Irving Park’s most famous Republican fundraiser – Postmaster General Louis DeJoy – came under intense criticism this week from Republican Congressman Rich McCormick from Georgia in a Tuesday, Dec. 10 heated exchange during a congressional oversight hearing – where the lawmaker harshly and directly blamed DeJoy’s leadership for the worsening performance of the US Postal Service.
The confrontation, which aired on C-SPAN, centered around the ongoing delays in mail delivery that have plagued the Postal Service under DeJoy’s tenure.
Congressman McCormick began the discussion by asking DeJoy to explain why service was so slow.
McCormick said the mail service has deteriorated immensely since DeJoy began heading up the agency, and the congressman questioned whether the Postmaster General had the ability to lead the agency effectively.
DeJoy, who was unwavering in the face of the very harsh attack, defended his actions as Postmaster General, and stated that the delays in mail service weren’t a result of his leadership. Instead, he said, they stemmed from long-standing systemic issues that predated his appointment to the job in 2020.
DeJoy argued that efforts to address these challenges were necessary but would take more time, despite mounting criticism.
Before becoming the Postmaster General, DeJoy was CEO of High Point-based New Breed Logistics from 1983 to 2014. That company was a United States Postal Service contractor for more than a quarter of a century since one of its services included shipping logistics support to postal processing facilities.
DeJoy has been a major donor and fundraiser for many high-profile Republican Party politicians over the years. It has not been unusual to see Secret Service or other security forces surrounding his Irving Park home when key Republican leaders – including Donald Trump – show up at his mansion for a fundraiser.
DeJoy helped fund President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection bid and he co-chaired Rudy Giuliani’s fundraising campaign four years later. He also donated to Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, and, four years later, donated $1.2 million to Donald Trump’s 2020 presidential bid.
In April 2017, after Trump was elected president, DeJoy was named one of three deputy finance chairmen of the Republican National Committee.
In May of 2020, the USPS Board of Governors – all selected by Trump – named DeJoy Postmaster General.
DeJoy came under fire by Democrats that year when they accused him of manipulating the mail system to favor Trump’s candidacy.
However, since that time, there has been some very positive press on DeJoy and the changes he’s made at the US Postal Service, such as a relatively flattering article in Time Magazine a couple of years ago.
However, McCormick, at the congressional oversight hearing, is clearly not satisfied with any of DeJoy’s explanations as to how the current problems have come about. Instead, McCormick accused DeJoy of evading accountability for the worsening state of the Postal Service – especially as it relates to Georgia.
The congressman pointed out that DeJoy had been in charge of the Postal Service for several years now, and that, under his leadership, delays had only gotten worse.
The conversation grew very tense as McCormick pressed DeJoy on his cost-cutting measures and questioned whether they were the reason for the slowdowns that have caused significant problems for Americans who depend on the timely delivery of essential items through the mail – including their prescriptions.
DeJoy vehemently denied that his cost-cutting initiatives were the cause of the delays. He said those measures were necessary to ensure the financial stability of the Postal Service.
“You can’t spend money you don’t have,” DeJoy shot back at the hearing, attempting to justify the need for cuts that have reduced some operational expenses, including staffing and transportation.
Despite DeJoy’s steadfast defensive posture, McCormick maintained that these cuts had disastrous consequences for service quality. He cited the struggles of Americans who depend on the Postal Service for critical deliveries. McCormick argued that the fundamental issue was a lack of accountability within the agency, which he claimed was allowing service to deteriorate.
DeJoy asserted that the Postal Service’s difficulties were the result of years of mismanagement by Congress, however, that did little to assuage the lawmaker’s obvious frustration.
At one point in the discussion, DeJoy literally covered his ears with both hands, and an exasperated McCormick said he hoped the cameras caught that because it was such a fine example of how DeJoy reacts to criticism.
McCormick, a retired military officer, invoked his military experience to criticize DeJoy’s leadership style.
“In the military, if I have a skipper and things are going bad, even if they’re a good officer, we relieve them,” McCormick said.
He further likened DeJoy’s situation to that of a CEO whose company repeatedly fails, suggesting that leaders like that are typically fired in the private sector.
“The Postal Service’s positive business model has fallen apart under your watch,” McCormick declared.
