USPS Makes Alarming Deal With Elon Musk’s DOGE

Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency is now coming for the post office.

The New York Times reports that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, appointed by Donald Trump in his first term and an advocate for privatizing the U.S. Postal Service, has made a deal with DOGE to assist in “identifying and achieving further efficiencies.”

DeJoy said in a letter Thursday that DOGE was “an effort aligned” with his own work in shrinking the USPS, noting that since the 2021 fiscal year, he had shrunk the postal service’s workforce by 30,000. DeJoy plans for a “further reduction of another 10,000 people in the next 30 days” as part of a one-time voluntary retirement program.

Musk also believes that the USPS should be privatized along with Amtrak, telling a tech conference last week that “we should privatize anything that can reasonably be privatized.” Trump has in the past suggested privatization as well as merging the USPS with the Commerce Department, and recently moved to cement his control of the agency.

Privatization has been flatly rejected by Democrats and unions, who say that it would raise prices, hurt postal workers, and negatively impact rural communities, who are served by USPS thanks to the Constitution and federal law. Representative Gerald Connolly, the ranking member on the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, criticized the DOGE deal Thursday in a statement.

The deal would have “catastrophic consequences for all Americans—especially those in rural and hard-to-reach areas—who rely on the Postal Service every day,” the statement said.

The “only thing worse for the Postal Service,” Connolly said, would be if Musk took over USPS, allowing him “undermine it, privatize it, and then profit off Americans’ loss.”

DOGE taking aim at the USPS is a worrying move, as private companies don’t serve many rural areas. Countless Americans depend on the postal service for medicine delivery, agricultural deliveries, and other business-critical services. Severe cutbacks would neglect the needs of Americans and create a less trustworthy service, ultimately setting the stage for privatization.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s nominee to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, refused to say he will oppose cuts to Medicaid.

At his Senate confirmation hearing Friday, Oz went on and on about the pitfalls of the American health care system and the “generational opportunity” before him to help “people stay healthy for longer.”

“That’s why President Trump wants to love and cherish Medicare and Medicaid,” Oz said, as the president continues to push for a spending bill that would gut health care funding.

Democrats weren’t buying it.

“What I want to know, yes or no, if you cherish Medicaid, do you oppose cuts to Medicaid?” Senator Ron Wyden asked Oz.

The celebrity talk show host avoided the question, rambling on about his Ivy League education and experience as a medical practitioner.

“That’s not the question, Doctor, the question is will you oppose cuts to this program you say you cherish?” Wyden pressed.

“I want to make sure that patients today and in the future have resources today and in the future have resources to protect them,” Oz bluffed. “The way you protect Medicaid is making sure that it’s viable at every level, which includes having enough practitioners to afford the services, paying them enough to do what you request of them and making sure—”

Wyden cut him off. “Let the records show, I asked a witness who says he cherishes this program ‘Will you agree to oppose cuts?’ and he would not answer a yes or no question.”

Throughout the hearing, Oz echoed the GOP’s blatant lies about fraudulent claims in Medicaid and the need to stop “unscrupulous people from stealing from vulnerable Americans, and extend the life of the Medicare Trust Fund.” The program is the latest target of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency cuts, despite President Donald Trump repeatedly promising he wouldn’t touch it.

It’s clear Oz will be no defender of the safety net program that serves over 72 million Americans.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision to cave to the Republican budget resolution has not been received well by his fellow Democrats.

Speaking with CNN on Friday, Senator Jeff Merkley said that Schumer’s sudden reversal made his own opposition to the bill even more of a “hell no.”

“You don’t stop a bully by handing over your lunch money, and you don’t stop a tyrant by giving them more power,” Jeff Merkley told the network. “That’s exactly what this House spending bill does.”

Merkley further argued that some of the rationale coming from Democratic leadership to side with the spending measure—which includes concern that Americans would blame the Democratic Party for a government shutdown—is unfounded.

“I think that’s absolutely wrong. Republicans control the House, they control the Senate, they control the Oval Office. They’d be voting against our measure to keep the government open,” Merkley said. “I think America would understand that this is a Republican shutdown, if there was a shutdown.”

Fears that a potential shutdown would give Donald Trump more power to slice and dice the government, however, are a little more legitimate, according to the Oregon lawmaker.

