U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy will resign at the end of the day Monday, concluding a five-year tenure that began at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, stretched through elections conducted predominantly by mail for the first time in the nation’s history, and ended amid pressure from President Donald Trump’s administration to assert political control over the postal system.
Recent tension between DeJoy and the Trump administration over the work of the U.S. DOGE Service contributed to the White House’s antipathy toward the mail chief, who was hired during Trump’s first term by a postal board dominated by Trump appointees.
When DOGE officials arrived at postal headquarters, DeJoy refused to give them broad access to agency systems, according to four people familiar with the interactions, something the group has grown accustomed to elsewhere in government.
Instead, DeJoy required the two DOGE representatives to sit in detailed briefings with executives for each division of the Postal Service, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of professional reprisals. And in a letter to Congress, DeJoy told lawmakers he had deputized the DOGE team to seek policy fixes that required congressional action. The letter, two of the people said, frustrated lawmakers and administration officials.
“They were fed up,” one of the people said.
Administration officials in recent days met with Jim Cochrane, the chief executive of the Package Shippers Association, a trade group that represents companies including Amazon, DHL and FedEx, about replacing DeJoy, according to three people familiar with the meeting. The Washington Post reported in February that the administration had identified Cochrane, a former Postal Service executive, as a leading candidate for the role. (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Post.)
Cochrane and representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
DeJoy, the country’s 75th postmaster general, announced his decision to retire in February but said that he would remain in the role until the Postal Service’s independent governing board chose a permanent successor. Instead, DeJoy said Monday that Deputy Postmaster General Doug Tulino, who leads the agency’s labor relations arm, will take over in the interim.
The move comes as Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick have mused publicly about privatizing the Postal Service or merging it with the Commerce Department.
In February, Trump was on the cusp of issuing an executive order to dissolve the governing board, the agency’s separate independent regulatory agency, and give Lutnick control of the mail service. Trump confirmed the plan during an Oval Office news conference the next day.
But after The Post reported on the move, questions emerged within the administration about the power Lutnick would have to control the Postal Service without a board in place, according to five people familiar with the events who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations. The administration backed off the order, though senior postal officials braced for an imminent White House takeover attempt.
Any change to the Postal Service’s structure would require congressional approval. The Postal Service is an independent agency governed by a board nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate. That board, which by law must be bipartisan, jointly hires and oversees the postmaster general and is responsible for major decisions at the agency, such as service and price changes.
“I believe strongly that the organization is well positioned and capable of carrying forward and fully implementing the many strategies and initiatives that comprise our transformation and modernization, and I have been working closely with the Deputy Postmaster General to prepare for this transition,” DeJoy said in a statement.
Amber McReynolds, the chair of the board of governors, called DeJoy “a fighter” in a statement thanking him for his service. Though the board was often divided on his “Delivering for America” modernization plan for the agency — which involved higher prices and slower delivery to put the Postal Service on a path to financial stability — the group united around DeJoy as the Trump administration began to eye large-scale changes for the USPS, according to three people familiar with board members’ thinking, also speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid reprisals.
“He has fought hard for the women and men of the Postal Service and to ensure that the American people have reliable and affordable service for years to come,” McReynolds said.
