>> well, the postal service. they sit down with a big shipper or mailer and come to an agreement which gets september over to the postal regulatory commission. >> what is that? >> it's an independent regulatory body whose job is to keep an eye on the postal service and what it's charging people for postage. then it looks at it and says does this deal comport with law and the law itself is rather vague. if it does, the postal service and the company go forth. >> you said the post service hasn't said much about this deal with amazon. has amazon said anything about it? >> no, i've not seen any details be released. this is not unusual. nobody should be sitting there and saying, wow, something sketchy is going on. they deal with tons of private businesses. none of them tweet out or publish these deals. why would you do that in a private sector? >> what level to you have to rise to in terms of shipping to get a separate deal with the post office? >> you have to be moving a lot of parcels. your typical mom and pop shop

postal service. joining us at our desk is kevin who has worked on postal reform in his role at vice president of public policy at the institute. here is one of the president's recent treats from april 3. cuttinght about amazon the united states post office massive amounts of money for being their delivery boy. amazon should babies cost and not have them borne by the american taxpayer. many billions of dollars, post office leaders don't have a clue, or do they. is the president wrong in his criticism? the particulars are not quite correct. he does surface a larger issue. the postal service is not paid for by taxpayers. it is paid for by the folks who send the mail. it does not get appropriations each year. mailers pay is that the postage that amounts to almost $70 billion per year. issue, is the matter of large shippers and large mailers making deals with the postal service. the details are just not publicly available. which plays into trump's trope about washington insider is him. host: what do we kno

postal service. this is an hour and a half. >>> good afternoon, the subcommittee will come to order welcome to ways and means trade subcommittee. we're having a hearing on how to stop the flow of synthetic opioid in mail system. . nearly doubled from 10 years age the number of died from opioid processing nearly 66% involved opioid. in my home sate of washington there has been 134% increase in opioid related cases between 2004 and 2016. that's an increase of 33%. to put this in stark and shocking terms the increase in opioid-related deaths in washington state exceeds the growth in the state's population. there's been a sharp rise in the number of deaths involving again fentanyl a cheap synthetic op soid up to 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine. the number of americans who died from overdose on synthetic opioid more than doubled from 2015 to 2016 because of fentanyl and because fent beenle is so potent is takes only a small amount to cause severe or deadly reactions. fen

and i just have to say i don't think -- i think first of all the postal service, the postal inspection service could use the extra revenue generated just to screen these packages. and it would certainly reduce the number of packages if they were paying a significantly higher price to ship them in here. it just doesn't seem -- so i've introduced hr-5542 that basically is called the post act. it basically terminates this subsidy. i believe that if the postal service wanted to use that extra money to bring about the services, employ the people to interdict this stuff, that would be the decision of congress. but it would certainly be something that the united states citizen would feel a whole lot better about than if they knew that these millions of packages were coming in from china. and i would say a great deal of them have these drugs in them, and they are contributing to the opioid problem, not trying to solve it. thank you very much. >> mr. kind? >> thank you, mr. chairman. and thank you for holding this very important meeting. i want to thank the witnesses for your testimony today. i

even the postal service said it could use that in terms of amazon and its relationship with the postalamazon and e-commerce in general, the volumes are growing so quickly, there is a capacity crunch. everybody needs the postal service, they need ups, fedex, they need xpo logistics, some of the other companies starting to take on more of these deliveries you're right, longer term, if you do see amazon begin to build out its own infrastructure and shift more volumes to other carriers that's potentially bad for the postal service. >> not going to be easy given the trucker shortage we have, despite all the talk about autonomy and self-driving trucks, wages are going to climb and shipping costs are going to climb. >> yeah. but i think what you can also see there are shifts in our economy that are happening now and there is a trucker shortage. we're seeing actually freeing up of labor that's been involved in retail and so amazon is in a position to actually look sort of wholistically across the economy if it wanted to do that and mobilize some of the people maybe who are working within its w

postal service. on the topo governor policy issues in his state as part of c-span 50 capitals to her. as always, we take your calls, and you can join the conversation on facebook and twitter. "washington journal" is next. ♪ host: good morning. it is monday, april 9, 2018. congress returns to capitol hill after a two-week absence, the senate reconvenes at 3:00 p.m. the house will hold a pro forma session today and will meet tomorrow afternoon to legislative business. we will be with you for the next three hours on the "washington journal." we begin discussing the role the new national security advisor will play in the trump administration, on this, his first day on the job. let's hear your thoughts on the former u.s. ambassador and fox news commentator by giving us your call. .epublicans, (202) 748-8001 democrats, (202) 748-8000. .ndependents, (202) 748-8002 you can also reach us on facebook and twitter. a very good monday morning to you. john bolton's first day on the job coming amid a growing crisis

