In the ever-changing landscape of American politics, figures often come into the spotlight with impressive credentials and promises of reform. Recently, the Shawn Ryan Show featured a discussion with Doug Collins, who has been positioned as the 12th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs, having taken office on February 5, 2025. This blog post delves into the accuracy of the claims surrounding Collins’ appointment and his affiliations, scrutinizing the details provided in the show. We will clarify any misconceptions about his political background and his expected impact on veterans’ services in the United States, ensuring that the public is informed with verified information.

Find a fact check of this transcript on CheckForFacts

Transcript:

[00:00:00,000]: Guys like me don’t trust the VA

[00:00:02,960]: We just don’t

[00:00:04,000]: You’re not going to be getting your exchange at the VA anymore

[00:00:07,780]: That’s not what our services are for and everything that we’re taking money wise away to that would take away from money that I could be spending on something else that are helping vets directly but we’re not even getting primary health care

[00:00:19,159]: 480 000 VA employees and there are 450 000 active duty Army

[00:00:26,559]: That’s 30 000 more than the active Army members

[00:00:29,379]: I hope you’re taking this in

[00:00:31,219]: I am the guy you’re trying to reach

[00:00:38,860]: Secretary Collins welcome to the show

[00:00:42,040]: I’m glad to be here bud

[00:00:42,939]: It’s an honor to have you here

[00:00:44,540]: So the new Secretary of the VA

[00:00:48,200]: Yep

[00:00:49,340]: Lots of stuff to work on

[00:00:50,959]: It’s what we call a target rich environment

[00:00:55,319]: Yeah I’ll bet it is probably even more than I know

[00:01:00,020]: So we’ve got a bunch of stuff to talk about today

[00:01:02,380]: A whole lot of topics to cover but how did Secretary of the VA pop up on your radar

[00:01:08,839]: Well I think it comes up with a lot of things

[00:01:10,260]: The President and I have known each other for a while and when I was in Congress for eight years especially those last few years I was in leadership and was the ranking member of the VA not the VA committee but the Judiciary Committee which put me in close proximity to the President because we had to deal with the sham Russia stuff

[00:01:26,059]: We had to deal with the Mueller

[00:01:26,900]: We had to deal with impeachment

[00:01:28,739]: And so he and I got to know each other pretty well from my fighting during those days to keep the truth just out there about what we were seeing

[00:01:37,080]: And so we just had developed a closeness and we kept it up over the time when he was out

[00:01:41,540]: And when he started campaigning again I would be out there and I’d show up

[00:01:45,120]: And after a while about a year or so ago he said look I think you need to come with me

[00:01:50,000]: And he just said if you’ve ever been around him he’s just like you need to come with me

[00:01:54,319]: And this was a year out

[00:01:55,099]: And I said Mr President I said let’s get you elected and we’ll talk about whatever you want to do

[00:01:58,779]: And after that happened we had some conversations and some other ideas that was thought about

[00:02:02,680]: But then I had some ideas about this and it came about

[00:02:06,160]: And I said you know this will be a good spot

[00:02:08,460]: It takes my career it takes my passions and puts it in a position that is as you most well know is a politically sensitive department because of Congress and everybody on the veterans thing

[00:02:20,399]: I said I think we can manage this because we’re going to have to make some change that actually matters

[00:02:23,699]: And I said we’re going to have to work at it hard and I think we can do that

[00:02:27,339]: So he agreed brought me in

[00:02:29,759]: We discussed it for just a little while and then I asked him when he said do you want to do that

[00:02:32,660]: He said yes sir

[00:02:33,580]: I said what do you want me to do sir

[00:02:36,679]: And he said just take care of my veterans

[00:02:38,720]: That was it

[00:02:39,759]: Nice

[00:02:40,179]: You don’t tend to do that

[00:02:41,279]: You better believe it

[00:02:42,839]: Perfect

[00:02:43,699]: Well before we get too far into the weeds here everybody gets a gift

[00:02:48,500]: All right

[00:02:48,820]: Even the Secretary of the VA

[00:02:50,039]: All right

[00:02:50,779]: There we go

[00:02:51,500]: I love it

[00:02:51,979]: Vigilance League gummy bears made in the US and they’re legal at all 50 states

[00:02:57,539]: I love it

[00:02:58,160]: You don’t have to worry about feeling weird after you have some of those or anything

[00:03:00,419]: I love it

[00:03:02,160]: All right

[00:03:02,779]: So everybody gets an introduction too

[00:03:05,179]: All right

[00:03:07,179]: Doug Collins Secretary of the VA

[00:03:09,080]: You are the 12th Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs confirmed by the Senate in February of 2025 to lead the charge for our nation’s veterans

[00:03:17,779]: You earned a degree in political science and criminal justice from the University of North Georgia

[00:03:24,000]: You earned a master’s degree in divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and pastored Chickapee Baptist Church for 11 years

[00:03:35,399]: In 2006 the people of Georgia’s 27th State House District elected you to represent them

[00:03:41,919]: During your first term in the state legislature you graduated from Atlanta’s John Marshall Law School and established your own legal practice

[00:03:50,360]: You are the U S Representative from Georgia’s 9th Congressional District from 2013 to 2021

[00:03:56,600]: You’re a veteran who served as a chaplain in the Air Force Reserve including a deployment to Iraq in 2008 with the 94th Air Wing

[00:04:05,100]: You remain a colonel in the Air Force Reserve

[00:04:08,320]: You’re a husband and a father and most importantly a Christian

[00:04:12,380]: And some of the things that you’ve already done you’ve already cut DEI programs and shifted 14 million to VA health care and caregiver support set up telehealth in remote and rural areas changed the flag policy to only American and POW flags and over 1 million disability claims in 2025 already

[00:04:34,339]: That’s two weeks faster than the normal that we’ve seen

[00:04:37,299]: So what are some of the things that you want to change about the VA

[00:04:44,679]: You have right now the size and scope of the VA

[00:04:47,880]: I know your DOJ advisor is here somewhere today

[00:04:51,640]: And so what does that look like

[00:04:54,179]: Yeah well a great part about it is he’s my VA employee who helps me with liaison to them which is a great thing because we’ve incorporated the whole work of what I think the President’s new vision is into our organization in a way that works with us and not against us

[00:05:09,220]: I think that’s one of the things that there’s this idea out there that there’s this ominous thing happening in D C and the truth of the matter is no I’m still the Secretary of VA

[00:05:18,279]: It comes through my desk

[00:05:19,440]: We make decisions

[00:05:20,299]: And mine will always be for the veteran and then how that works out to our VA employees

[00:05:26,000]: Where we’re seeing the most issue right now is Sean and this is something almost for any military person anybody that wants to think about it

[00:05:34,260]: The first thing when you come into a branch or you come into anything you’re told about the culture

