We have taken a two track approach. One track is to put in fixes to our Current System knowing that is not the solution. My first trip to phoenix, i sat down at the computer screen and worked the scheduling system myself. It really is a green screen. Like we have to make things simpler for veterans, we have to make things simpler for our employees. Putting fixes into the system is the fastest approach. We are going for an off the shelf system you are going to implement as quickly as possible. We are going to start putting this in place. It will take some time to do it. The third thing we have to do is make sure our people are trained. This is why i am eager to have a simplified system. While there have been things that have gone wrong and we are Holding People accountable for those things, for example, there was a person who manipulated data in georgia who was indicted two weeks ago. As times goes on, these measures of accountability will come out. I believe we have to make things simpler. There are veterans today complaining about our execution of the choice act. There are seven different ways of getting it outside. These laws get layered on top of each other. That is incredibly complex for the employee to understand. We need to simplify that and congress has asked me and we are suggesting we simplify that one system. What im looking for is we have to make that scheduling system simpler. We have a nap now an app now and we just have to make it easier. Mike when you went on meet the press in february, chuck todd asked you about how many people have been held accountable of the problems and he said none hundred people had been fired since i became secretary and two weeks later, few people lost jobs with va in scandal. Has there been enough accountability . Secretary mcdonald the number now is over 1400. Peoples that have been terminated. Part of this is a layered approach. There is disciplinary action the fbi takes, well over 100 people be investigated now for scheduling issues. As those investigations come out , the fbi investigation takes priority. Then you will hear about the things happening but for all of our critics, accountability and organization is more than firing people. What we have to do is make sure there is a sustainable system in place so people are rewarded when they do well, held accountable when they dont do well. We are providing feedback. I sat down with the chairman of our House Committee and took them through the relative performance readings over 2014 of the the a va top employees. What i showed him was number one, nobody in Veterans Health administration is getting a performance bonus for 2014. Nobody is rated outstanding. How can you be rated outstanding if your secretary has to resign . We have the best distribution and government of those ratings from top to bottom and i would argue the best distribution compared to private actor. Private sector. Accountability is a lot more than just firing people and accountability is also the fact that when i came in, i found the doctors salaries were 20 below the market so we raised the salaries. Accountability has to be more holistic than firing people. Mike my colleague has a question. A lot of people still dissatisfied. I got a 10 page document. What facility are you still most concerned about . Secretary mcdonald you have to understand the political nature of the concerned veterans of america. I met with pete many times. I know people that fund his organization. We are not in favor of advertising the va. One of my biggest concerns, i met with Sylvia Burwell on this recently, is how do we inform the doctors we send veterans to in the private sector to always ask the question have you served in the military . If im sending a veteran to the private sector and that dr. Does not know the military culture, that could be dangerous for the veteran. I have to make sure those people are informed. The idea of advertising the va privatizing the va. It we didnt train 70 of the doctors in the country, who would . That is not in their proposal. You have to look at this rationally from the standpoint of the veteran and those veterans who have rest of their lives for our country and what we owed them. Mike let me ask you, what is the most legitimate for many criticism of the va . Secretary mcdonald i think the criticism is of me, not the va. I take responsibility. I think the criticism is im not moving fast enough. But there is one veteran without a roof over their head tonight, it is my fault. If there is one better without the disability claim handled today, it is my fault. The first day, you have four answers to any situations. Yes sir, no sir, i dont understand. I tried that answer a lot. But i was a slow learner. The fourth is no excuse, sir. Anytime a veteran is not getting the care they need, it is my problem. Mike my colleague has a question. I wanted to ask you [inaudible] secretary mcdonald one of the things i noticed when i joined the va is i did not think we were embracing the goodwill of the American People enough, including contractors. I found that one of my first trips was to boston. I went to harvard medical school. I also went to boston to market our facilities. There, i visited an Organization Called home base. Home base is a wonderful organization. I was told by those who run it and buy a dear friend who owns the new york mets that we were seeing Major League Baseballs contribution to veterans as competition. Rather than as complementary. I wanted to make sure we saw it as complementary. We have established a strategy. It is all about strategic partnerships. We hired a guy from the private sector. He was the mayor of flint, michigan at the age of 28. He has run several companies. He has come in to help us set up these partnerships. His name is matthew collier. Anybody who wants to work with the va, we want you to. We know we can speed up the process if we have all of the help everyone