“Let’s turn back the clock to 2019, and what we saw with that 35-day shutdown. Well, it created a lot of leverage and power for the Democrats to take on Trump then,” Merkley said. “And I can tell you right now, if we stand up to him at this moment, it gives us a lot of leverage going forward from this point to get the objectives that we have.”

The liberal party practically imploded Thursday as it debated whether or not to maintain adamant opposition against the House GOP’s continuing resolution. At a private lunch with the Democratic caucus, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand was heard screaming about the impacts of a government shutdown through the room’s “thick wood doors,” according to Fox News’s Aishah Hasnie.

Voting for the bill would effectively gut major social services, including Medicaid, a government service that provides health insurance to more than 72 million Americans.

The $880 billion cut to America’s entitlement programs is a trade-off for conservatives whom Trump has tasked to extend his 2017 tax plan, which will overwhelmingly benefit corporations and is projected to add as much as $15 trillion to the national deficit.

In remarks made on the Senate floor Thursday night, Schumer argued that a government shutdown would have “consequences for America that are much, much worse” than the massive slash.

“A shutdown would give Donald Trump and Elon musk carte blanche to destroy vital government services at a significantly faster rate than they can right now,” Schumer said. “Under a shutdown, the Trump administration would have full authority to deem whole agencies programs and personnel nonessential, furloughing staff with no promise they would ever be rehired.

“In short: A shutdown would give Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and DOGE the keys to the city, state, and country.”

House Democrats voted nearly unanimously against the bill earlier this week. After Schumer’s remarks, top House Democrats issued a joint statement reiterating their opposition to the measure, pushing for a four-week spending bill and more time to negotiate the details of a continuing resolution.

Representative Nancy Pelosi similarly torched her peers in the upper chamber, urging Democratic senators Friday to “listen to the women,” referring to Appropriations leaders Representative Rosa DeLauro and Senator Patty Murray, who have argued for the four-week funding extension.

“Donald Trump and Elon Musk have offered the Congress a false choice between a government shutdown or a blank check that makes a devastating assault on the well-being of working families across America,” Pelosi said. “Let’s be clear: Neither is a good option for the American people. But this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable.”

Some Republicans are apparently trying to defend services such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—they’re just doing it in the worst way possible.

Investigative journalist Tara Palmeri wrote in her newsletter The Red Letter Thursday that one Republican operative close to the White House had been framing the issue in a way conservatives would understand.

“Medicaid is not just for Black people in the ghetto, these are our voters,” the operative said, according to Palmeri.

Republicans’—apparently sometimes racist—scrambling to defend popular programming comes after Elon Musk declared that Social Security would be on the chopping block, in an interview with CNBC’s Larry Kudlow earlier this week. It seems that some of the more far-reaching cuts to Social Security pitched by Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have since been scaled back.

Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Chris LaCivita also hit back at Musk’s comments in an interview Friday with Politico’s Dasha Burns. “They’re not going to cut Social Security, they’re not going to cut Medicare, they’re just not. That’s just fearmongering,” he said.

“[Musk]’s not the president. He doesn’t get to make those decisions,” LaCivita added.

But some cuts are inevitable now.

Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers voted to pass a budgetary measure that would force the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which oversees Medicaid, to reduce the deficit by at least $880 billion from 2025 to 2034. That resolution sparked widespread concerns that Republicans were simply seeking a way to slash the crucial program.

Those hoping to hear a performance of the National Symphony Orchestra Thursday night were treated to a different—but no less pleasurable—audio experience: hundreds of people booing Vice President JD Vance.

Vance’s arrival got a fiery reception at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which erupted into at least 30 seconds of jeers as Vance smiled and waved to the audience.

The vice president was accompanied by second lady Usha Vance, who was named to the Kennedy Center’s Board of Trustees last month, among a spate of new appointees that were part of Donald Trump’s takeover of the cultural institution.

Trump declared his intention to become the chairman of the Kennedy Center in February, before claiming that he had been “unanimously” picked to hold the position—though reportedly that wasn’t even true. He also claimed that the institution had booked drag shows “specifically targeting our youth.”

“We took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” Trump said at the time. “I’m going to be chairman of it, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be ‘woke.’”

Clearly, the actual attendees of the Kennedy Center have different feelings about Trump’s takeover—and let themselves be heard.

Luckily, the acoustics carried their dissent amazingly well.