[00:05:39,940]: The culture is this

[00:05:41,880]: You will be an airman

[00:05:43,500]: You will be a Navy

[00:05:44,880]: You’ll be a SEAL

[00:05:45,540]: Whatever it is you’ve got the culture

[00:05:47,679]: Well the only thing interesting is in all fairness Sean culture is at the end of the pipe

[00:05:54,100]: It’s what comes out of the pipe

[00:05:56,239]: It’s what goes in at the top that gives you culture

[00:05:59,500]: There’s this idea somewhere that you’re out there that all of a sudden you can just pop up culture

[00:06:05,339]: And that’s just not true

[00:06:06,779]: You’ve got to have people and ideas at the top that then permeate through the system sort of just like you were eating

[00:06:12,540]: And it comes out the other end

[00:06:13,579]: Well it comes out as culture

[00:06:15,019]: And so really that’s the first step for me

[00:06:17,459]: The first step is developing a culture that says we’ve done it this way for so long

[00:06:23,160]: Is this still the right way to do it

[00:06:26,200]: Look I’m running against people who don’t want to change

[00:06:29,079]: I’m running against media union bosses members of Congress and the Senate

[00:06:34,940]: Here’s their problem

[00:06:35,760]: They’ve invested so much in a system that’s not working that now it’s hard for them to admit maybe we need to do something different

[00:06:43,720]: So all the things we’re going to talk about today is going to come back to that culture issue

[00:06:47,260]: So that’s why I’m out here talking to you

[00:06:48,779]: That’s why I’ve been on social media Twitter anything else I can find

[00:06:52,820]: Just tell the truth

[00:06:54,040]: And I fought back against the lies

[00:06:56,899]: I think the sum of my first five weeks is the VA may have been a whipping post for a long time

[00:07:03,399]: Some of it I’ll agree with

[00:07:04,940]: It probably needed to be

[00:07:06,059]: But nobody’s ever stepped forward to fix it

[00:07:08,260]: So here’s my thought to everybody

[00:07:10,179]: We’re not going to be your whipping post anymore

[00:07:12,799]: I’m going to tell you the truth and I’m going to give you the answers that we need to do

[00:07:17,200]: And I’m going to take care of our veteran number one and I’m going to make sure our VA employee is the best that we can

[00:07:22,619]: So a lot goes into it but it’s culture that has to start at the top and also has to filter down and buy in

[00:07:28,459]: And that’s what I’m fighting the most right now

[00:07:30,619]: Yeah you know I’ve got a whole slew of complaints about the VA

[00:07:35,799]: And you know it’s funny but it’s not

[00:07:39,119]: I mean I haven’t stepped into a VA

[00:07:40,940]: I got 100

[00:07:42,500]: I haven’t stepped into a VA in almost 10 years because my experience has been just atrocious

[00:07:48,359]: It was here’s these pills

[00:07:50,019]: We can’t see

[00:07:52,299]: I mean I remember just going to my I can’t even remember what they call the appointments where you go in and you get checked out

[00:07:58,760]: Your consultations

[00:07:59,540]: Yeah the consultations

[00:08:01,179]: I’m having doctors come to me

[00:08:02,959]: They don’t even know what a Navy SEAL is

[00:08:05,079]: They’re asking me why I didn’t go to medical when I’m attached to a FOB base

[00:08:09,679]: They don’t understand what combat is

[00:08:11,459]: My doctor shows up in a sweatsuit barely even speaks any English

[00:08:15,820]: And it’s just time and time again

[00:08:17,899]: If you know anything about my show it started with all special ops combat veterans and everybody has the same complaints and the same issues and it is created

[00:08:31,380]: Look I don’t know any one of my friends and I have friends with the top war fighters on the planet

[00:08:39,380]: None of them have a good experience at the VA

[00:08:42,320]: None of them have anything positive to say about the VA

[00:08:45,359]: None of them trust the VA

[00:08:46,419]: And that’s why I quit going

[00:08:48,080]: I have more friends that have died of suicide and drug addiction and depression and PTS and everybody’s struggling especially the special operations guys with the traumatic brain injuries and we just aren’t getting any answers at all from the VA

[00:09:09,039]: And then it’s just created this distrust

[00:09:11,719]: So what I do with my check is I buy my own healthcare

[00:09:15,219]: Instead I use the VA because I don’t trust the system

[00:09:18,700]: I don’t like the system

[00:09:19,719]: I get treated like shit when I go there

[00:09:22,539]: It’s like I’m faking an injury or something and so I just got to the point where I just threw my hands up and I was like man fuck this

[00:09:32,359]: I’m not doing it

[00:09:33,719]: I will personally pay for my own healthcare on the civilian side which is much much better than anything I’ve ever had in the VA

[00:09:42,260]: And so and then you see a lot of these therapies and I want to dive into this too but I’m just going to share my experiences with it because I think you need to know

[00:09:54,880]: I just talked about traumatic brain injury

[00:09:57,820]: These guys have been breaching doors with high explosives for 20 years

[00:10:04,419]: They can’t remember where the hell they are

[00:10:06,140]: They can’t remember what they’re doing

[00:10:07,559]: The short term memory loss

[00:10:08,979]: They drive somewhere

[00:10:09,780]: They’re driving their kids somewhere

[00:10:11,000]: They forget where the hell they’re going

[00:10:13,559]: They’re when I say they I mean we

[00:10:17,500]: We’re temperamental

[00:10:18,979]: We’re quick to fly off the handle

[00:10:21,140]: There’s chemical imbalances

[00:10:22,679]: There’s the burn pit shit

[00:10:25,000]: Now all these different I mean it’s across the board

[00:10:29,559]: You’re seeing all these non profits that are stood up by veterans and they’re the ones that are actually taking care of us

[00:10:37,960]: It’s not the And psychedelic therapy is one of the big ones that we’ve seen a tremendous amount of benefit from especially with traumatic brain injury

[00:10:48,830]: Stanford did a study

[00:10:51,030]: Fly these guys down

[00:10:52,250]: They do a brain scan

[00:10:54,369]: They fly these guys down to Mexico do an Ibogaine treatment

[00:10:59,690]: My friend Trevor’s he’s Ambio Life Sciences

[00:11:04,229]: There’s all these black holes in the brain on the brain scan

[00:11:08,390]: They go down there where their brain’s not working

[00:11:10,989]: They do the Ibogaine treatment

[00:11:12,330]: They fly them back up to Stanford

[00:11:14,390]: Oh magically the entire brain is lit up

[00:11:17,909]: I have to tell you some of this stuff because it’s important

[00:11:21,770]: One of my best friends of all time I’ve known him for probably at least 15 years we contracted at CIA together

[00:11:32,130]: Retired Green Beret

[00:11:33,849]: Sustained one of the biggest blasts I’ve ever seen somebody walk out alive from massive traumatic brain injury

[00:11:41,150]: Then he gets shot in the head

[00:11:45,669]: He’s been hiding this stuff

[00:11:47,849]: His wife calls me and she’s like Sean he’s bedridden five to six days a week

