The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs remains focused on President Donald Trump's edict to provide an "efficient, forward-facing government function that helps the veteran first," Secretary Doug Collins told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Collins appeared on "Wake Up America" and explained the VA is hiring for more than 300,000 mission-critical positions, and added that 1,400 non-mission critical staff cuts will result in more than $83 million in annual savings that will be redirected toward healthcare, benefits, and services for VA beneficiaries.
"Our people are going through making sure that we're taking very measured actions to do what we need to do to follow what President Trump has said, and that is to make an efficient, forward-facing government function that helps the veteran first," Collins told co-hosts Sharla McBride and Marc Lotter.
"And you know how I know that we're probably doing pretty good here is for all of the attacks that have come so far, they've been nameless accusations of saying, 'Well, they're hurting veterans' healthcare, they're hurting veterans.' But you know what? They're not naming them because they can't, because we're taking care of anything that we see is forward facing and anything that we have."
Collins was shown an Axios headline, "How White House firings are hurting veterans," and was asked why the mainstream media continues to report without stating all the facts.
"Because that's what they think really makes headlines, and they think it plays real well to their inside the Beltway audience," Collins said. "And I think that's something that we've got to, you know, get accustomed to here is that the media in D.C. plays to the media in D.C., and the rest of the country is going through a lot of changes, a lot of things that are going on.
"It's really hurtful, I think, to many, especially veterans. Look, you know, were there veterans that were caught up in the … are part of this firing? Yes, they were veterans who have served, but they also serve and now in civilian life at the VA. But that's just like it is in any other place in the country. What we're doing, however, is when it comes to the mission of the VA, which is about serving veterans and getting them their healthcare and getting their benefits, we are protecting those."
The secretary said he has received positive feedback from veterans about the Trump administration taking over the VA.
"Yesterday, I got to speak to our great friends at the American Legion. I spoke to the Disabled Veterans of America on Sunday," he said. "And, I tell you what, when I told them that, you know, things that we're making changes in and showing how and when, I laid out the numbers for them, how that we have spent in suicide prevention, we spent close to $10 billion in prevention and in treatment over the last 3 or 4 years. And the numbers haven't changed. How we spent almost the same amount of money in homelessness. And we still have 40,000.
"You know, when they started hearing those numbers, which they haven't heard before, they started thinking, well, maybe there is a different route. Maybe we do need to look at this differently.
"And when I talked about the fact that now, you know, things are getting back to putting veterans first, this is the issue we have. We put the American flag, the P.O.W. flag back up. Basically, the whole room erupted because they understand America first. They understand that putting the veterans first is part of that."
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