By tweet and cast aside in favor of the president s personal doctor Navy Rear AdmiralRonny Jackson who lacks the sort of Management Experience that would prepare him to lead the federal governments second Largest Department. But who did offer a remarkably rosy assessment of the president s health. Some people have just great genes. You know, i told the president if he had a healthier diet over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years. I dont know. He has incredible genes. I just assume. Shulkin alleged today he was fired because he did not want to the privatize va care. In essence because he refused to dismantle the va. He claims he fell victim to a power play by trumps political appointees that saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed. Im oop convinced its a political issue aimed at rewarding select people and companies for profits even if it innuendo r undermines it people for profits. Despite what you may have heard, the va is popular with the people who need it. 90 of veterans in a poll conducted by the vfw said they would rather improve the system than dismantle it. Independence assessments is found that Va Health Care outperforms comparable private facilities. Thats why the major veterans groups do not want to move the va towards privatization. You know who does . The Koch Brothers and their ally who have been on a mission to demonize the va and led by a group pete hegseth who took his talking points straight to trump tv. The most important aspect is giving veterans a choice to either go to a va facility or a private provider outside of the va if they need to. That creates competition that a hospital like this will need if its going to start treating veterans like customers. You hear that right now, choice, right . Well, trump reportedly considering appointing hegseth to run the va prompting backlash everybody va groups. Just listen carefully to what the president had to say today. But im doing that for the vets. We made changes because we want them taken care of. We want them to have choice so they can run to a private doctor. And joining me is former va secretary david shulkin. Mr. Shulkin, how do you know that you were fired over what you say was your opposition to privatizing the va . Well, i think that the president made a decision who he wants to represent veteran affairs in the cabinet. Thats a decision that the president makes. There was clear evidence though that the political appointees inside va were working against me and my Leadership Team because they felt that we were trying to strengthen the va rather than move it towards privatization. Who though . I mean, im confused how this state of affairs comes about. You havent named names. Youre saying there are individuals you know who they are who were working at cross purposes to essentially sabotage you . Im absolutely saying that. The names have been named. There are documents that have been shared and published. Theyre in the newspapers right now that show the political appointees who have written memos to try to disrupt the operations at va. Operations at va. And weve been focused on trying to make the progress that our veterans need to be able to fulfill the mission that this country owes the responsibility to take care of those hose have served. You just tell me the names of these individuals . Im not going to start naming names right here. But theyre all available. Theyve been published, the New York Times has it and others have it, as well. They are people that have represented the office of public affairs, theyre the white house representatives who are in va. A number of them have already been identified. Does this come utley from the white house . Do you believe the president of the United States was essentially favored this agenda that you say was sort of a fifth column inside your own department . No, i dont have any evidence thats the case. I think that the president wants to improve care for veterans. I there that he is not served well by political appointees who are taking their own personal agendas much further than i think that he intended them to. When is the last time you spoke to him . I spoke to the president yesterday. What was that conversation like . We spoke about the progress that i was making, what i needed to do from a policy perspective to make sure were fixing the issues in va. Very focused. He was very inquisitive about the things we were working on, making sure we were focused on the job at hand. Thats before you were fired . Thats correct. You spoke to him, he made no mention of the fact that he was about to terminate you . Thats correct. And then you found out via tweet . Right before that, the chief of staff kelly gave me a call which i appreciated, gave me a headsup. But that was much after the phone call. Was the president receptive to what you were saying on that phone call as you were updating him on the improvements you say you were making at the va . It was a normal conversation with the president where he asked me what was going on. This is notes a typical. I gave him the updates and told him where we were focused. He had questions about that. It was a very interactive exchange. Does the president understand the nuts and bolts of how the va functions and what you were doing there. Ing. I think this is a very complex organization, and from the outside it seems easy, why arent things fixed faster. The truth is that the va has had systemic problems for decades which spans multiple administrations. And in order to get this fixed, i believe i was on the right track which is working in a bipartisan way with congress, doing what the veterans groups wanted us to do to strengthen the va. At the same time giving additional choice in the private sector and this is a very complex formula to move an organization this big in the type of transformation that it needs to undergo. You