political points they’ve been able to accomplish in two months.”
“Will,” Congressman Himes replied, “what we’re talking about here, and I’ve spent a decade now watching how our intelligence community communicates with the war fighter. So I am not going to listen to you tell me that this is about a ‘partisan advantage.'”
“It is a mistake, and yes, it’s a very serious mistake. Because if you make a mistake in Social Security and grandma doesn’t get a phone call through, that’s bad,” he said, highlighting the Trump administration’s reported targeting of the agency. “But there is not zero risk that our young men and women in uniform, the ones who flew those F-35s and F-18s—” he said before Cain cut him off.
READ MORE: ‘Putin Is Giddy’: NSA Knew Signal Was Vulnerable to Russian Hackers Before Security Breach
The Fox News host appeared to not understand how lives could have been put at risk—at one point calling it a mere “hypothetical”—and demanded Himes explain.
“Because in an insecure channel, in what was acknowledged as a mistake, before, whether it was a day or two hours or five hours, in a Signal chat that we know,” he said, “that the Russians could intercept, they might have told the Houthis in an hour, and in half an hour, they’re moving their anti-aircraft stuff around.”
“It is by the grace of God that we don’t have dead pilots or sunken ships right now,” Himes continued.
Cain claimed that the “mistake” was the accidental addition of The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat, when the larger crisis was holding what experts agree should have been a meeting in a SCIF—a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility—via Signal.
RELATED: ‘Sloppy, Careless, Incompetent’: National Security Chiefs Slammed in Senate Hearing
“Including Jeffrey Goldberg was the mistake,” Cain insisted. “You are hyperbolically taking this over the top—yes, absolutely for partisan points.”
“You are the one who is making this into a partisan issue,” Himes continued, “and we are talking about the lives of our young men and women, and it makes me want to throw up to hear you turn this into a partisan issue when we are talking about the lives of airmen and Marines and sailors.”
Cain at that point began to break into laughter.
“You just need to stop this,” Himes insisted.
Watch the video below or at this link.
Wow — Jim Himes during a heated exchange with Will Cain on Fox News: “I’m not gonna listen to to you tell me that this about a partisan advantage … it is by the grace of God that we don’t have dead pilots of sunken ships right now … it makes me want to throw up to hear you… pic.twitter.com/PjNQPiiAM5
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 25, 2025
RELATED: ‘Who Exactly Is Running the Government?’: Trump’s War Plans Leak Denial Backfires
The National Security Agency was reportedly aware of vulnerabilities in the messaging app Signal weeks before 18 top Trump administration national security and defense officials used the app in a group chat to plan the recent bombing of Yemen. Those vulnerabilities, an NSA memo warned, were being exploited by Russian hackers. Details have also emerged that at least two top administration officials who were in the chat were overseas, including one in Moscow — where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The use of the Signal app by the upper echelon of Donald Trump’s national security and defense team has rocked the nation, fueling concerns over the mishandling of sensitive—and potentially classified—information in ways that may be unlawful. These fears are seemingly compounded by Trump’s alleged mishandling of hundreds of classified documents, which led to criminal charges that were ultimately dropped after the U.S. Supreme Court granted presidents broad immunity from prosecution for official acts.
CBS News reports that the National Security Agency (NSA), an arm of the Pentagon, had “sent out an operational security special bulletin to its employees in February 2025 warning them of vulnerabilities in using the encrypted messaging application Signal.”
The NSA operates under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard.
The Pentagon also sent out a memo warning of Signal’s vulnerabilities and use by Russian hackers, just days after that group chat.
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“Several days after top national security officials accidentally included a reporter in a Signal chat about bombing the Houthi sites in Yemen, a Pentagon-wide advisory warned against using the messaging app, even for unclassified information,” NPR reported Tuesday.
“Russian professional hacking groups are employing the ‘linked devices’ features to spy on encrypted conversations,” the Pentagon’s memo warned.
It also notes that Google has identified Russian hacking groups who are “targeting Signal Messenger to spy on persons of interest.”
The Pentagon memo reminded users that “third-party messaging apps (e.g. Signal) are permitted by policy for unclassified accountability/recall exercises but are not approved to process or store non-public unclassified information.”
NPR’s Quil Lawrence noted that “NPR has seen DoD memo as far back as 2023 prohibiting mobile apps for discussing even much less sensitive info like ‘controlled unclassified information.'”
Last month, a Google Threat Intelligence memo warned of the use of apps like Signal by “military personnel, politicians, journalists, activists, and other at-risk communities.”
Critics argue that the use of Signal for “war plans” was against policy. During Tuesday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing CIA Director John Ratcliffe had insisted Signal was approved for use.
National security experts, including at least one former Trump administration official, have been highly critical of the use of the app by the 18-members in a chat.
RELATED: ‘Who Exactly Is Running the Government?’: Trump’s War Plans Leak Denial Backfires
President Trump’s Ukraine and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff “was in Moscow, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, when he was included in a group chat with more than a dozen other top administration officials — and inadvertently, one journalist — on the messaging app Signal,” CBS News reported on Tuesday. “Russia has repeatedly tried to compromise Signal, a popular commercial messaging platform that many were shocked to learn senior Trump administration officials had used to discuss sensitive military planning.”
Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, acknowledged on Tuesday during a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that she was overseas during the Signal chat. The Associated Press reported the DNI “wouldn’t say whether she was using her personal or government-issued phone because the matter is under review by the White House National Security Council.”
The Wall Street Journal’s chief foreign-affairs correspondent Yaroslav Trofimov appears to be one of the first to note that Witkoff had been in Moscow during the time the chat had been organized. He notes: “The Signal app itself has high encryption. But if your phone is inside Russia, and especially if your WiFi and Bluetooth are not disabled, Russia can see what is inside your phone pretty easily.”
On Tuesday morning, U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) noted: “Not a single person out of 18 of the very most senior officials in this Admin — including the Director of National Intelligence and the CIA Director — voiced any concern with highly classified military plans circulated on Signal. You also can be sure this is not the only time.”
The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist and scholar, responded to Congressman Goldman, writing: “Putin is giddy. He has compromised the phones of every top national security official in the Trump administration. No doubt has enough juicy information from what is likely to be multiple Signal chats to deeply damage American security. And possibly to blackmail some of them.”
RELATED: Trump Shrugs Off Signalgate, Backs Advisor at Center of National Security Scandal
Image via Reuters
Top Senate Democrats tore into the Directors of National Intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency during a Tuesday hearing on global security threats, demanding answers after a bombshell report found they used an unsecured messaging app to plan a bombing in Yemen — possibly in violation of the law.
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard refused to answer several questions from Intelligence Committee Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-VA), including whether she participated in “the group chat with the Secretary of Defense and other Trump senior officials discussing the Yemen war plans.”
“Senator,” Gabbard replied, “I don’t want to get into the specifics,” a statement she made at least three times before the frustrated Vice Chair then asked: “Is this, is it because it’s all classified?”
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Gabbard would only say that the incident “is currently under review by the National Security Council.”
“Because it’s all classified?” Warner pressed. “If it’s not classified, share the texts now. Is it classified or non-classified?”
Tulsi Gabbard refuses to answer Warner’s questions about the Signal group chat pic.twitter.com/vMLfszfFMN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 25, 2025
Gabbard ultimately told Warner that “there was no classified materials that was shared in that Signal chat.”
He immediately replied, “If there was no classified material, share it with the committee.”
“You can’t have it both ways. These are important jobs. This is our national security,” Warner said, as Gabbard remained silent and expressionless.
But several Senators appeared to be unconvinced or uncomfortable with her claim of no classified information in the Signal chat.
U.S. Senator Angus King (I-ME) told Gabbard that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth “put into this group text a detailed operation plan, including targets, the weapons we were going to be using, attack sequences and timing—and yet you’ve testified that nothing in that text, in that chain was classified.”
“Wouldn’t that be classified? What if that had been made public that morning before the attack took place?” he asked.
RELATED: Trump Shrugs Off Signalgate, Backs Advisor at Center of National Security Scandal
“Senator,” Gabbard replied, “I can attest to the fact that there were no classified or intelligence equities that were included in that chat group at any time,” she insisted.
“So the attack sequencing and timing and weapons and targets you don’t consider should have been classified?” King asked.
“I defer to the to Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council on that question,” Gabbard responded.
“Well,” King, appearing somewhat dumbfounded, reminded Gabbard, “you’re the head of the intelligence community and you’re supposed to know about classifications.”
“So your testimony very clearly today is that nothing was in that set of texts that were classified,” King continued, noting that “if that’s the case, please release that whole text stream so that the public can have a a view of what actually transpired on this on this discussion.”
“It’s hard for me to believe that targets and timing and weapons would not have been classified,” he concluded.
Angus King doesn’t buy Gabbard’s testimony that war plans ahead of military strikes isn’t actually classified information pic.twitter.com/wxywXSkPhc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 25, 2025
U.S. Senator Mark Kelly (D-AZ) further pressed Gabbard on what Senator King had seemed to suggest might be potentially classified information.
“In the Signal chain, was there any mention of a target in Yemen?” he asked.
“I don’t remember mention of specific targets,” Gabbard replied.
“Any generic target?” Senator Kelly asked.
Gabbard, pausing, then replied, “I believe there was discussion around ‘targets,’ in general,” she said.
Earlier in the hearing, Vice Chair Warner had blasted the Trump national security officials who were using Signal, the unsecured messaging app, to map out the Yemen bombing.
“There’s plenty of declassified information that shows that our adversaries, China and Russia are trying to break in to encrypted systems like Signal,” the Vice Chair said. “I can just say this, if this was the case of the military officer or an intelligence officer, and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired.”
“I think this is one more example of the kind of sloppy, careless, incompetent behavior, particularly towards classified information, that this is not a one off or a first time error,” he lamented.
Warner, with Gabbard and Ratcliffe sitting in front of him: “If this was the case of a military officer or an intelligence officer and they had this kind of behavior, they would be fired.” pic.twitter.com/Rn3AWtZbkq
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 25, 2025
Watch the videos above or at this link.
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Image via Reuters
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