McCormick continued: “You’ve been graded by the American people, and they’re losing faith in this service.”
DeJoy, however, remained unmoved and countered that Congress was largely responsible for the Postal Service’s financial challenges.
The now famous Greensboro resident argued that, while reforms were necessary to address the long-term viability of the agency, the responsibility for the agency’s troubles wasn’t his alone.
“I’m trying to fix them,” DeJoy said of the problems.
As the heated exchange continued, McCormick expressed disbelief that, despite advancements in technology and automation, the US Postal Service still fails to deliver basic services such as on-time mail delivery.
“With all the AI and computer systems, you’ve still failed to deliver basic services,” McCormick said. “That’s on you.”
The tension between DeJoy and Congress reflects a larger debate over the future of the Postal Service – with critics questioning whether the current leadership is capable of effectively addressing the agency’s persistent problems.
For now, DeJoy’s critics continue to call for change at the top – while the Postmaster General insists that the systemic reforms and long-term planning efforts he’s implementing are necessary for the Postal Service’s survival and recovery.
I am a member of the loyal opposition but I must say the Post Office seems to be running better under DeJoy. He appears to have the background and the backbone for the job. Yes there are mistakes but they are corrected and overall the quality of service is steady.
I was thrilled with Sen. Josh Hawley’s grilling of DeJoy. The USPS IS a mess both inside and out. He asked for answers many citizens have (check out NextDoor posts to see details of misrouted mail, late mail, no mail, mail after 6pm).
There’s no call for it to take more than a day to send mail from Brown Summit to McLeansville, but it’s usually a 3-day event. We’ve consistently had payments mailed go missing costing us late fees and service charges to stop payment (and oh thrill, the same happens if you use BillPay and the bank mails a cheque because they don’t have the ability with some accounts to do a digital transfer).
The cost of mailing gifts for birthdays and Christmas is so stupidly expensive, sometimes costing more than the item in the package, that fun things like joke gifts are a thing of the past. Our family now donates to charitable organizations instead of exchanging gifts from miles away (which is an economic loss for retailers, and has taken the expectation of something coming in the mail besides junk to toss in the recycling).
DeJoy’s responses to Hawley were juvenile and meaningless. I was especially interested in how someone running the USPS figured that ending afternoon pickup of mail in “rural areas” would cut costs yet not lead to delays in delivery. How could he not understand that if no mail was collected then the mail WAS being delayed (something I learned when the chick at the bank decided to not check the PO Box for a week at a time and again I ended up with late fees, canceled check fees, blah), all while he’s raising the cost of mailing letters, packages, and whatever stuff you think is coming from Amazon by UPS but arrives by USPS.
DeJoy has not done a good job of running the postal service and should be replaced with someone who knows how to manage a delivery business. Maybe someone from the Pony Express is still around?
In my opinion US Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has done a remarkable job transforming the efficiency of the US Postal Service and significantly improving their image! The one issue of concern I have encountered with the US Postal is the lack of ability to express your gratitude and appreciation on their website for our hard working and very competent Postal Service Employees!
Service quality is a real issue. I see it weekly. Postal rates have zoomed up during the last 2-3 years, yet postal workers and carriers got only a 1.3% raise coming up. This deal has not been approved by the Union, so look for further delays and/or a strike.
Some of their employees make less than $20/hr. With all the responsibility, $20/hr cannot support one person. So many employees are among the functional poor, qualifying for govt assistance. Goodbye the good and secure job. The job now is borne by lower-skilled workers, willing to work for peanuts.
Mr. DeJoy thinks that job-cutting for improved service is gonna work. Ask Stellantis how that approach is working for them. This service is not meant to be for profit, our govt is not in business. It is not expected to make a profit, instead they run multi-trillion dollar deficits every year, at the expense of taxpayers & consumers alike.
The USPS is in decline, it is not functional by any definition. The USPS cannot compete with email, fax, or private enterprise.
Name something our govt does well. NASA can’t even run a space program. Musk can.
At least it doesn’t cost GBPounds 2.80 (about $3.60) just to send a postcard across the Atlantic. That’s what the Royal Mail charges.
The USPS only charges $1.65 to mail Christmas cards internationally.
Need to privatized the post office. Another wasteful government agency