the postal service themselves tos amazon is helping, reduce its amount of business for the postal servicee profitability of the postal service and potentially lead to more taxpayer dollars going to building up the service itself. shery: it has been a busy year for the treasury. aren't they also looking into china and russia? what is the text desk task force expected to do? force expected to do? toluse: they will be investigating issues related to the postal service. they are looking at a number of issues that have already been discussed and studies. -- and stuided. -- and studied. putting the treasury department at the top of the task force signals that president trump is a serious, but it raises the question about whether or not this is a redundant effort, using the taxpayer funds within the treasury department to look at things the taxpayer has already paid for, with various other bodies, government bodies that are already looked at. and recommendations have been made to congress. shery: most changes would have to do with legislation anyway. is this more of a messaging tool? toluse: tha

the real problem is for the postal service to fix the postal service and it can't do it the way it should do it because the congress has its thumb on what the postal service does. that's the real problem. >> let's leave the postal service alone and talk about the other issues here. because he's bringing up some of the antitrust concerns. this is something that i've heard for a while. one of the fears is that this a company that is just getting too darn big for its own good. they're talk of google getting too big and facebook getting too big. is amazon at risk for turning into a so-called monopoly because of its size? >> yes, they are at risk for turning into a monopoly because of their size. however, my experience has been whenever somebody starts to get that big, they're going to be challenged by someone. as a result, that will then allow market forces to bring them down and to moderate their growth. for example, wal-mart is making a lot of noise. they're doing a lot of things that could challenge amazon. so i'm not as concerned about that, trish, as i am concerned about the ongoing loss

the postal service and amazon are not putting these out. but how much of this is the thministration just trying to get a better deal on the next negotiation here with the postal service? rv reporter: that could be one of the president's motivations, ivff. after all, typically, amazon would have a distinct upper hand in these negotiations. it does have other options, after all, like private shippers, and is even reportedly testing out its own delivery service, which could some day n come a competitor to the postal service. >> glor: interesting to follow. nancy cordes, thank you very much. rde first person was sentenced today in the special counsel's investigation of russian stddling in the u.s. election. dutch attorney alex van der zwaan got 30 days in prison and a $20,000 fine. he pleaded guilty to lying to yivestigators about his conversations with a former trump campaign official. van der zwaan is the son-in-law of one of russia's richest men. in oklahoma, public school teachers say it's a matter of math. more money is needed for toucatio

the lawsuit analysts point out that the online retailing giant payments actually supports the postal service is all the money using businesses and its massive pension obligations they say amazon is helping the u.s.p.s. stay afloat but estimates say amazon pays the u.s.p.s. roughly half of what rival possible services would be charging. in a front what could be three months of rolling rail strikes on the way in the first in the series of walkouts affecting sectors from energy to garbage collection is in opposition to french president of the un my calls labor market reform agenda. rail workers are especially angry with the government plans to do way with train drivers rights to retire at fifty two the administration also wants to make cuts to their current holiday entitlement to fifty days per year those kind of privileges cost a lot of money and state owned railway s.n.c.f. has accumulated a debt burden of forty five billion euro as the disruption to france's regional and long distance rail services is expected to last for three months before unions involved will strike for two days and then

and one i'm surprised that didn't come up was the postal service and i thought of the postal services as a humongous piece of how these drugs are entering the country. are you the right person to speak to that? >> and i'm glad because this is one of my favorite topics because the postal service is doing a tremendous job. the postal service and specifically the postal inspection service, which is the law enforcement arm of the u.s. postal service, was very early to understand the magnitude of the problem in the fact that the u.s. postal service was a critical vulnerability that we had and that it was being used as a vector for the drugs to get into the united states. we began-- we ondp began working with other law enforcement to do a couple of things. the first thing is to get advance electronic data from the shipping company, or from the originating country, so that they know the shipments coming into the united states before they get here and that's usually 72 hours out and that's for tracked and untracked packages. the volumes that we are talking about are enormous. up to about 144,