can give. There is also the ethical issue i mentioned. Home base can treat the 15 of veterans with this honorable discharges. We cannot. We believe in strategic partnerships. Mike we have a question here. Thank you. Please just say who you are. I work for the congresswoman. I will what are the conversation is focused on health care, which is understandable given the immediate crisis. Homelessness i know is it can turn of yours. You were in los angeles at the opening of the blue butterfly village. What other steps are you taking to alleviate that concern, that crisis . Secretary mcdonald we have been working very hard on the woman aiding veteran homelessness. Eliminating eliminating veteran homelessness. One of the things i discovered when i came in the job as there were a lot of unfinished business. We have a lawsuit going on in los angeles for overclocked or years that paralyzed us. Four four years. I had to solve that lawsuit. Working with partners, people i knew, we created an agreement. We are all working together as a community. We in the federal government cannot do it by ourselves. Partnership is important and we need to get all levels of government working together. We need to the local mayors, governors to help us. Every time i go to the city, i meet with the mayors, the governors, and we make sure we have a plan. One of the Biggest Issues we face is getting the landlords to rent for the voucher amount. What we do is the mayor and i, we have a mayors challenge. We get all of the landlords and a room and talk to them about how this is Good Business to rent to that event to veterans. We surround the veteran with care, whether it is Mental Health care, medical care, addiction. We surround them with peace workers so the veteran becomes a good reintegration in the community. Hello, leo. Beside you are not a political person and you mentioned your outreach efforts to congress. Do you feel you underestimated the political aspects of this job . We still see plenty of anger and conflict between va and congress in recent months. Do you feel you need to recalibrate that relationship . Do you feel there is warroad to grow . More room to grow . Secretary mcdonald there is unanimity around veterans issues. Arguably, we Work Congress did recently to give me the financial bucks ability to flexibility to use, money set aside for committee care was a good thing. I have said many times that we would government runs is not like a business. I have over 17 line items of object budget. In this case, we needed 3 billion to pay for care in the community that was a budget up to a video dollars that was a budget up to 10 billion. We have given the veterans choice. They all have choice. I dont have choice in moving the money so i have to keep going back to Congress Every time, asking permission. It gives them another opportunity to talk about mismanagement. That aspect, that transfer was a fourmonth fight with some nasty accusations against you. Secretary mcdonald i will take the accusations as long as we get the job done. I am not a politician, i am not running for anything most of the purpose is to care for veterans. I think what you will see as over time, congress will work with me to run this more like a business. This was what they asked for. They said run like a business and im trying to do that but i need laws passed. Mike the resistance to the destruction and the business Oriented Approach has also come from the hill. Secretary mcdonald i probably get five letters a day from members of congress about you should do this, that. They are all about giving additional benefits. No member has written me about taking away a benefit. They pass the loss to give benefits, the appropriate the money to pay for those. When you have a mismatch there, guess it gets caught in the middle and blamed . I have to work with members of congress and there is tremendous unanimity. We have to Work Together against the common objective. Mike when you explain that, they say what . Secretary mcdonald most of them agree. If you watch my hearing, there are pretty good goes as explanations of what is going on. The financial flexibility, generally in the appropriations committee, members have agreed. We will see. Mike when you are at Procter Gamble, you emphasized valuebased leadership. I favorite is you say Companies Must do well to do good and must do good to do well. Explain. Secretary mcdonald playing on the private sector in particular, the purpose of the proctor and Gamble Company is to improve lies. The employees are inspired by that purpose. Improve lives. You cannot create products that improve lives and trash the environment at the same time. One of the things i was most proud of is the Clinton Global Initiative a few years ago, i made the commitment for Procter Gamble but by 2020, we would save one life an hour by providing clean drinking water. We invented a chemistry that allows us to clinton leaders of water in developing countries in clean 10 liters of water in developing countries in 20 minutes. They walk 10 kilometers a day to get water and firewood. It is a huge issue. Over 2000 children die a day from drinking unclean water. If you have a purpose for the company of improving lives, you have to make that purpose pervasive in the country. It has to be a part of your philanthropy and what you do commercially. Mike it is clear your Christian Faith is important to you. Secretary mcdonald it is. I am a devout christian. Their geology is spirituality is part of my life. I was leading a large, global company. It is an important part of what we do in the va. We have chaplains. The spiritual nurturing of our patients is as important as the physical. They go hand in hand. I dont think it is a surprise when you serve in the military, you have a chaplain that goes into battle with you. In my case, the chaplains we had were dear friends and once who helped care for me spiritually and helped