Senator Tom Carper (D-Delaware) was caught in a hot mic moment on friday when he apparently had a bit of trouble with his microphone during a Senate virtual hearing about the Postal Service.
Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Ron Johnson, (R-Wisconsin) invited Senator Carper to speak, but there was no sound coming from his microphone. After asking if Senator Carper was present twice, to no answer, Senator Johnson decided to move on, calling on Senator Lankford (R-Oklahoma) to speak.
The Incident
Suddenly, the camera switched to Senator Carper, and his microphone was working perfectly. Carper was then heard saying, “F*ck, f*ck, f*ck,” while apparently speaking to an aide.
Sen. Tom Carper dropping some f bombs, apparently because his computer was muted: pic.twitter.com/uARqNK6IQ5
— Matt Shuham (@mattshuham) August 21, 2020
Attempting to brush off the situation, Senator Lankford announced that Senator Carper was back on the call, and that he should speak. “Senator Carper, can you unmute?” asked a seemingly amused Senator Johnson, “We don’t want to be on TV again.”
The Hearing
Carper then went into his questioning of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.
In the questioning, he tried to imply that DeJoy was too close to President Trump, and that the changes DeJoy was making in regards to the Postal Service were detrimental to this year’s election process due to the increase in mail-in voting.
DeJoy has already stated that the planned changes to the Postal Service would be halted until after the election, but that he would not reverse changes that were already made.
Both President Trump and Postmaster General DeJoy believe that the Postal Service needs a lot of improvement, and has been run terribly for years. The USPS lost $8.8 billion in 2019, more than double the losses for the previous year, making 2019 the 13th consecutive year that the USPS lost money.
Walking it Back
In a tweet, Senator Carper made an attempt to explain his outburst as a passionate moment. “Those who know me know that there are few things that get me more fired up than protecting the Postal Service! #DontMessWithUSPS,” he said.