keep in mind, this is -- postal service is separate, right? right?llars go to the postal service. >> right on. >> shepard: amazon lost a lot of value because of the president's recent tweets. >> some 60 billion over the last five days. >> shepard: $60 billion. >> here is what bezos lost this is my back to the envelope calculation. bezos owns some 82 million shares. if that's true he lost about $17 million. >> shepard: 17 million? >> um-huh. >> shepard: he has a lot of millions. >> he does, indeed. >> shepard: okay, ger, thank you. i want to turn to financial analyst, chief researchers for 8 squared research. the post office is better with amazon or without amazon? >> infinitely better with amazon. to gerri's point, all of these companies, not just amazon have special deals with the usps. if we looked at what was going on with the usps a couple years ago, they were really in a crisis. most of that had to do where i w. their pensions. they were spending so much on these pensions that's what was causing the money loss. so they had a restructuring. they

the postal service doesn't use taxpayer money for their operation. >> anderson, you know this as well as i do and brian does for that matter, too. this president is actually remarkable in his ability to identify critical issues like massive technology monopolies that are destroying jobs, taking business, not in a negative way. amazon is beneficial to us. amazon is a new world for us. but the reality is the president is really good at identifying the right problem, massive tech monopolies, but always goes to the wrong solution. the post office? really? the foundation of our country is communication. the post office is in our constitution. it's a pity to watch an issue so important as global networks for things like distribution and product that amazon represents, literally a modern-day railroad, that really probably should be confronted for antitrust in a way that is rational and thoughtful. and instead of a rational and thoughtful discussion about the impact of a massive tech monopoly, we end up with a personal vendetta and a silly conversation about the post office. it's unfortunate

of volume for the postal service, which has been losing it from other places. this is about the president not liking news coverage that holds him accountable for his behavior and policies. >> that's a general consensus from a lot of people. let's look at amazon. talk about a huge following. as of september last year, 90 million amazon prime members in the u.s. there in terms s of t s s subscription service. are there markers to this? >> absolutely. we saw the comments about amazon last week and that has a huge impact on the company and the fact you have a president picking and choosing different companies and targeting amazon in this case raises a wide variety of concerns and back to john's point, which i think is absolutely right, if the president were serious about the tax policy components or postal components, he could push for legislation there is legislation in congress right now dealing with online sales tax and so he could do that but i think to john's point, that's not his ultimate goal here and it is having a variety of different implicatio implicatio

postal service has a big personnel cost for the staff and pension. those are the things that are really impacting the financial health of the u.s. postal service, not amazon. but the president has made it his target. the president primed amazon for an attack as the candidate. >> if i become president, they have problems. >> am-on is gazon is getting aw murder. >> reporter: tweeting a series of accusations claiming the postal service loses billions of dollars, delivering amazon packages. the president demanded this post office scam must stop. amazon must pay real cost but experts say amazon has a confidential contract for package delivery that was approved by postal service regulators, bringing new business to a struggling enterprise. >> mail volume has gone down more than 25% over the last decade and amazon and other companies are bringing parcels into a system that's desperately in need of revenue. >> under cutting another claim made by the president, amazon collects sales tax in all 45 states that require it but third party sellers on the site act

postal service regulators approved contracts with companies like amazon in advance and require that postal service costs are covered. but those agreements are not made public, if. >> we don't know if each package makes a dollar, makes $2 or loses money. that data is not available publicly. and i'm not sure where trump is getting his figures. >> reporter: the president's own 2017 financial disclosure form shows he reported gains from owning amazon stock. but his businessman roots are in a brick and mortar world. >> we're all builders in this room. >> reporter: amazon's rapid growth has pummeled shopping malls and traditional retailers. >> as amazon gets more and more powerful, and as retail struggles, having the president point this out and attack the company certainly gives strength to the complaints that other folks haven't made for some time. >>er tdplr the pth /*. >> reporter: the president says amazon does not collect taxes. but amazon does collect the sales tax required in 45 states. dara? >> kelly o'donnell, thank you so much. we'll bring in jonathan allen, national political reporte

