from secretary shinseki about how he would go about fixing this problem. as you know, don, this is systemic. there s a national audit that s on going, and there s been a drip, drip, drip of more problems being revealed at va facilities around the country. so that s the challenge the president is facing as he tries to make this decision that could come as soon as today, don. to be fair, athena, that interview on kelly and michael that was taped after shinseki s remarks, the president may have a change of heart after they speak live today, may have a change of heart. who knows? we won t be inside of that room. i m sure someone will come out to report exactly what happened. if eric shinseki goes, we should know very quickly. about a half hour from now, meeting at the white house with eric shinseki and president barack obama. we ll continue to watch this closely for you. we will be right back.
resignation intensify. at a speech for coalition of homeless veterans, the secretary vowed to enact sweeping changes to counter the growing scandal over wait times in va facilities. they will eliminate performance bonuses in 2014 for senior executives and removing patient wait times from va employee performance reviews. the secretary said he was mislead about the scope of the problems. i was too trusting of some and i accept it as accurate reports that i now know to have been misleading with regard to patient wait times. i can t explain the lack of integrity among some of the leaders of our health care facilities. this is something i rarely encounter during 38 years in uniform. and so i will not defend it because it is indefensible.
good morning. welcome back to new day. it is thursday, may 29th, 7:00 in the east. things are not looking good for va secretary eric shinseki, 1700 veterans in need of treatment at the va medical center in phoenix alone were never schedule ord even put on waitst lists. cnn was first to report on the abuses in the phoenix system. now 42 va facilities across the country are being investigated for possible cover-ups and even deadly treatment delays. according to an administration official president obama says secretary shinseki is now on thin ice. let s get the latest from the white house correspondent michelle kosinski. hi, kate. watching this hearing last night it was just, whoa, four hours of members of the house va committee absolutely ripping into these va guys. these were democrats and republicans, asking good
senior appointed leaders in the cabinets and agencies ultimately report to president obama. it s much larger than secretary shinseki. there has been no leadership from the white house as it relates to this crisis that exists. no urgency that exists. it s not just republicans. earlier today, senators tom udall, michael heinrich and mark warner demand shinseki be shown the door. many are up for reelection. they said it s now investigating 42 va facilities up from 26 nationwide. of the phoenix office that kicked off the current investigation, the report found 1,700 veterans waiting for care that they didn t receive. the report also found that, quote, inappropriate scheduling
all right. here s an update on our breaking news. we are getting official reaction from the va secretary to this new information in addition to the myriad of other developments when it comes to this va scandal that cnn and all of our months of investigating burst wide open. the latest developments other than these alleged fake wait lists is the fact that now we re hearing that there were 1700 veterans who wanted to be put on this wait list. we know that they have been investigating some 26 or so va facilities across the country. that number is now up to at least 42 different facilities. and finally we will get some clarity on this as to what this