[00:11:54,250]: He can’t walk without a cane because he has vertigo

[00:11:57,010]: He can’t go outside even on a cloudy day without his sunglasses because the light sensitivity is so bad

[00:12:04,429]: We haven’t had sex in over two years

[00:12:07,270]: He goes down there

[00:12:08,890]: Nobody can help him

[00:12:10,190]: Nobody at the VA can help him

[00:12:11,489]: He goes down there

[00:12:12,830]: He does the Ibogaine treatment

[00:12:14,369]: He leaves his cane there at the facility

[00:12:17,010]: He comes home

[00:12:18,669]: He doesn’t need the cane anymore

[00:12:20,530]: Doesn’t need the sunglasses

[00:12:22,109]: Is not bedridden at all anymore

[00:12:24,489]: All the vertigo is gone

[00:12:26,010]: Then he goes home

[00:12:27,169]: Has sex with his wife

[00:12:29,409]: That was probably nine months ago

[00:12:34,090]: Same

[00:12:35,049]: It was like one week to fix that

[00:12:40,130]: Like I said I haven’t stepped foot in the VA

[00:12:42,429]: I just gave up on it

[00:12:44,549]: Why aren’t they looking at stuff like that that actually works instead of doing the same old shit

[00:12:50,710]: Here’s some pills

[00:12:52,429]: Here’s this

[00:12:53,450]: Let’s go do a brain scan

[00:12:54,909]: We don’t have any answers

[00:12:56,929]: It’s discouraging

[00:12:57,950]: That’s not the only nonprofit

[00:13:00,330]: That’s Vets that I’m talking about

[00:13:02,729]: Veterans Exploring I can’t remember

[00:13:05,530]: It’s Vets

[00:13:06,750]: Vets org Treatment Solutions Why isn’t the VA getting Then we have the veteran suicide epidemic

[00:13:17,650]: The numbers are all over the board

[00:13:19,030]: They say 22 a day

[00:13:20,849]: I hear reports that it’s actually 40 a day when you start looking at the overdoses and stuff like that

[00:13:27,869]: What’s the plan here

[00:13:29,869]: Look Sean you’ve expressed as you were doing there what you’re seeing with your friends what you’re seeing with everybody else

[00:13:35,530]: I think it’s the battle we face

[00:13:39,109]: When I was in Congress we’d have one of the things I told all the Senators especially when going through confirmation which I had to go through to get this

[00:13:47,789]: I said 60 of your constituent calls to your office for help are in some way involved with the VA

[00:13:56,429]: Either VHA our health benefits or their other benefits disability benefits other things like that

[00:14:03,030]: 60

[00:14:03,549]: Some of them looked at me like no

[00:14:06,549]: It was interesting

[00:14:07,309]: The staff would be sitting in the side going 60 of what

[00:14:11,049]: 60 of all their calls

[00:14:12,210]: Like a phone call to a Congressman or Senator

[00:14:15,789]: I’m having trouble

[00:14:18,070]: 60

[00:14:19,690]: Some would actually be higher

[00:14:21,229]: Some actually maybe a little lower

[00:14:22,250]: Just average out around 60

[00:14:24,010]: Some of the members were like I don’t know

[00:14:26,830]: But yet their staff was sitting there and said yeah it is

[00:14:29,510]: Because I hear it all the time

[00:14:31,809]: Think about that for a second

[00:14:33,710]: Let’s just ponder for just one second that that many people and we’re talking thousands with each Congressman each Senator a year calling about an organization that is supposed to be already set up to give them what they have earned to give them the benefits that they have earned through Congress action this is none just dreamed up by a President

[00:14:59,369]: This is all from statutory law

[00:15:02,229]: But yet having to call them because they can’t get the help they need

[00:15:05,809]: Only in Washington D C do we call that normal

[00:15:08,729]: Only in Washington D C do we call that okay

[00:15:11,789]: I call it failure

[00:15:13,390]: And I’ve called that out since the day that I got sworn in

[00:15:17,109]: That we’re not going to allow anymore this discussion that it’s okay to have to call for what you should be getting already

[00:15:26,270]: Now if you don’t want it don’t take it

[00:15:29,729]: That’s why we have choices

[00:15:31,309]: That’s why we have other things to do

[00:15:32,929]: But when it gets into the stuff that you’re talking about this goes back to that culture argument that I was talking about to start with

[00:15:38,390]: It gets into the situation where we’ve just sort of done it this way and the argument at the VA is well everybody complains everybody does rightfully so even if they’re new employees they get well the VA’s awful

[00:15:50,809]: And there’s been a lot of problems and probably a lot of stuff to back that up

[00:15:54,130]: I’m not going to disagree with you

[00:15:55,989]: But there’s also a lot of times when you’ve got the ones who are trying to do it are getting bogged down in the people trying to get in a system that is broken

[00:16:04,250]: So it’d be like me

[00:16:05,489]: I do a lot of counseling

[00:16:06,570]: I have for years of course when I was pastoring in a chapel and everything else

[00:16:10,190]: And if you in a relationship the relationship starts let’s say with a husband and a wife and remember it doesn’t matter if they’re military or not but if they have a relationship and they have an issue in which one does not trust the other and you come into that position that they’ve now developed into a problem where they don’t talk they’re fighting maybe going to get divorced or breaking up whatever

[00:16:32,590]: And then I walk into the room and I say I want to help you but the only thing that I can give you the one thing you’ve got to have to fix the relationship is the one thing that’s broken

[00:16:42,289]: To fix a relationship you’ve got to have trust

[00:16:44,510]: If you can’t have trust you’re not going to fix a relationship

[00:16:46,489]: You can smooth it you can paste it over you can do whatever you want to do but you’ve got to have trust

[00:16:51,229]: In the VA we’re a similar situation in a sense that people have for so long said I have to do it by this prescribed method by this prescribed way or there’s going to be a congressional person say something or do something or I’m going to get complained about or we’re going to do this or the union says we’ve got to keep your job so you just keep doing whatever you’re doing we’ll protect your job and go forward

[00:17:14,430]: So when it comes to new ideas there’s some good things that you never hear about but when it comes to ideas such as you’re talking about with a new generation of warfighter this new generation of warfighter doesn’t come they’re starting to come to the VA if they have issues of prosthetics they have issues of they’ve lost limbs they’ve done stuff like that because there’s some of that we do probably as well if not better than most anywhere you’re going to find

[00:17:40,630]: But when it comes to other areas like the traumatic brain injury to like the issues of sleep deprivation the issues of addictions those things we’re stuck in a system that is not allowing

[00:17:52,030]: Now in the Bronx there’s a clinical study on psychedelics that we’ve actually been a part of and it’s working

[00:17:57,849]: We’re seeing tremendous change

[00:18:00,310]: Bobby Kennedy who’s now the new HHS Secretary Health and Human Services Secretary he and I sat in my office two weeks ago and talked about this very issue