the postal service wanted to celebrate the occasion. i'm very happy that we're launching this project here today which should on the dotted lead be successful. however the drone didn't get far. it crashed after just a few seconds in the air. nobody was injured. but the dream won't be flying again any time soon. that's it you're up to date with the latest from the wild old business on how the homefront thanks for your company and . going to the to going to. the to the to the to the to the to the to the to the to. the to. the to the to the to. those done the germany is a strong country. that we have achieved so much we can do this and if something hinders on some we must overcome it. going where it's uncomfortable global news that matters w made for mines. euro. zone what unites. what defines. the body of. polish. what binds the continent to a answers and stories a plenty. small why don't people know a focus on your. on t.w. . birth place home two moons of species. a home worth saving. those are big changes and most start with small steps

this is the executive body that oversees all major decisions for the postal service. confirmed by the senate later this month, they may take their cues directly from the white house. >> the key thing is that there would be three people appointed by trump in a position of authority and power to say to the sales department hey, we want you to take a more strategic look at this amazon contract. we want to reevaluate the strength of the postal service's negotiating position heading into october. and we want to get a good deal. >> president trump has been sounding off on the u.s. postal service's decline and making it clear he places the blame squarely with amazon. accusing the tech giant of essentially mooching off taxpayer dollars. >> you take a look at the post office, and the post office is losing billions of dollars and the taxpayers are paying for that money because it delivers packages for amazon at a very below cost. >> so with new politically appointed leadership in place at the postal service potentially just a few weeks from now, president trump may very well ge

the postal service is a long story of a long slow fall down the stairs for the postal service and howt's run and so i don't know. we'll see if they raise rates it will impact amazon i suspect they'll do something about it delivery is critically important and critically important part of their business and i can't imagine jeff bezos hasn't thought this one through very carefully going forward i just didn't -- i assume he didn't expect the president of the united states to write a series of often inaccurate tweets about him and he'll deal with it. he'll deal with the situation. in the short term the stock will get hit. but again, i've seen -- they've done it a bunch -- he's done it a bunch of other times to other companies and they all seem to recover. and we'll see what happens on this deal that they strike with the post office. i mean the pofrs hst office has vulnerability too. >> to david's point, you mentioned the president targeted other companies. those companies eventually got drawn in to a political conversation or left a committee. i'm thinking of ken frasier, for instance but

postal service.ight, correspondent gillian turner tells us he could be getting close to a change in that arrangement. >> the post office is losing billions of dollars and the taxpayers are paying for that money because it delivers packages for amazon ads are very below cost. >> the much-maligned deal between usps and amazon has been in place for five years and it's set to expire in october. now tech insiders tell fox news that new leaders appointed by the president himself may soon take the reins at the struggling agency and determine the deal's fate. president trump's nominated three people to the usps board of governors. the executive body that oversees all its major decisions. they are calvin tucker, chairman of the philadelphia black republican council. robert duncan, chairman of the president's commission on white house fellowship. and david williams, former inspector general for usps. if these nominees are confirmed by the senate later this month, president trump's views on amazon will be front

postal service is delivering packages for amazon at such low rate that it is a subsidy.s he right? you end upds on who talking to. i wish i could give you a straight answer to rea truify whether president was actually being 100% truthful about this. how doccount for how much it costs to deliver one package to one doorstep? laura: we saw the share price from yesterday and it rallied of it today. but th cash, haven't they?f >> amazon has seen a short-term impact but it is hard to ascertain if it has everything to do with trump's tweet because elloffwas a broad market alread is ifal question will be whether president trump will go through this. it would have an impact on the company. not sayingon is anything about this, hoping that it will blow over? >> the company is secretive and they have decided to stay mum on this hoping tt, perhaps, not providing any sort of oxygen will cause him to swit subjects. we will just have to find out. laura: how much of the dislike of amazon is because its owner just -- jeffs bes owns the washington post. >> it is f kno being critical of the

postal service, i pay a lower price. ybody, it seems to me, is getting some kind of subsidy here, because the postal regulatory commission has set the rates for whatever reason, lower than they ought to be. that's not amazon's fault. is it? is may turn out to be amazon's problem, because they're going to come along under the pressure of the president and say, okay, we have to raise the prices here so that we're not, quote, losing money on every package we deliver for amazon my final point is, it's not just amazon that's paying these rates. now, amazon may have a special bulk deal where their prices are even lower than, say, best buy's prices or if i buy something from costco that is shipped to me, but the truth is, have i come close to analyzing it right? >> yeah, i think you have nailed it there in general, amazon should pay a lower cost than everyone else because just like in any other business, when you're the highest volume producer -- >> you get a bulk discount >> yeah, you're going to get a discount and that's the c