were on a phone call with the president. Is it in your understanding in ret pro expect that was a call account president was going to fire you and never got around to it . I take it at face value that he was thinking about veterans that day. Picked up the phone to ask me a series of questions and later on that afternoon, decided that he felt that it was time for a change. So but you know, im not good at the krystal ball game. Im just ive been here to try to focus on veteran issues. I dont do politics very well, obviously. But the important thing is that we have to get this organization working again. I want to pivot back to that. You just said you dont do politics well. I want to ask about the Inspector Generals report. The punitive reason that someone could point to that you were dismissed is there was an Inspector Generals report critical of you and particularly your chief of staff for a trip you took to england with your wife in which there were wimbledon tickets that had been acquired, her airfare and travel paid for by public money, subsequently reimbursed. Do you deny that you did anything wrong in that trip . Yes, listen, heres what happened. This was a trip of the five allies that had been going on for 43 years attended always by the United States. As the major force in the allied forces. We had 40 hours of lectures. I did at least three hours of those lectures myself. A meaningful exchange. The only government money involved was a single coach airfare for my wife. She was invited officially. Va secretaries have always brought wives who were officially invited preapproved by the ethics officials. There were norp surprises. This was done 100 proper in retrospect six months later when the ig looked at the report they found the staff had made a mistake. When that cape out, i wrote a check to the u. S. Government and paid back every penny. There were no other expenses. The wimbledon tickets were no expense to the government. They were a saturday afternoon with our friends. No business involved. There was nothing wrong with that. I want to follow up because the Inspector General report did say your chief of staff essentially changed records in an email to essentially cover up the expenditure. Is that true . Was that wrong . Well, listen, if you change records, of course, thats wrong. But the Inspector General report also said very clearly that i wasnt involved in that. I had no knowledge of that. And so you know, i think that the chief of staff decided to retire rather than go through a full investigation. But look, ig have, you know, i had very strong confidence in her. Your understanding and i think you said this explicitly, the ig report and the stories about the trip were essentially an attempt to get rid of you by people. Theres no question about it. This was politicized. Who . The political appointees within the va that did not like the type of progress that we were making. Did you know that . Were you watching this happen and you were saying the people who work in the building with me who are appointees of the president are actively trying to get me fired right now through this . Yes, that is correct. And who were they reporting to . Who was their to whom did they report this to . Well, the political appointees have dual roles to the administration at the white house and also back into the department. And, of course, you know, you cant run the Department Like this with people pursuing their own agendas. So this was a major concern and this is what ive been dealing with the last couple months which is why i said that it was very difficult to get the type of work done that we needed to get done. There were stories in the newspaper saying had you lost it, that you had become paranoid, that you had an armed guard outside your door. Whats your response to that . Listen, this is all part of the nonsense that they do in washington. There were no changes to my security protocol. Guess what, everybody cabinet secretary has arm guards. Were all in president ial succession. There was no changes in any of my security at all. If this is the situation, you are working in what sounds like a hornets nest. People are trying to undermine you and sabotage you. Appointees of the president of the United States. Youre talking to the president. Did you talk to the president or chief of staff kelly and say i cant work like this. This is bad for the veterans we serve . Yes, i did. What was their response . Their response was that i needed to do what i needed to do to get the organization back on track. And when i tried to do that, there were people that were blocking that. So this was. But i want to be clear here. The president specifically said do what you have to do to get on track but did not intervene to breaking there bizarre standoff you were having inside your department . I wouldnt expect the president to have to do that. The president s always been clear with me that he wanted to make progress and make progress fast at the va, something that i shared. But you know, working in an organization where people have multiple agendas is always tough. I dont think that this is unusual circumstance. But i think that in this circumstance, in the politicized environment we have in washington this became a pretty significant issue and one that i was determined that we were going to get back on track. Unfortunately, the president made the decision he wanted to go a different direction. How did those people, the final question on this and then i want to ask about your successor. How did those people get those jobs . Who represented them and who put their resumes in front of the chief of staff or the folks in the white house to put them an the va. The way this works is after the inauguration, all of the departments get large numbers of political appointees sent to them. Most of them come from the campaign who are moved