[00:18:07,949]: And how do we get it incorporated in

[00:18:10,729]: Some of it we’re bound because we’re actually a healthcare actually hospital healthcare organization we’re bound by some of the laws that Congress has made that have bound us into what we can use and what we can’t use

[00:18:22,109]: I’ll use a big example there is marijuana

[00:18:24,510]: Marijuana has always been a fight treatment you know in some areas and you’ve had a lot of congressmen say we’re not going to do that we’re going to keep it where it’s at and so it binds us a little bit

[00:18:35,589]: But in one of the areas I’m looking at to get what you’re talking about is a number of years ago Donald Trump actually promoted a thing called Right to Try

[00:18:43,949]: It was legislation in which if you were dying if you had other issues why not let you try something

[00:18:49,569]: What are we hurting here

[00:18:51,050]: And if it works then it’s a miracle and we’re good

[00:18:54,449]: We’re actually exploring right now among the many things that I’m shoveling as fast as my shovel can shovel is to see is there ways under Right to Try that we can expand some of those programs right now into psychedelics into others treatments ranging from hyperbaric to everything else that says is this working

[00:19:13,989]: Is it working

[00:19:15,209]: How do we expand it out

[00:19:16,569]: We know from case by case like what you just talked about that it is working

[00:19:19,869]: We know from experience that in some people this is a dead on treatment for what they need

[00:19:25,709]: But I’ve got to get a mindset change that says and this is what I’m facing almost all the time is well you can do that but there’s a risk

[00:19:36,869]: Sean getting up out of bed in the morning and going to the bathroom and taking a shower is a risk

[00:19:41,630]: I’m going to fall and bust my head and die

[00:19:43,969]: That’s a risk

[00:19:45,250]: Getting up and walking and getting in a car is a risk

[00:19:48,089]: I want us to help the people who need help

[00:19:50,630]: But then there’s also another generational issue we’re having right now

[00:19:54,209]: And the generational issue is something that’s going to be a little bit harder for me to tackle

[00:19:59,550]: Because it’s not just the VA assimilating itself to the younger warfighter the GWAT fighter my generation fighter your generation fighter who are not joiners

[00:20:10,310]: We don’t join Kiwanis

[00:20:11,709]: We don’t join Rotary

[00:20:13,010]: For most of this generation they don’t join the VFW

[00:20:15,449]: They don’t join the American Legion

[00:20:16,750]: They don’t do those things

[00:20:18,310]: They go with their buddies

[00:20:20,150]: They’re drawn to nonprofits who are actually doing something on 10 margins instead of the opposite way around

[00:20:26,890]: 90 of what they do is going to fixing something instead of 90 going to fix the organization

[00:20:31,510]: 10 may be helping

[00:20:32,790]: These are the kind of things that we’ve got to deal with

[00:20:34,510]: So now I’ve got to get them back just like you to say what can I do inside the VA to make enough change that I can get another shot

[00:20:45,489]: That I can get another shot to say look if you want the care here fine

[00:20:48,589]: But if not we’re going to pay for it in the community

[00:20:50,910]: See that’s another issue that the previous administration the last four years have been horrific for expansion of care which Donald Trump promoted in his first term and I voted for when I was in Congress

[00:21:01,829]: They just went away from it Sean

[00:21:04,229]: Because it’s a mindset

[00:21:05,550]: You’ve got to understand the mindset of the VA and the mindset that the Biden administration and the previous administration spent tens of billions of dollars well over 100 billion and tens of thousands of employees well over 50 000 in the last four years alone

[00:21:21,930]: Four years

[00:21:23,689]: And you know what

[00:21:24,270]: Our metrics have either just stopped or they’ve actually went backwards

[00:21:28,189]: So all these people that are screaming that you can’t cut anybody you can’t change it

[00:21:35,030]: Well you’ve tried that now for the past 10 years

[00:21:38,290]: And you know what GAO says Government Accounting Office has said you’re on the high risk list

[00:21:41,910]: VA has been on the high risk danger list of race fraud and abuse and poor quality health care in many of our facilities for 10 years

[00:21:52,589]: That’s just unacceptable

[00:21:54,449]: But yet the past three or four weeks if you’ve watched any of the headlines I’m being skewered and pillared by some of our VSO community and some of our members of the Senate and House that you can’t change you’re going to hurt wait times you’re going to hurt quality

[00:22:12,349]: You’ve done that already

[00:22:14,390]: Our wait times are not where they need to be

[00:22:16,130]: Our backlog is too high

[00:22:17,569]: It was under 60 000 when Trump left office

[00:22:21,770]: It’s over 225 000 now

[00:22:24,510]: And that’s with all the members I just told you

[00:22:26,829]: This is just bull crap

[00:22:28,489]: We can’t keep doing the same thing the same way

[00:22:31,189]: So really what those folks on the Hill and some of those outside and outside agencies and groups are saying is the VA oh yeah we know it’s bad and you just got to keep throwing stuff at it because it protects our jobs protects our workers and protects the system

[00:22:47,770]: Part of the reason I do what I do is for my family

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[00:24:56,109]: See that’s what I see

[00:24:57,589]: I see a bunch of bureaucrats that don’t actually give a shit about veterans

[00:25:01,670]: They only give a shit about the VA

[00:25:04,550]: And not that the VA is actually doing its job

[00:25:07,430]: I mean I’ve got a stat written down here

[00:25:10,709]: There are 480 000 VA employees and there are 450 000 active duty Army

[00:25:25,170]: Veterans all over the country have been dying waiting to get treatment

[00:25:30,369]: Commit suicide dying you know because they can’t get

[00:25:34,410]: So with 480 000 VA that’s 30 000 more than the active Army members

[00:25:43,709]: Why can’t they get in

[00:25:45,170]: Or why couldn’t they get in

[00:25:47,369]: Think about that organizational structure

[00:25:49,969]: Where is most of that organizational structure going

[00:25:52,410]: You know I’ve been told since you know we started the confirmation process and we started asking these questions

[00:25:58,209]: Well PACTAC did this

[00:25:59,869]: PACTAC forced us you know and by the way that was Biden thought of it at the State of the Union a few months acted it not really thinking about cost

[00:26:06,569]: And by the way when the House and Senate I speak Hill because I was up there for a long time

[00:26:11,369]: Here’s what you do

[00:26:12,109]: You want to make somebody think you’re doing something

[00:26:13,530]: You pass a bill

[00:26:14,770]: You leave a lot of the stuff in the middle either unfunded or open ended

[00:26:20,050]: You get the President to sign it and then you declare it a victory

[00:26:24,229]: Never mind going to the actual agency that’s going to have to do this and give them help and instructions on how to make it happen

[00:26:31,989]: But I was told that was why the monies and everything increased so much

[00:26:36,290]: Well I’ve asked where are these employees that were hired for PACTAC

[00:26:39,910]: I mean if we’ve hired all these employees to do PACTAC where are they at