plus, a new indication the president is about to wage war on amazon as he fights for the postal service. >>> a shocking crash. two planes collide at this airport in the midwest killing two firefighters. the investigation into what happened just as one plane was taking off. >>> plus, college basketball crowns its new champion as fans light fires in the streets in celebration. >>> and should you work out now or later? the best time of day to hit the gym. >>> and the new flavor of lipstick that really is an acquired taste. >>> a good tuesday morning, everyone. we begin with the debate over legal immigration and more late night tweets from president trump. >> he says u.s. laws are weak and our country is being stolen. his claims are in response to a caravan of more than 1,000 migrants from central america heading who are now heading towards the united states boa border. overnight we learned that mexico has turned about 400 of those migrants around. but the president is demanding more action. >> he's also raising new questions about the future of undocumented immigrants that arrived in the u

postal service to deliver packages at a loss for the postal service. the president taking on amazon this morning and the postal service to some degree saying i am right about amazon costing the united states post office massive amounts of money for being their delivery boy. amazon should pay these costs and not have them born by the american taxpayers. the president constant attacks against amazon yesterday led to a sell-off in the tech sector in the stock market leaving the market down some 500 points yesterday. things appear to be heading back in positive direction today. >> you cover so much ground. we'll cover those issues later in the show. fascinating to see how openly the president talks about immigration and trade all in one tweet and many tweets, really. >> speaking of covering a lot of ground. 11 acres, feels like the open range of texas when it comes to the number of issues we're covering. >> jon: the trump administration saying it's open to a meeting between president trump and vladimir putin. this comes amid escalating tensions between the

they pulled out the amazon aunld the packages it ships they help the postal service. the real challenge the decline in junk mail, you don't get as many and regular mail frankly all the internet and e-mail, getting rid of all of that. >> i'll send a letter, peter, you know. >> reporter: i'll see you shortly. >> i will see you. you can go home and take a nap after being up all night with all of that news. i want to bring in the former spokesman for john boehner back with me. michael, how do you see this? is the president worried about the post office or is this one shot across the bow? >> there's no question that the post office's service model is not sustainable as a business in the 20th century. but amazon is not part of that problem. the postal service has been clear they make money opts business for amazon. had two things for now. this is a president who utterly impervious to new facts, he thinks amazon is costing them money, you can not change his mind. this is a president who's willing to use the tools of the office, the tools of the government to go after those h

the u-s postal service says someone stole one of it's blue mailboxes in the middle of the night. (vicki) it happened in oakland... near the intersection of chabot road and chabot crest. fortunatly, the theft was captured on surveillance video. kron 4 's charles clifford is live for us tonight in oakland with details. charles. . . normally, this blue postal service mailbox sits here along chabot road in oakland, quietly doing it's job. but early monday morning, someone stole it. the box was bolted to the ground but the theives yanked it out of the sidewalk. the caper was captured on surveillance video.around 1am monday morning, you can see what appears to be a flatbed truck pull up to the intersection and shine it's headlights lights on the blue mailbox. less than 30 seconds later, the box is pulled from the concrete.natsthe truck backs up natsand then drives off into the night. the entire heist lasted less than a minute. the us postal service is now investigating. sotpostal inspectors in our oakland office and our mail theft team are working on this right now. this is a serious f

postal service. we are in boise, idaho, for the next stop on the 50 capitals talkingh butch otter about top policy issues in his state. the sure to watch washington journal, live at 7:00 a.m. eastern. join the discussion. deutch held a ted time will to talk about -- town hall to talk about the mass shooting and parkland, florida. that school is part of his district. this is just under two hours.

postal service wants to do the right thing but they need the resources. if you are required to fill out the same package when sending to the postal service as ups that would provide additional resources and abilities for the postal service to track packages electronically and is a billing congress that has been introduced and something we should all be more aware of with what is your position on that bill and what are we waiting fo for? >> what is it like working with local authorities how do you compare that to today working with mexico or china? >> everybody thinks how did we get on down there with that corruption? it isn't as bad as you think. we worked with the elite group of colombian police officers like operational intelligence they follow up on their needs and they take action. so we found them to be extremely credible. after the fact they think we found out one person was corrupt during that time and this is a person we trusted our lives with every day but we didn't know at the time several years later we found that out but so i think total durin

