This is Planet Money from NPR.

A couple of months ago, the 600,000-plus employees of the United States Postal Service

were sent a video introducing them to their new boss.

Hello, and thank you for watching.

Today, I am honored to begin my service as our nation's 75th Postmaster General.

That voice belongs to the new Postmaster General, Louis DeJoy.

You might have heard of him by now.

He was a big donor to President Trump and the Republican Party, and he was appointed

by the Postal Service Board of Governors, all of whom were themselves appointed by Donald

Trump.

In that introductory video to all the mail carriers, DeJoy makes it clear that he thinks the

Postal Service is facing all these problems.

The pandemic has been bad for business for the Post Office, and even before that, people

just don't send as many letters as they used to.

And finally, we have an expensive and inflexible business model that has largely been imposed

on us, and that we cannot easily change.

But I did not accept this position in spite of these challenges.

I accepted this position because of them.

Since taking over in June, DeJoy has fired or reassigned a bunch of Post Office executives

cut over time away back, and maybe most controversially called for the removal of hundreds of mail

sorting machines.

And all of this is happening against the backdrop of a presidential election in three months,

...