[00:26:43,170]: And I only get one off answers like well we’ve had to do something here

[00:26:46,410]: We can’t

[00:26:47,890]: All right I come here to share the truth

[00:26:50,050]: I’m just not BS anymore

[00:26:51,969]: I just can’t

[00:26:52,829]: I don’t know whatever

[00:26:53,969]: But I can’t tell you where all 480 000 of those people are

[00:27:02,609]: I can’t tell you

[00:27:04,369]: Now here’s the interesting issue

[00:27:06,089]: You were in the military

[00:27:07,750]: You were in the SEAL team

[00:27:09,589]: If you went to your commander or you went to your headquarters they could actually look down a list

[00:27:15,750]: They could pull every base

[00:27:16,670]: They could pull every unit

[00:27:17,550]: They could pull everything and by the line item tell you who was assigned where and what their billet number was what their pass number was and everything else

[00:27:24,109]: You would know exactly where they’re at

[00:27:26,069]: I do not have an HR system that allows me easily to do that

[00:27:31,750]: Think about that for a second

[00:27:33,790]: Let that sink in when all these other issues we’re talking about is out there

[00:27:38,670]: So I can’t even at this point now I’m working on it

[00:27:41,890]: That’s been one thing where I’ve already hit the ground running

[00:27:44,229]: I’ve got some people that are helping

[00:27:45,430]: We’re going to try and fix that pretty quick because if I don’t know where they are then this organization is functionally not ready for action

[00:27:55,010]: It’s just not

[00:27:56,430]: You’ve got a lot of things

[00:27:57,589]: We’ve had organizational structure

[00:27:59,709]: Cutting bureaucracy and management level in Washington and across the plains is going to be something that was one of the first looks we’re going to be

[00:28:07,609]: I don’t need six people

[00:28:10,390]: I’m trying to put this in maybe the ways that your guys and folk and gals would understand and watch this podcast

[00:28:15,250]: Listen it would be almost like having in one unit having six shirts in one unit

[00:28:26,280]: Which one do you go to

[00:28:27,500]: Who answers to who

[00:28:28,780]: And then also having two or three chiefs above the six shirts to say well go get that approved go get that approved go get that approved go get that

[00:28:36,540]: Oh and then by the way we’ll have to go find the we get the wing commander to sign off

[00:28:40,520]: So from an Air Force perspective it’s just bureaucracy layers

[00:28:43,720]: Some of these were started for real reasons

[00:28:45,640]: You know that hey we need to manage our like central division care which is our mission division

[00:28:51,600]: But they were supposed to have 20 and 30 people

[00:28:54,000]: Now some of them have three and four and 500

[00:28:56,940]: They just grow for the sake of growing but nobody has called it like I’m trying to call it now in a real sense of a way is to say what is our return on investment

[00:29:06,360]: Are we helping a veteran

[00:29:08,680]: Is the veteran being helped

[00:29:11,320]: Not a press release from the Hill not a bill that says you think you’re doing something but are we actually doing stuff that allows the veteran choice

[00:29:18,840]: By the way the Mission Act what we talked about is to let you go out in the community

[00:29:22,420]: We’re going to pay for that because you’ve earned the benefit

[00:29:24,700]: We’re going to make it where you can go out into the community and get the care you need

[00:29:28,560]: But yet over the last previous administration there was we have documented it and we’re going to be rolling out more of this where we saw basically a turn toward de incentivizing and actually keeping veterans from getting the care they need even if it meant waiting longer

[00:29:45,220]: Sean this is the more I dig the worse it gets

[00:29:50,040]: And we’re just we’re right now making sure that we’re starting to get out so that we can have a whole new culture shift to help the people we’re supposed to be helping

[00:29:58,000]: How is that going to work

[00:29:59,680]: How’s it going to how do I do that

[00:30:02,660]: How do I use the VA to pay for my community health care in the civilian market

[00:30:07,940]: If you meet certain criteria like distance and time what it was designed for is especially those who are away from a VA health clinic or a center where they can get it quickly

[00:30:18,700]: What they can do is a real simple checklist to see you know do you qualify that

[00:30:23,720]: And most you do in different areas especially specialty care

[00:30:26,940]: And then here’s where I don’t like some of this and I’ve not liked it for years

[00:30:31,660]: One we have a third party administrator which we’re actually looking at

[00:30:34,620]: Anytime you put another third party anything in there it tends to bog the system

[00:30:38,920]: They’re supposed to be finding community doctors

[00:30:41,600]: They’re supposed to be finding the system where we send them to

[00:30:45,120]: The VA technically still has a sign off right now where you see a VA doc and the doc says yeah we agree and then you send them

[00:30:51,340]: That’s becoming a little bit of a problem because we’re seeing we’ve seen some issues in which the furls were not happening okay

[00:30:57,820]: So again I’m digging into this

[00:30:59,680]: It’s not everybody but I’m seeing it enough to develop a pattern here

[00:31:02,840]: You see it you know randomly you might think no but when you start seeing it enough there’s a pattern of what I call abuse of the law basically so you get that and then you go and then it’s turned in

[00:31:14,380]: It’s paid for just as if you were going to you know through the VA system itself so these are out there

[00:31:19,060]: These parts have been there

[00:31:20,160]: When Mission Act gave that it expanded that but you gotta also use it

[00:31:25,080]: I mean I can give you the best rifle in the world but if you don’t use it it’s just useless to you

[00:31:30,140]: Well I think a lot of people don’t know how to use the VA system

[00:31:34,520]: I’m one of them

[00:31:35,600]: I mean and I want to get into this later but I mean even just to get the initial to get the benefits to go through the doctor’s appointments to you know oh my shoulder’s messed up I got tinnitus I got TBI whatever all those what do they call those the initial appointments

[00:31:53,580]: The consults yeah

[00:31:54,420]: Yeah the consults

[00:31:55,260]: The initial consults yeah

[00:31:55,620]: You know a lot of vets they don’t even know how to get into the consults or then you get in the consults and it’s almost like a damn interrogation and it’s like I’ll give you an example

[00:32:06,340]: They denied my tinnitus

[00:32:08,880]: I’m a Navy SEAL

[00:32:10,420]: I shot a lot of guns I blew a lot of shit up I’ve seen a lot of combat I have fucking tinnitus

[00:32:16,480]: Sorry lady I don’t know like what the hell you’re talking about

[00:32:20,000]: You can’t even test for that

[00:32:21,540]: Just give me the tinnitus

[00:32:22,720]: Look at my service record

[00:32:23,860]: They deny it you know and then I got to go find then I got introduced to this woman Peggy Matthews Veterans Advocacy Services

[00:32:34,520]: She’s like probably 80 years old runs a is like an angel to me and my guys because she’s the one that can take our package turn it into something and somehow some way she gets it fast tracked through the VA

[00:32:49,620]: But for us to like try to navigate the Veterans Administration it’s impossible