. >> the postal service, donald trump tweeted today that he is right that it costs the postal service money to provide services to amazon, when in fact, the facts do not necessarily conform to that view, that the postal service is out there delivering packages, the cost of delivering for amazon is really not much at all. his relentlessness on the amazon of the prime gop tenants is not to try and let the government pick winners and losers among corporations. he has clearly decided amazon needs to be a loser. it is really against gop orthodoxy for him to take that position. >> wehe has clearly decided aman needs to be a loser. have seen amazon stock go down after a presidential tweet. there are real consequences. they have come back up and other people he has really gone after, lest am i checked, he is still running the nfl. is still running the nfl issue for donald trump where he is on it relentlessly day after day when he is powerless to do anything about it. but maybe that is all he wants to do, bring this to a public forum and somehow things change. the postal service may feel press

postal service. us drug dealers from china, because they aren't checking the packages the way other delivery services are. we have to put funding in that. it is now being smuggled in. this is actually -- we've got to do what we can on the local level under interdiction but the federal government's got to step up keeping it into the country. >> would you also agree it's not just an addiction problem? it's a one-time problem too? fentanyl is so powerful a person could get one pill and that could kill them alone. >> it's no question. and who are addicts people who don't know are using it once and killing themselves. it is 50 times more than worse than heroin. >> this month as we've been telling of the numbers from 2017, we've been hit by a series of heartbreaking statistics. just a few weeks ago, we learned that last year drug overdoses killed a record 418 people in the state of maine. that's an 11% increase. so we're going in the wrong direction. then this week the c.d.c. announced that in maine emergen

at the end of the day, the united states postal service is a money losing operation. here's the most important part about it. the parcel service that they offer is actually one of the only areas that's growing. when you think about first class mail has been decimated by e-mail and the like. >> by e-mail, by text messaging, not by amazon. >> amazon is taking half of the e-commerce growth in america now. the president in speaking to his base sees that as a tremendous threat to mom and pop retail. this is an easy angle for him to come at. at the end of the day, this is about his coverage from "the washington post" for all intents and purposes. lis, could the u.s. postal service charge amazon more for delivering their packages for last mile? of course they could. at the end of the day, it's the only thing growing at the u.s. postal service. it's been a lifeline for them i think there's a way amazon and the u.s. postal service can figure out something that the president could probably not have too much issue with, but don't forget this, amazon is working drone delivery. at

the postal service by all accounts seems to make money with its contract with amazon.ay, having the most powerful person in the world attacking you is not a good thing. caroline: great analysis from "bloomberg technology". we will see you both a lot next week make the earning season. that does it for bloomberg technology. happy weekend. this is bloomberg. ♪ this wi-fi is fast. i know! i know! i know! i know! when did brian move back in? brian's back? he doesn't get my room. he's only going to be here for like a week. like a month, tops. oh boy. wi-fi fast enough for the whole family is simple, easy, awesome. in many cultures, young men would stay with their families until their 40's. announcer: the following program is a commercial presentation of total gym fitness. ♪

the postal service by all accounts seems to make money with its contract with amazon.ay, having the most powerful person in the world attacking you is not a good thing. caroline: great analysis from "bloomberg technology". we will see you both a lot next week make the earning season. that does it for bloomberg technology. happy weekend. this is bloomberg. ♪ welcome to the xfinity store. i can tell you about... streaming the most free tv shows and movies on the go. yeah, and... xfinity internet. it's so fast! and you can save by... by getting up to 5 mobile lines included. whoa, you're good. i'm just getting started. ♪ simple. easy. awesome. come see how you could save $400 or more a year with xfinity mobile. plus ask how to keep your current phone. visit your local xfinity store today. ♪ david: at one point, your father left your mother. ginni: it was sudden, and my mother found herself with four kids, no money. david: let's talk about ibm for a moment. ginni: we are the champions for business. david: when you are meeting with president trump or other presidents, do yo

postal service has been going on for quite some time.ry from a postal service spokesperson who did say that commerce, e-commerce revenue provides essential support to pay for our infrastructure and network and all users of mail will benefit. so this e-commerce side is definitely helping the growth or offset some of the shortfall's you're seeing from the junk mail. the other issue the president brought up is the fact that amazon doesn't pay enough but it does pay sales taxes in states that levy it. that's one issue. you can make that decision based off what i told you so far. >> neil: you know what's amazing in all of this? bezos, not a peep out of him. >> he's been very quiet. if prices go up, you could see reaction for ups and fed ex as well. >> neil: not a word, not feeling tempted to engage. christina, thank you. the dow is down about 32 points right now. we're also looking at the earnings season kicking off, largely financial players on this day. they came out with better than expected numbers for the most part, but they're not getti

