GEOFF BENNETT: President Trump reportedly plans to fire the governing board of the U.S.

Postal Service and place the independent agency under the control of the Commerce Department, a move that could be the first step in privatizing a service established 250 years ago.

The White House initially denied that an executive order to make that change is in the works, but late today President Trump admitted that he's considering it.

Jacob Bogage broke the story for The Washington Post, and he joins us now.

Thanks for being with us.

JACOB BOGAGE, The Washington Post: Hey.

Great to hear from you, Geoff.

Thanks for having me.

GEOFF BENNETT: So what are your sources telling you about what the administration is planning and what it could ultimately mean for the U.S.

Postal Service?

JACOB BOGAGE: Well, step one here would be to place the Postal Service, take it out of independent status, and embed it inside the Commerce Department.

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick was just sworn in today.

And we have reported over the course of months that he's been engaging with then-president-elect and now-President Trump about privatizing this agency.

So taking it out of that independent status would be step one.

And step two would be leadership changes.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy announced he plans to retire soon.

And the Board of Governors can be fired for cause by the president.

That could be another step.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, this will certainly lead to legal challenges.

What have experts been telling you about the authority the president would have to dissolve the Postal Service leadership and then effectively move it to the Commerce Department?

JACOB BOGAGE: So, the Postal Service has to have a Board of Governors.

These are bipartisan individuals appointed by the president, confirmed by the Senate, and then they together select or can remove the postmaster general.

There are powers that the Postal Service has on things like service, on things like rates and prices, on major investments that can only be made by the governors.

So you have to have a board in place.

And that's kind of what's complicating this for the White House a little bit.

How do you take these individuals who can only be removed for cause from an agency that by law is independent?

You can't legally move it into the Commerce Department.

How do you bring that under the control of the White House?

That's a legally dubious question.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, President Trump, as you well know, he's long mused about privatizing the Postal Service.

And as you mentioned, the commerce secretary was sworn in today, and here's what the president had to say about USPS during that ceremony.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: Well, we want to have a post office that works well and doesn't lose massive amounts of money.

And we're thinking about doing that.

And it'll be a form of a merger.

But it'll remain the Postal Service.

And I think it'll operate a lot better than it has been over the years.

It's been just a tremendous loser for this country.

Tremendous amounts of money are being lost.

GEOFF BENNETT: It's undeniable that the Postal Service has been losing money.

It had a lot to do with the way its pensions were organized.

It's lost more than $9 billion in the most recent fiscal year.

Does that strengthen the case for privatization?

JACOB BOGAGE: That's a difficult question because it's an ideological question.

So let's look at this from the big picture.

The United States has had a Postal Service longer than we have been a country.

It was founded in 1775.

Obviously, the country was founded in 1776.

For -- until 1970, the Postal Service didn't have a profit motive.

Its motive was to serve people all across the country with equal and reliable service.

We changed that in 1970 for -- it's a long story we don't need to get into it right now.

But we changed that to be more of like a crown corporation or a government-sponsored corporation.

So what do we lose without an independent Postal Service?

Well, this is an agency that belongs to all of us.

It doesn't belong to the White House.

Because it's independent, it has an obligation to serve all of us equally, reach everybody's address with the same service and the same pricing.

A privatized Postal Service or one in which mail delivery becomes political will not have those same motivations.

GEOFF BENNETT: And, to your point, in many cases in parts of the country, it's the only mail carrier, the only mail service.

JACOB BOGAGE: Right.

GEOFF BENNETT: And e-commerce giants like Amazon rely on the Postal Service for those last-mile deliveries.

So how could that affect the mail and packages that Americans get?

JACOB BOGAGE: This is a story that is obviously not going away.

And, Geoff, you and I know that really well from having covered it for so long.

So there's a term that folks should get to know right now, and that's coopetition, cooperation and competition.

Private express carriers like Amazon FedEx, UPS, use the Postal Service to carry their least profitable packages.

The Postal Service has to go to everyone's address six, sometimes seven days a week.

They have got to go over the hill and around the bend, even if it doesn't make money.

Amazon FedEx, UPS don't have to do that.

So they give these packages to the Postal Service.

They're competitors, but they leverage each other for business.

That is extremely, extremely profitable for the Postal Service.

They can't survive without that coopetition.

GEOFF BENNETT: And final question, Jake.

you Mentioned the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, is stepping down.

He's halfway into his 10-year term.

Based on your reporting, do you know why he's stepping down now?

JACOB BOGAGE: Not precisely.

I mean, we look at the last fiscal quarter, it's the first time The Postal Service has been in the black, except for something like mandatory pension and health care costs, since the height of the COVID crisis.

It's a big win for his 10-year plan.

A lot of this -- the stuff that he has in the works, has been moving rather successfully, a bumpy rollout, but it's been rolling out nonetheless and being implemented.

Louis DeJoy, and I have spoken to him numerous times, he's a really successful businessman.

He's in his late 60s.

He has adult children.

He's retired from businesses that he ran or helped lead multiple times.

And running the Postal Service, believe it or not, was a retirement gig for him.

He's five years into this job, and that's about the time frame he promised when he took it.

So, there -- look, is there more to this story about why he's stepping down?

I would be willing to bet on that.

And that's something that I will keep reporting on.

But I also know that this is around the time frame that he was looking to leave anyway.

GEOFF BENNETT: Jacob Bogage of The Washington Post, thanks for being with us.

JACOB BOGAGE: Thanks, Geoff.