[00:32:55,340]: Why should we have that Sean

[00:32:57,020]: Think about that

[00:32:57,600]: That’s what I’m asking

[00:32:59,440]: But I’m also bringing it back is someone you know look looking ahead in five weeks of sitting here doing this job I have been seeing the exact same asking the exact same questions and say why is it you have to have a VA whisperer so to speak to get what should be honestly yours to stake and to take part in okay

[00:33:20,340]: You’re exactly right

[00:33:21,320]: I mean right now as we look at this this is the concern that a lot of us are having

[00:33:27,780]: But how many government agencies are like this

[00:33:30,300]: Think about it

[00:33:31,380]: You’re supposed to pay your taxes

[00:33:33,560]: I’ll just use another

[00:33:34,720]: The IRS you’re supposed to pay your taxes

[00:33:35,700]: But yet you call the IRS hotline and they can’t answer your questions

[00:33:40,640]: The very ones who will put you in jail for not paying your taxes can’t answer some of your basic questions about how to file your taxes

[00:33:47,760]: Well as we get into the process of the VA and I was just with a local vet center here and one of the things I asked him I said tell me something start telling me getting up to me

[00:34:01,160]: Tell me things that hinder veterans from getting the benefits or being a part of this system

[00:34:06,100]: Tell me what in our paperwork process what in our setup is causing us problems because here’s what we are seeing though

[00:34:14,080]: To those unlike some experiences you’ve had especially a number of years ago but what we’re seeing today there’s been an improvement is that once they can get through the system we’re seeing general satisfaction rating among veterans of different generations saying okay this may not be they like the care they may not be what I want it may not be for everybody but 80 90 saying hey this is okay I’m getting what I need or the benefits they’re getting their package

[00:34:39,780]: But getting to it has been our problem

[00:34:43,060]: Getting us through that front line to say this is an agency that is open

[00:34:48,800]: Look I don’t have my phone with me right now but if I had my phone with me right now I bet your private insurance I know my healthcare with my wife who I’ve been on state health in Georgia forever I can right now pull up on my phone all my prescriptions my doctor’s appointments I could talk to my doctor if I wanted to we don’t have that

[00:35:08,380]: Why is the large and here’s the other thing we’re the largest healthcare system in the country by far by far

[00:35:15,580]: Now there’s a couple of privates that like to say they’re close

[00:35:18,080]: I have 170 hospitals almost 1 500 CBOX clinics and that’s not counting the mobile stuff we do and everything else

[00:35:27,380]: That’s how massive this organization is okay

[00:35:30,620]: And they’ve all run on siloed issues

[00:35:33,060]: I heard an issue today that was about just simple things as transportation

[00:35:38,220]: Well and when they were asked for help they said well that’s not a VHA issue which is our health side that’s a VBA issue which is our benefits side

[00:35:45,000]: Well I’m here to say I’m the secretary of all of you we’re gonna start acting like we’re one company and not three companies working in the middle

[00:35:52,140]: And we’re gonna but again Congress has facilitated this some prior administrations have facilitated this because here’s the thing Sean how many times have you run across somebody who wasn’t a veteran

[00:36:04,940]: And especially in public life if they’re not a veteran and they run for office there it’s hard for them to have honest questions to a veteran or to veteran service organizations which may or may not have the interest that they need to be promoting or another organization

[00:36:21,640]: And they say well and I had a gentleman on the floor of the house one time and good friend good guy never served

[00:36:30,800]: And there was an issue on the floor and it was wrong

[00:36:34,740]: It was just wrong

[00:36:35,740]: I mean we should be doing it differently okay

[00:36:37,820]: There’s a budget on it

[00:36:39,660]: And I said you know and I went to this person and I said because they’re very vocal I said you know this is wrong

[00:36:46,000]: We shouldn’t be doing it this way

[00:36:48,200]: This should go into the budget

[00:36:49,340]: It shouldn’t be done separately

[00:36:50,560]: This is the way we should be done

[00:36:52,080]: And I’ll never forget and it just floored me

[00:36:56,120]: The person looked at me and he said Doug I know that

[00:36:59,500]: He said but I’m not a veteran

[00:37:01,640]: And he said I can’t have somebody attacking me as being against veterans

[00:37:09,380]: Sean think about what he just said

[00:37:13,240]: He was willing to make a bad vote because he was scared of the political fallout of being seen as against veterans

[00:37:25,200]: We’ve seen this consistently with policy that comes out of Congress for the VA

[00:37:30,140]: We’ve seen it consistently in situations where the VA they will pass budgets and then complain about it

[00:37:35,820]: Because that’s the way you do it

[00:37:37,700]: We have veteran service organizations that honestly it takes a lot of time to see more at war with me and the VA than they do their membership

[00:37:48,000]: Now they’re good people

[00:37:49,060]: I’m not trying to throw them under the bus

[00:37:50,680]: That’s not what I’m trying to say here

[00:37:52,140]: But if your only way that you satisfy your membership is to say we fought the VA and won huh

[00:38:01,980]: We’re supposed to be on the same page here

[00:38:03,960]: We’re trying to help veterans too

[00:38:06,340]: But we can’t have adversarial roles to fix the problems that you’re talking about

[00:38:10,820]: Because when we do that we’re just simply going in circles

[00:38:15,580]: It’s got to be an all in approach

[00:38:18,720]: Lord willing Donald Trump’s here

[00:38:21,280]: I know I’ve got hopefully four years to do this but I really got 18 months

[00:38:25,460]: My mission is about 18 months to get in to start making the transformational process to take the generational change that Donald Trump said he was going to bring to DC

[00:38:34,780]: And I saw him just the other day

[00:38:36,160]: He and I talked last Friday

[00:38:38,680]: And he said what about my and he brought up the community care

[00:38:42,040]: He brought up all the folks being able to go out and get the choices they need

[00:38:45,960]: I said sir we’re working on it

[00:38:47,120]: I said but I got some problems

[00:38:48,360]: I need your help

[00:38:49,080]: He said no whatever you do we’ll take care of it

[00:38:50,980]: But these are the kind of generational change we got to have

[00:38:53,420]: And so now one of the things we’re experiencing is you mentioned how much we have

[00:38:58,400]: Well we’ve had a across the board reduction in force is what it’s called a RIF

[00:39:04,000]: Now the interesting thing is the legacy media liberal media the unions are all going nuts

[00:39:08,880]: How can you cut this money out of the federal government

[00:39:10,920]: The federal government will never survive if we cut 15 out of the workforce

[00:39:14,440]: Well Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the 90s cut 13 to 14 or 12 to 14 out of the federal government several hundred thousand jobs

[00:39:24,280]: Nobody griped

[00:39:25,380]: And by the way we’re still 20 something years in the future almost 30