postal service. see earlier fight with amazon owned by jeff bezos. and secondly what appears to be an action to pardon scooter libby. in your dead-level best, can you update our viewers on both of those? >> so brian, i wrote about both of those developments tonight, and they're significant developments. to start with the postal service order, this is an executive order by the president to set up a task force that will be chaired by treasury secretary mnuchin to evaluate the u.s. postal service, to come up with recommendations for how to change the business model. the postal service, as we all know, has had financial trouble over the last number of years largely because of pension funding and the retiree system. but the president has blamed amazon for that with false accusations about amazon ripping off taxpayers by using the bulk delivery rates. and so the president's instructing his administration to develop some sort of plan to change the system. it very well could impact amazon as a company although amazon is not singled out by name in the text of

the deal with the postal service is set to expire this fall and could end up being renegotiated underew post office leadership appointed by the president. jillian turner has more from washington. i hear you've got more information on president trump's feud with amazon? >> reporter: that is right, dana. so the current usps/amazon deal, is set to expire in october. negotiations for a new deal could kick off as soon as next week. now experts tell fox news that new leaders appointed by the president himself may soon take the reigns over at usps. they'll oversee negotiations with amazon and determine the deal's fate. president trump's nominated three people for the usps board of governors which is the executive body which oversees all major decisions for the postal service. now, if those nominees are concerned by the senate this month, they may take their cues directly from the white house. >> the key thing is that there would be three people appointed by trump in a position of authority and power to say to the sales department, hey, we want you to take a more strategic look at this amazon

postal service in specifically the postal inspection service which is a law enforcement arm of the u.s. postal service was very early to understand the magnitude of the problem and the fact that the u.s. postal service was a critical vulnerability that we had and that it could be used as a vector for the drugs to get into the united states. we began working with him closely and worked across the interagency with other federal law and is meant to do a couple of things. the first thing is to get the advanced electronic data from the shipping company or from originating country so they know the shipments that are coming in to the united states before they get here and that is usually about 72 hours out. that's tracked and untracked packages. the vines we're talking about are enormous. up to about 144,000 packages every single day into one international service center so when you get advanced electronic data that they can share that with customs and border protection so that they can pull aside and give separate attention to those companies that are most related to the illicit shipment of

postal service will lose $1.50 on average for each package it delivers" for amazon. he went on to call out the "fake washington post" as part of retail giant's amazon's lobbying staff, adding "amazon must pay costs and taxes now." jeff bezos is the founder and c.e.o. of amazon, and he owns the "washington post." nie president has a history of criticizing both companies. ro the campaign trail he made this promise about amazon: >> believe me, if i become president, oh, do they have problems. they're going to have such problems. >> reporter: the white house says it has no plans to take action against amazon, which does pay local and state taxes. however, it avoids federal taxes by using tax credits and breaks. as for whether amazon is cashing in per package? >> they're paying what they're charged by u.s. postal service, probably driving a hard bargain to negotiate a good deal but that's a two way street, al reporter: a citigroup analysis found the post office is losing money to ship sickages. al a result of pension and health care expenses-- not the costs linked to deli

profitable for the postal service.he post office's losses are mostly due to pension and health care costs, not its deal to deliver packages for amazon. >>> house speaker paul ryan has remained silent on his re-election plans. his challenges announced he raised $2.1 million last quarter alone. that brings his total to 4.75 million dollars so far. yet even with the spike in fund-raising, ryan will still be hard to beat. the house speaker currently has a war chest of about $10 million. however, with just under 60 days to the filing deadline, he has not said publicly whether he will seek another term. ryan said he and his wife wait until the spring of every election year to determine whether or not he will run. >>> according to a fox news poll, 46% of democrats say they are more enthusiastic about voting this year. >> gabby, good to talk to you this morning. thanks for joining us so early. as we just talked about earlier, it seems as if russia is pushing the white house for a meeting with president trump. i guess the big q