into the administration. Thats how we got all of our political appointees. Ronny jackson, who is the president s personal physician, was the president s personal physician before this, he has been nominated to your job. He has never as far as i can tell been an administrator. Youre both if im not mistaken both a physician and have been a Hospital Administrator and have familiarity with the difficulties and complications of that. Is your successor qualified for your job . Look, i know dr. Jackson personally. Hes a guy with high integrity. Very honorable man. This is a tough job for anybody to take on, the second Largest Department in the government. Its almost a 200 billion budget with 370,000 people. Dr. Jackson i believe is going to do this with the right intention. Hes going to need a lot of help around him and a team around him to be successful. I certainly believe that i will do everything i can to make sure that that is that he is doing the job he needs to do. But its certainly the case that if what you are saying is true and i dont have an independent wave confirming it, but if what youre saying is true, he cant possibly succeed in the mission of strengthening the va if the same people are there who you say are actively working to subvert that purpose so that the place can be privatized . I think its clear that va needs to rid itself of people that arent there for the sole intention of focusing on improving services and care for veterans and nobody should tolerate this type of politization of an important Department Like va. Former va secretary david shulkin. Thank you very much for making time tonight. Thank you. Joining me now Bernie Sanders of vermont who is a member of the Veterans Affairs committee the former chair of that committee who worked closely on esissues throughout the years. What did you make of that . First of all, let me thank dr. Shulkin for his work and his efforts to strengthen the va. He wrote an oped in the New York Times today and i think it said it all and he said it to you. That is, this is not a personality issue, this is not conspiracy. This is about an effort on the part of the Trump Administration to continue their efforts in support of the Koch Brothers agenda who are now the most power in Political Force in americaing to privatize the va. You heard the doctor tell you the va has a budget of 200 billion. Thats a lot of money. And there are a lot of people in the private sector now looking at the va and saying hey, how can we make huge amounts of money off the va by expanding privatization. Thats what this issue is about. Nobody should be surprised that this is taking place. You got the Koch Brothers who are determined, this is their agenda. Its not a secret. They want to privatize social security, privatize medicare, they want to privatize medicaid. They want to privatize the postal service. You have a secretary of Education Betsy Devos who doesnt believe in public education. So nobody should be shocked that the va, the second Largest Agency in government, would be subject to privatization. That is what the struggle is about. What do you say to people who say the va is broken, these long wait lists. Its not functioning. Give people access to protest care so they have choice and they can get seen immediately. Whats wrong with that . First of all what, does bother me as the former chair of the va, i talk to a lot of veterans. I was just in the Veterans Medical Center here in vermont today. I talk to veterans all of the time. You know what they say . They say, of course, the va has problems. So does every hospital in america. Oh does our entire Health Care System which is basically dysfunctional. But given all of that, you talk to the average veteran, you talk to the American Legion. The American Legion just published a book talking about their strong support of the va and their determination to prevent it from being privatized. Thats what the vfw, the dav, vietnam vets believe. Does the va with 131 separate hospitals and many hundreds of communitybased outreach clinics have problems . Yes it does but so does every other medical system in america. By the way, there was a poll done a couple years ago. They asked the American People, gallup did, they said what are your favorite Health Care Systems in america. In first place was medicare and the veterans administration. They were at the top of the list. So our job and dr. Shulkin referenced this, our job is to do what the veterans want and that is to strengthen the va and make sure they have the doctors and the nurses and the staff that they need not to dismember it or privatize it. Do you believe that dr. Jackson is qualified for this position . Well, i know nothing about dr. Jackson other than the little that ive read. He appears to be a very good family physician and he has done a good job not only for trump but for the Obama Administration. But you just heard dr. Shulkin Say Something that is eminently true. And that is this is the largest integrated Health Care System in america. 350,000 employees. In my view, you would need somebody with a great deal of administrative experience somebody hopefully who knows something about the va. But what i fear very much and this has nothing to do with i know nothing about dr. Jackson. So this is not a criticism. But i think he is going to be the front guy to try to move toward privatization. What i am urging my colleagues on the Senate VeteransFairs Committee to do is to not support dr. Jackson or anybody else who intends to privatize the va. That would be a terrible disservice to millions of veterans in this country who depend upon the va into final question. Has did shulkin do a good job . We keep talking about strengthening the va and know there are problems. Is the trajectory going in the right direction . I think in general it is. Look, he was under a lot of pressure. And a