[00:39:29,060]: The government not only survived it got bigger again

[00:39:31,540]: So what we’re looking at now is how do we do this and we go into systems that are broken and take out the layers that don’t need to be there the things that are keeping veterans from getting the benefits that they’ve earned keeping them from healthcare keeping them from going into the community and getting the care that they need getting access to new treatments like psychedelics or other things

[00:39:51,480]: We need to get that funding that’s been there to fund positions and worry about funding veterans healthcare and worrying about funding veterans benefits

[00:40:00,300]: If we can do that then we’ve got a chance

[00:40:06,820]: But what we’ve got right now is a system in which I have actually some Republicans and Democrats and some other organizations that are simply saying who will look on their own webpages their websites and their statements

[00:40:16,520]: The VA is too much wait time too long to do this and broken

[00:40:21,420]: But yet I’ve seen quotes and tweets Secretary Collins needs to be careful on how he does the reorganization of the VA

[00:40:31,520]: It needs to be more structured and more or don’t or better yet some actually said we don’t need to get rid of anybody at the VA

[00:40:39,080]: What that’s basically saying is for 10 years GAO has said we’re on high risk that we can’t get rid of bad employees by the way

[00:40:46,320]: Did you know that

[00:40:47,720]: When we had the President sign the Bill of Accountability Act back at the end of his term and we fired there was almost 4 000 people fired at the VA for stuff like showing up drunk in the OR doing other things

[00:41:00,580]: We fired them

[00:41:01,780]: Guess what

[00:41:02,020]: The union and others had lawsuits and when Donald Trump left office basically the Biden administration through some series of bad judgment just basically quit and said we’ll bring them all back and give them back pay whether they came back or not

[00:41:18,960]: This is the kind of problem we’re dealing with Sean

[00:41:21,060]: It’s not an easy just get your head out of your rear system

[00:41:25,880]: We’ve got to actually make structural changes so that number one we can get rid of the bad hire good and put a culture in that the veteran is first

[00:41:37,240]: I’ve said it every day I have been in this office and I’m not taking a day off really yet

[00:41:43,920]: So how do you plan on leaning that process out for these guys to get benefits

[00:41:49,320]: It’s going to be the issue

[00:41:50,040]: Here’s where we’re starting right now

[00:41:51,360]: We’re starting a process using career employees others in the system to say okay because we’re under this mandate to get the fat out and then we can use that money to redirect

[00:42:01,800]: We’re already redirecting over 500 million right now that’s in the process of being redirected towards suicide which by the way I want to talk about

[00:42:09,100]: You need to hear what’s going on there and you’re not going to like it but you need to hear

[00:42:14,040]: Homelessness the same way

[00:42:15,920]: We’re redirecting that for prosthetic care

[00:42:17,520]: We’re redirecting it toward community care

[00:42:19,000]: We’re redirecting that money

[00:42:20,420]: All that money that was sitting out here that was for PowerPoint and meeting notes kind of stuff that we were doing is now going back to the veteran itself

[00:42:29,040]: We’re going to have to as we go through looking for this reduction in force we’re going to take out folks that are not forward facing when it comes to veterans health

[00:42:35,660]: In other words it’s amazing to me and I don’t know if you read just recently the paper we let 2 400 people go about two weeks ago three weeks ago and all of a sudden Wall Street Journal New York Times all the legacy media the Hill Senators and others union members Collins is killing healthcare

[00:42:55,000]: Collins is gutting the VA

[00:42:56,080]: Collins is calling and then they’ll find somebody who said they had their surgery that was put off or that their appointment was rescheduled

[00:43:05,080]: None of the people the people we fired were publicists interior designers laborers

[00:43:10,040]: I mean this is what we’re talking about here

[00:43:12,720]: How has your surgery been put off because an interior designer was laid off

[00:43:16,500]: It wasn’t it’s a lie

[00:43:19,340]: But what we have is you know what’s interesting though

[00:43:21,100]: If you’d gone back to January 15th of this year and that same surgery had been put off it would have never made a headline

[00:43:27,480]: Because now we’re doing something

[00:43:28,760]: So now we just got to start trimming those out

[00:43:30,960]: Forward facing with the healthcare with our benefit side that’s not the areas we’re looking at

[00:43:37,500]: We’re looking at I think somebody told me the other day think about this we have almost 16 000 contract agents

[00:43:44,460]: Contractors all they do is contracts

[00:43:46,620]: 16 000

[00:43:49,760]: Really

[00:43:51,120]: Let’s take a look and see if we need 16 000 contract agent

[00:43:54,740]: Let’s see if we need five and six levels of bureaucracy in some of these situations

[00:44:00,140]: And instead take those money redirect it back to where it needs to go

[00:44:03,680]: Then you’re going to be able to get quicker access

[00:44:06,460]: Then you’re going to be able to cut oh by the way I’m also going to look at if there’s 10 sheets of paper for you to get in let’s see if we can do that with four sheets of paper

[00:44:16,120]: Let’s see if we can ask better questions and get better results

[00:44:24,640]: Let’s talk about the suicide

[00:44:28,060]: What do you want to say about that

[00:44:31,480]: Whatever we have been doing for the last five years for whatever good there was and there’s been some explain to me how in the past five years six years of budgets we’ve spent approximately 15 billion and the number is basically unchanged

[00:44:47,740]: We spent 588 million 588 million on preventive supposed suicide

[00:44:56,680]: We spent 2 3 billion in what we’ll call treatment of either the mental health aspect of that issues that they’ve had with hurting themselves other things like that 2 3 billion

[00:45:09,540]: So 3 billion total roughly in suicide

[00:45:14,180]: And yet our numbers are not changing Sean

[00:45:17,020]: We go from a low of about 63 6400 up to almost 7 000 a year

[00:45:21,780]: Now you may have mentioned earlier of what’s the real number

[00:45:24,280]: That’s an arguable debate and I’ve heard this from others it actually may be 25 30 depending on how you classify overdose and how you or also frankly in rural communities

[00:45:35,080]: I grew up in a rural community

[00:45:37,140]: Suicide is something you don’t talk about and you get some of these medical examiners and coroners in these smaller counties they may not they’ll call it accidental or something else so we may not know because it’s just that stigma of suicide that’s attached

[00:45:52,300]: So what I’m looking at here is what’s actually working

[00:45:55,380]: What we’re doing frankly in just all fairness ain’t working

[00:45:58,360]: You can’t do that much this long and say it’s working

[00:46:01,520]: So what we’re trying to do now and what I’m beginning to do is I want to know why that 588 million’s going for I want to know what are we supposedly doing to and don’t just tell me you’re putting a Facebook ad out there don’t tell me that you’re running the Call the Crisis Line number out there which are all fine and good but where are we at actually getting to the members who are listening to your podcast who have no want to go to the VA

[00:46:31,940]: Because here’s the other part of that

[00:46:33,960]: Whether the number’s 17 or the number’s 24 or even higher the statistics are pretty good that say that 50 of those folks have never been touched by the VA 50