postal service. weirdly the usps won't show anyone the actually numbers, showing us how much they make on amazon deliveries we went all the way to the top and got no comment. we know package deliveries are a profit maker for the postal service. we also know the law says the post office makes a deal with the company. it has to cover the cost of delivery and they're not allowed to undercut other private delivery companies on price some of while they don't want to wade into this fight, you take the various clues together and you've got to assume it's not taking a loss because it's really not allowed to. >> no. it's a taxpayer-funded thing. >> it funds itself, but it's under contract and there are laws that cover that it can't take a loss, so one would presume the president may not be correct on this. >> thank you very much for verifying that. >> well, new this morning, speaking out for the first time, a woman closer than most to one of america's most darkest days, the assassination of dr. martin luther

postal service contract. i'm not sure how much it would take to do that and how much of a role congress would play and perhaps an internet sales tax. what is your thoughts about all of it? >> it is interesting, the president goes out with a rally and speaks to people he comes back with new proposal, or attitude specific to ap can. this time it happens to be amazon. amazon has impact on mom-and-pop stores all over the nation. i'm sure is the forgotten man that president trump ran for and got their votes and is prying to represent. the idea for in his mind taking the amazons of the world to make sure american taxpayer is not subsidizing amazon shipping patterns. he is looking at as a come to the conclusion it is not fair. it is not fair to the taxpayer. it is not fair for those competing against amazon. it makes sense that he will review it. clearly has impact on the stock market. that is something that has to be expected. charles: ironically the congress prohibited the u.s. postal service from competing with u

emily: postal service aside what , about the bigger picture regulatory issues?eaking earlier about a huge pentagon cloud computing contract that amazon competitors seem destined to win. oracle ceo safra katz complained about this directly to the president. he was receptive. but there is no evidence the white house would actually interfere here, but on a broader regulatory level, there's concern about how big amazon is becoming and how many industries they are getting their hands into. is that something that the president can stand in the way of? tom: sure. antitrust. most of what amazon does increases competition, lowers the price to the consumer, therefore at this point in time i don't think antitrust is a , significant risk. on cloud computing, to that end, second, amazon's strategy has been the early leader in the past -- in the space and passing on lower costs to its customers. netflix is a great example of that. so let's beat you know frank, when was the last time anyone ever talked about oracle in -- and lowering prices? never. so i think it is opportune f

postal service.ing he would take action to force amazon to pay higher shipping rates. this comes as the u.s. post office is set to renegotiate that deal with amazon later on this year. let's bring in ted downy, he has done expensive good work on this topic. thank you for joining us here. who has the upper hand in these negotiations, amazon or the usps >> i think it's first important to take a step back and assess how usps has negotiated these deals. in the past you heard a lot of talk that they're just looking to meet the costs, just to have one dollar of profit in their deal with amazon and the question that trump is asking and what we've looked into is whether or not usps is getting a good deal and getting a price that's fair. that's what they'll be negotiating. >> are they? would you say they're getting a good deal? some say they are getting looked by amazon but also then getting billions of dollars in revenue they didn't have before. >> we don't know the deal itself is secret. it's heavily redakc

postal service amazon is going to have to pay much more money to the post office there's no doubt about that said mr trump here to talk about amazon tech stocks and a few other things thrown in for good measure is the admirable and accomplished our most founder of the stock's wish melissa thank you again for being with us as always so the president tweeted about amazon for what seems like a hundred times saying i've stated that my concerns with amazon long before the election unlike others they pay little or no taxes to state and local governments use our postal system as a delivery boy causing tremendous loss to the us and are putting many thousands of retailers out of business in reaction you know amazon stock took a dive from the march highs and while still up something like fifteen or sixteen percent this year they started to tank dipping under fourteen hundred today what's your thought about this melissa is this real is this needed war with amazon what's going on. well good to see your bar i don't know whether or not it's necessary or needed however it is real the stock is falling

how dependent is amazon on the postal service for delivery?pencer: it is certainly a nice distraction for the president from the stock market amazon has warehousing and shipping hubs around the post office which does about 40% of amazon's delivery, last mile. it packs people's orders, sorts them by zip code and brings them to the correct postal service to do the last mile. it is beneficial for the post office as well because the postal service is grappling with jobbing -- dropping letter volume, parcel delivery like amazon is providing is picking up. it is providing them additional revenue. as long as you are under legal mandate to reach every address, the amazon relationship is beneficial. betty: spencer, thank you so much, our bloomberg tech reporter on the latest feud between president trump and amazon. i want to bring back matt, managing director of equity strategies, to talk more about the markets. joining us now from massachusetts. i want to bring up that chart again. it is on my terminal, which shows again, this key moment here, matt, w