Jacob Bogage
Appearances
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
Well, thank you for having me, Rachel. It's good to be back. And that was one heck of an intro. The state of play is in flux. Like you mentioned, we reported this story with anonymous but pretty ironclad sourcing. The White House, after it published, denied it. And then President Trump today didn't just say that he and Secretary Letnick were looking at it. He acknowledged that they were...
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
planning what he called some sort of merger between the Postal Service and the Commerce Department. So this is very much an active question in the White House and at the Postal Service. People are really uncertain.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
That goes from rank-and-file letter carriers and postmasters who I've talked to today and have been texting with all through the night, really, from last night when I broke that story to today, to folks in senior leadership who are wondering what it means to have a political mail service.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
That's a difficult question to answer. I mean, yes and no, right? I mean, the story published last night and one of my sources immediately texted me, are we doing this again? This is somebody who had defended the Postal Service during the first Trump administration and was like, OK, let's take the playbook out again. And I've been talking with sources who are reviving that playbook again today.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
The legal questions around if the Trump administration can do this and if so, how they can do this. are very thorny. I mean, like I'm a postal policy geek and I don't know. And that's because it's an independent agency. It has to have a board. If you don't have a board, you can't raise prices. You can't sell stuff off. You can't make investments.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
Those are things, those are powers that are not vested in the postmaster general. And it's designed that way specifically to wall people's mail and communications with off from anyone political who could tinker with it.
The Rachel Maddow Show
Sidelined Trump mostly 'decorative' as Musk remains busy wrecking the government, reaping rewards
Thanks. Good to see you.