make your spiritually for the men with me. Mike you are from cincinnati. When youre lost meal be ice cream, chile . Secretary mcdonald can i have all of the above . Mike what is your favorite food . Secretary mcdonald graters ice cream is incredibly delicious. It is chocolate raspberry. The chocolate chips are the size of candy bars. It is a great country. I like the philanthropy of la rosas family. I think that our 11 strikeouts in the game by the reds pitcher, everyone gets free pizza. You cannot imagine what happens in the stadium. I worry a fan will go out and greece the bat grease the bat. Mike you want to a real deal fantasy camp. Secretary mcdonald i turned 60 years old and former birthday dinner, my family played a joke and they gave me a letter from the reds saying they had drafted for fantasy camp. My son turned 30 years old. I never got to play with him so we went together. We played two games a day with professional uniforms, umpires, on special fields. By coaches were two great guys. The only problem was my son is very active on social media and while i love playing with him, i really didnt appreciate him putting on his Facebook Page that he hated that our hotel room smelled like bengay every night. Mike thank you for watching. To my for serving thank you for serving, veterans. We think the bank of america for making this conversation possible. And mr. Secretary, thank you. Warner from the politico playbook breakfast. We hear from david brock who heads correct the record, a group Whose Mission is defending Hillary Clinton. This is half an hour. David, thank you for coming. This is debate day and david brock is our debate day guest. David who founded correct the record, who is the human embodiment of the leftwing conspiracy in some ways. Mr. Brock having been in the rightwing, but the difference is it was much more of a ragtag operation in the 90s versus what we see today. It is much more sophisticated. We all about the incredible amount of money the coat brothers are willing to put down in the selection to defeat Hillary Clinton. It is such a big number. We solidly republicans. Solid the republicans last weekend where they were out there competing for the affections of the Koch Brothers. With that kind of money being spent, whoever the candidate on the republican side is coming they will be beholden to the Koch Brothers in their agenda. They probably didnt plan for the frontrunner to be a billionaire himself, someone they cannot control. Secretary mcdonald you are the most vocal defendant of Hillary Clinton. At this moment, are you more irritated with fox news or the New York Times . Mr. Brock the New York Times. Easy question. Look, mike you have been complaining about the New York Times. Their coverage of an investigation of emails. What if they just made a mistake . Mr. Brock institutions in general have been making mistakes all the time. There are a couple issues. One, it is not the first time. There is a pattern. The first email story they broke was botched and they had to walk back from the second thing is the way they handled it is questionable. Readers still dont know thinks about how this went down. I think the issue is how did this happen . In the case of 60 minutes, when they botched the story, there was internal investigations. There is no review going on at the New York Times as i am aware of. The sourcing is questionable. We were very heavy on rightwing media but people dont have to take my word for it. The reality we are living in is there out to get Hillary Clinton and to elevate her opponent. That is the dynamic we are living with and it is not just mistakes are getting things wrong, there is collusion here. You have Hillary Clinton as the sole target of 17 republican candidates, congress, and the media. It goes all the way back to watergate. Mike you dont really think the political reporters are a secret den of rightwing nuts. Mr. Brock not theologically but there are a number of cases. Mike they get used. There is an intense competition on the clinton beat. Mr. Brock everybody wants to be first. It is certainly possible that they rest of the story out. That is something we dont know because we dont know about the internal workings of the story but the incentive is to try to be first and to nail that pray. I think that it goes back to this model of theirs, at least to whitewater. I think the press has not learned from those mistakes and a lot of people now are repeating those same errors. Whitewater was designed to show trustworthiness. In 1992, 8 was a gated operation but that it was a dated operation. The Mainstream Media sometimes as a vehicle for that. Mike youre one of the most sophisticated understandings of media. You are a former investigative reporter. What can the Clinton Campaign due to turn around that dynamic . Mr. Brock number one, i think this goes back to one of the principles of the 1992 clinton war room that every charge be answered. That does not have to be by the campaign. But you cannot let these things sit out there and be unanswered. A lot is beyond their control. What is in their control has been going really well. You have to give people their factual information on what they can make decisions. Mike you can see it is difficult to draw david out. Tweet us your questions. We will ask david brock your questions. Explain the difference between correct the record and media matters and tell us about your empire. Mr. Brock there are 12 distinct entities. Basically five missions. Media matters is the mothership started in 2004. That is monitoring a crosssection of mainly National Press every day, posting about 400 critiques of media coverage. Then came american bridge. That was an innovation on the democratic side in the way research was done. It was an innovative model. We are combing through the records of republican candidates we have done some governor races. For two years now, we have been tracking