#Trump says Amazon may be the biggest problem with USPS

Defending the US Postal Service from criticism that recent action taken by the postmaster general will hamper the expected surge of by-mail voting because of the coronavirus, President Trump said the agency’s biggest problem is dealing with behemoths like Amazon.

“One of the biggest problems – maybe the biggest problem with a post office – is Amazon. Amazon and other companies like it,” Trump said in an interview Monday on “Fox & Friends.”

“They come in and they drop all their mail into a post office – not all of it but a big percentage of it – and they say, ‘here, you deliver it, you stupid people, you deliver it.’ And it costs us every time they drop a package,” he added.

Trump, who has been feuding with Amazon’s CEO Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, for years, said the online shopping giant takes advantage of the USPS to deliver its packages.

“It costs us like $3 to deliver the package for them. $3 a package. We’re losing a fortune, I said, ‘you got to raise the rates, you’re gonna have to raise the rates.’ But Amazon, they build a big plant always near a post office, and then they take a lot of this mail into areas where they could never go because the postal system is massive,” he said.

“And they drop packages into the post office by the thousands. … and they drop it but drop them and then they say, ‘here, you deliver them.’ And we lose $3 and $4 a package on average. We lose massive amounts of money, and I should raise the price. This guy’s supposed to be so wealthy. So raise the price. Let him pay for it. Why is the post office, paying for delivery for Amazon, and in all fairness for other services like that,” he continued.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is recalling members of the chamber to return from August break later this week to take up legislation that would prohibit the USPS from changing services that were already in place at the beginning of the year.

Democrats have raised concerns that actions taken by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy could leave the USPS unprepared to handle the expected surge of ballots in the mail this November.

Trump and DeJoy said the directives he issued are an effort to make the cash-strapped agency more efficient.