Democratic Rep. says VA shouldn’t adopt ‘DOGE mentality’ in staff cuts

So the 83,000, they have said they're going to talk to Congress about that

They're going to look for ways to pull back and there's going to be some discussion. But based on what you've seen with those probationary employees, those first 2,400 and the lack of information you've gotten about who they are and just how that was

do you have faith that this administration is going to really, really work with you and sort of think through all the steps of what this might do if they cut that

I don't think that they're thinking about veterans first. They're not asking the question, what is good for our veterans

They're looking to what is going to look good for them and the politics that they're playing

They want to hold up some sort of pelt. Look, we cut this many jobs today

Look, we're saving you all this money. But caring for our veterans really shouldn't be rooted in how much money we're saving

the taxpayer. The taxpayer does not begrudge that we are taking care of veterans whose bodies have

been mangled by war or who are suffering from PTSD or who need extra mental health care and

we're able to get them quick mental health care by the fact they just call up a 980 number

press one, and are connected to a counselor who will get them care and don't have to worry about

the bill. This is going to take staffing. This is going to take spending of money

and the taxpayer doesn't begrudge that. And this really should not be what

no, Doge should not be, Doge mentality should not be what's driving policy at VA

So what VA officials have said what Secretary Collins has said is that yes there a lot of resources yes we still going to try and do all these things but we can be more efficient with this money We can be more efficient with our staff Is that an unfair place to start from

Well, I don't mind these questions about being more efficient and more effective

but I don't think this first 2,400 probationary employees, it was probationary employees because they were the easiest to fire

and they were just firing them willy-nilly. I don't see any evidence that they did a study

I mean, Mr. Billionaire Elon Musk and his Doge folks, I mean, they're not following the kinds of practices that are done in corporate America, where a corporation needs to downsize its workforce

They're going to spend months studying that. They're going to be surgical about where they cut

They don't want to harm the company's mission. And they're not going to do it in a way that puts undue hardship on those employees

They're not going to say, oh, we're going to fire you because we're going to claim that why we're firing you is because of your performance so that you don't get any unemployment insurance

That's what happened to these probationary employees. They were told they were being fired because of their performance

performance. When in fact, we know that these employees were fired just because they were

easier to fire. And I had, you know, Tracy Therrett, who's, I forget her title, but she works in human

services, personnel services at VA, had it before the committee. She thought she was going to testify

in a bill that ironically would have, the Republican bill that would have made it easier to fire people

at VA, she wasn't expecting me to have noticed that she was the one that signed all the memos

that fired the people. And I asked her I said you know Ms Therrett did you actually what she said in the memo is that you know you being dismissed because you you know your performance

Well, they said there was a cause. There was a cause. Your poor performance or your, it's a performance related firing in so many words

And I said, did you make sure that everyone that got sent that memo, that you checked their personal files and actually their performance reviews indicated that this was the reason

And she wasn't able to answer that question. And the answer was no, that they hadn't done that

It was a very rushed process. Their main impetus wasn't to look out for the veteran

Their main purpose was to fire as many people as easily as they could

And the probationary employees were that. They're going to attempt to go after what's called a reduction in force

and the reduction in force is an ysis of saying that we don't have enough money

or we're cutting this or that, and they can reduce the force. That's a whole process they have to go through

I would expect that the secretary would be up front and explain all of this to us

I have low expectations that will happen. They've been very opaque so far

We've asked plenty of questions, sent plenty of communication to the secretary about these firings

So we've had, as I said, people that were involved in helping veterans get connected to emergency health care

That whole critical support people who support the counselors on the telephone call for these veterans calling on the hotline, they were cut

The people who have a second person who listens on the line to be able to communicate to the first responders in case we need a first responder to that veteran wherever that veteran is calling Those are the people that got cut The Doge people were looking at lists very superficially They cut people who they thought

wouldn't be noticed, but they weren't thinking about the veteran. So you mentioned the hearing, the legislative hearing, when you brought up these issues with

the VA officials. I know you've expressed some frustration that there haven't been more oversight

hearings that we haven't seen the Republican side sort of launch into some of these. I know that the

Senate Democrats, the Democrats on the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee just announced that

they're going to be holding some shadow hearings to try and hit some of these issues. You're in the

minority right now. What can you do to highlight these issues, to put up some opposition to the

things that you think are wrong? I mean, beyond just... Well, I think we can do some of... I think

the Senate is doing a great thing by doing a shadow hearing. I think we'll be definitely

watching what they're doing, and we'll supplement on our side a similar shadow hearings where we

call our own witnesses and we provide to the public, raise the issues of how we hold

this department, the secretary accountable. We can also send letters, request information

We can do a Freedom of Information Act types of letters to get certain information. They're

working for the public. They're working for the taxpayer. There are laws in place that allow us

to get information. I can request information directly from certain individuals, both in and out of government

If they refuse to answer, I can raise the level of concern

by asking the chairman to issue a subpoena. Let's have a vote on a subpoena