Warner promises tough talk with postmaster general on Richmond mail service (2024)

Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., expects to have some tough things to say about Richmond’s mail service when he sits down soon with U.S. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, he told the Richmond Times Dispatch editorial board on Friday.

Virginia has the worst on-time mail delivery record in the nation, and a recent audit of the Richmond Regional Processing and Distribution Center in Sandston found an egregious lack of attention to detail, ranging from losing mail that falls off conveyor belts, to poor coordination between processing machines and trucks moving mail.

“We’re going to take the inspector general’s report and so I expect to have a frank and candid exchange,” Warner said, referring to the audit.

In a wide-ranging conversation with Times-Dispatch reporters and editors, Warner said he hopes the recent breaking of Congressional logjams on aid to Ukraine and Israel, reauthorizing targeted collection of intelligence from non-Americans in foreign countries and trying to force China to sell TikTok means Capitol Hill dysfunction may be ending.

He said he thinks his focus on ways to give a hand to first-generation, first-time home buyers, and to help hard-pressed businesses in distressed communities gain access to capital can build bridges across partisan divides.

But he said America still needs to do more to protect itself against cyber threats.

Mail service

“This the second time I’ve seen this movie,” Warner said of Richmond’s mail problems.

The three-term senator and former Virginia governor said he started looking into Charlottesville’s mail problems three years ago and the disruption “was not nearly as great as it was in Richmond.”

“In Richmond, it’s obviously enormously frustrating,” Warner said, noting that members of the Virginia congressional delegation “hear from folks all the time” about important items sent through the mail – like bill payments — that did not reach their destination in a timely manner.

Warner said the performance numbers “have ticked up” in recent months, from a “trough” between November through February, but the Postal Service has farther to go.

A surge effort to deal with Charlottesville’s basic problem – not enough staff – helped there, he said.

A similar surge is needed in Richmond, where the Postal Service rolled out a new approach to processing and moving mail, he said.

He said making Richmond the “rollout location” for DeJoy’s Delivering for America system, without fully informing the community ahead of time, was a mistake.

“It appears that the success of the program was only being viewed in terms of the routes and the amount of money saved and they didn’t even include customer satisfaction as one of the criteria, which is stunning,” Warner said.

“If you go back,” before the rollout of the new system, Richmond already was in the bottom 10 of customer and performance delivery, Warner said.

Why the Postal Service would “start with one of the least-performing centers in the country for this rollout and not have customer satisfaction” as part of the criteria for success, “is beyond me,” Warner added.

Israel and Gaza

Warner, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, spoke amid news that pro-Palestine demonstrations have led to encampments at a number of universities across the country. Jewish students and faculty say some of the protests have led to intimidation and antisemitism.

As for protests at universities: “I think we’re unique in the fact that we’ve got a First Amendment. You’ve got a right to protest,” Warner said.

“But I also believe, as well, that while you protest, that doesn’t mean you can shut down a school or cancel classes. And if you break the law, I think the law needs to be enforced.”

Warner said the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel was horrific, but that he worries that realization of how terrible it was has begun to fade.

Warner said he thinks Israel made a mistake in not disseminating videos of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks more widely. “The horrificness of that … event faded as the horrificness of Israel bombing … across Gaza took preeminence,” he said.

On Wednesday Hamas released a hostage video of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who was born in Berkeley, Calif. and spent his childhood years in Richmond before moving with his family to Israel.

Warner said the U.S., Israel, and Sunni Arab states thought that the Israel Defense Forces would be more successful at this stage. More than 200 days into the conflict, Warner said, the latest “guesstimates” are that Israel has only eliminated 40% to 45% of Hamas fighters and penetrated about 40% to 45% of the tunnel network.

“They’ve been much more resistant than expected. And I think for a while there ... the thought that Israel was much militarily more superior — they lost a little of that image,” he said.

Warner said that when Iran launched missiles at Israel and Israel repelled them, with U.S., French, British, Jordanian and Saudi help, “there was a moment” that reestablished Israel’s military primacy, but also demonstrated that “Israel is stronger with allies.”

Warner said of the Jordanians, British, French and Saudis: “They are not going to continue to help if this war in Gaza continues.”

He added: “Israel, I think, has been still in somewhat of a shell-shocked position post-October, so I’m not sure that all Israelis really appreciate how much loss of support that’s happening ... around the world, and frankly, amongst the generation of young Americans.”

Foreign aid

Warner said finally getting a vote on aid to Ukraine and Israel felt like a huge victory – and added that he is crossing his fingers about whether it makes change in the usual gridlock.

“Gosh, I wish, I hope, it’s a breakthrough,” he said.

“In 2023, what kept me motivated a little bit was I kept thinking, you know, 2021 wasn’t that long ago when we got the infrastructure bill … we had ARPA (the American Rescue Plan) and we had veterans” legislation. “We were being viewed as maybe the most bipartisan Congress in 50 years.”

He’s encouraged that the votes on aid to Ukraine and Israel, and cracking down on TikTok, were about 80% in favor, while even the more controversial intelligence collection bill passed with a 2-to-1 margin.

“So, I will hope for a breakthrough rather than simply a burst of rationality, he said.

Warner sponsored the foreign collection bill – formally the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

National security issues

The Intelligence committee was not where he expected to land when first elected to the Senate in 2008.

“It really has opened up for me … this is still a bipartisan committee,” he said.

“It was our committee to first point out the problems of Huawei and 5g issues,” he said, referring to concerns that the Chinese telecommunications firm and its technology facilitated spying.

“Cyber still remains one of our greatest vulnerabilities,” he said. Protecting data from hacking could get even more challenging with the development of artificial intelligence, he added.

“I’m up to my eyeballs on AI,” he said.

He said trying to find guardrails so that artificial intelligence technology doesn’t unleash the kind of fake video, photo and audio that could disrupt financial markets and elections is still a major challenge.

“This tech combination with national security, that’s kind of my sweet spot,” he said.

Taxes

Warner said he expects some of the affordable housing issues he’s focused on will be in the mix of tax legislation when Congress decides next year what to do as former President Donald Trump’s tax cuts expire.

The senator’s ideas include tax credits for rehabilitating houses, subsidies so that first-time homebuyers can take out 20-year mortgages with monthly payments closer to the lower levels prevailing for 30-year loans, and tax credits for employers willing to help employees with downpayments.

Like his work on the intelligence committee, Warner said he hopes to win some GOP allies for his initiatives on affordable housing, with their focus on helping moderate-income families build wealth.

He said he has already seen that with efforts to expand funding for Community Development Financial Institutions as a member of a bipartisan caucus trying to promote this way of lending to business in lower-income communities.

His political future

Warner was not yet ready to tip his hand on whether he will seek a fourth term in 2026.

“I like my job,” Warner said. “I feel I’m being productive,” he added, noting that he is part of “every bipartisan gang there is.”