[00:46:47,860]: That’s just unacceptable

[00:46:50,040]: So my one of the things I’m starting right here with you I’m starting with other things that we’re going to be doing I’m trying to reach that veteran who’s sitting out there who’s saying you know screw the VA

[00:47:01,840]: I went over there one time and they didn’t even treat me like I was human or that was their perception

[00:47:06,180]: You know look everybody’s got a perception and that may be your perception that you wasn’t treated well it may have been a bad day for them bad day for you

[00:47:13,540]: But then they’re sitting in their home and they’re self medicating or they’re going off doing destructive things they’re going to end up to the point where they don’t see a reason to go on

[00:47:25,900]: But if they listen to your podcast they listen to mine I’m going to sit here and say look folks let’s get help

[00:47:30,500]: Let me send somebody go to an organization you trust call your battle buddy call your airman call your wingman whoever it is

[00:47:36,460]: We got to get out of this stigma that we don’t touch people that are saying they have problems

[00:47:44,020]: I mean think about your friend that you just talked about

[00:47:46,280]: He’s not going to run out in the front yard and say hey I’m really not able to function today

[00:47:50,960]: They’re not going to do that

[00:47:52,080]: But we got to find them we got to hit ways that people like his wife and others have the ability to reach out to somebody and say here’s real ways we can help

[00:48:01,340]: And get back to the simple fact of hey are we actually treating this as what it is

[00:48:05,780]: And that is a serious condition brought on many times by things that were out of their control or what they saw or what they didn’t

[00:48:13,940]: I was in Nashville today at National Songwriters Association

[00:48:18,700]: Some folks I’ve known for years who write country music some of them write songs all over the world for stuff you hear on the radio all the time

[00:48:27,040]: And there’s a couple of organizations that work with veterans American Song there’s some others where they get veterans together and who have had years of not being able to express themselves not being able they feel isolated

[00:48:38,300]: And they get them down they start talking with other veterans and they start writing a song

[00:48:42,260]: They say write a song

[00:48:43,680]: And they show them and talk to them about how to do that

[00:48:48,340]: I had a veteran today who told me he said he said been married 50 something years

[00:48:57,860]: He said I was in Vietnam

[00:49:00,660]: He said I never my wife never hardly knew anything about what happened

[00:49:05,000]: He said I just didn’t talk about it

[00:49:07,920]: And he said 10 years ago somebody finally got to me and he said I sat down and I wrote this song

[00:49:12,720]: He said and it was not the song itself it’s the action of putting it on paper

[00:49:17,100]: And he says now I’m able to talk to her

[00:49:19,600]: I’m able to release that

[00:49:22,220]: There’s another gentleman this is a Vietnam veteran there’s another gentleman there who again his kids and you know the saying how many times do people want to say tell me a war story Sean tell me what you did tell me what’s cool

[00:49:33,040]: This guy was saying he said he didn’t want to talk about it

[00:49:35,960]: And his kids would ask him granddad dad what are you doing

[00:49:38,660]: And he couldn’t talk about it

[00:49:39,560]: He got in this position

[00:49:41,060]: In a power of a song where he wrote down what happened to him at Tet way back when when he saw his buddies burned up in a tank

[00:49:56,200]: When he saw that and you could see it as if it was today in his eyes

[00:50:01,480]: But then he was able to say if you want to know it then listen to this song

[00:50:05,880]: Listen to the words that I wrote down

[00:50:07,440]: That’s a totally different way to look at this stuff

[00:50:09,720]: We’ve got to reach the veteran where they are

[00:50:12,340]: And if it’s hunting let’s take them let’s match them with somebody that can talk to them and get them out on a duck blind somewhere or get them out in the field

[00:50:20,560]: If they can’t if they want to do exercise let them do that

[00:50:22,820]: Or if they just want to sit and get coffee or they want to go have a beer do something

[00:50:28,580]: Instead of just spending 588 million on programming let’s see if our program is actually being effective

[00:50:34,740]: I’m just not going to sit here

[00:50:36,020]: I may do a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong in the next few years but I will tell you this I will not sit here for the next four years and spend that amount of money and do the same damn thing

[00:50:46,320]: I’m just not going to do it

[00:50:48,980]: How will you know if it’s working

[00:50:51,440]: We’ll see if my numbers go down

[00:50:52,800]: I’m going to see how many people are responding

[00:50:54,920]: I’m going to see if we’re reaching people that we’ve not reached before

[00:50:57,160]: Because if we’re starting to touch them then we’re going to start seeing them into our systems and our

[00:51:01,480]: I’m looking to use nonprofits

[00:51:02,600]: By the way I’m non discriminatory here

[00:51:04,940]: I don’t care if they come to the VA or not

[00:51:06,820]: I want them to come to the VA because we got resources to help them

[00:51:09,060]: But if they’re willing to go to a nonprofit somewhere if they’re willing to go down to their church somewhere but they heard about it from this weird guy from Georgia who happens to be the secretary of VA to say go get help it’s okay

[00:51:20,160]: Then we’re going to see our communities put back together better

[00:51:22,760]: We’re going to see people and families come back together

[00:51:25,040]: You’re going to hear it from your buddies

[00:51:26,500]: I’m going to hear it from mine

[00:51:28,480]: Because those people we hear about them but they’re not getting help that they need because it’s so quiet

[00:51:36,280]: I’ll use an example for you

[00:51:38,240]: My daughter has spina bifida

[00:51:39,960]: She was born she’s 32 years old now

[00:51:42,920]: If she were to come in here and she rolled in her little chair she’ll knock socks off of you

[00:51:47,920]: She’s got a smile

[00:51:49,100]: She’s never walked down her life

[00:51:51,380]: I mean you know I’ve watched her not experience the quote normal you know going on dates and getting married and all that

[00:51:58,600]: I just you know I’ve watched it

[00:52:01,580]: Broke my heart

[00:52:02,760]: For her she just gets up and goes every day

[00:52:05,060]: She goes to work five days a week

[00:52:06,680]: She works at a hospital

[00:52:08,340]: But if you were to come in here or we were to take her over here to the mall people would come up to her and they’d feel sorry for her

[00:52:14,820]: They’d try to help her

[00:52:15,680]: They’d try to open a door

[00:52:16,840]: They’d try to help her get to what she needs

[00:52:20,160]: But if I was to stand up in that same mall and say folks I don’t know what’s wrong but my mind’s broke

[00:52:29,860]: We don’t look to open a door for that person

[00:52:32,440]: We don’t look to run to them

[00:52:34,260]: Too much in our time is we’re moving away from them

[00:52:38,560]: We’ve gotta change the whole scenario here especially in the VA and our veteran community

[00:52:42,680]: For brothers and sisters who we served with they’ve gotta know it’s okay

[00:52:46,820]: You’re not gonna be wrong in reaching out and giving somebody some help

[00:52:53,100]: And the person who needs the help needs to see somebody willing to sort of run the mile with them

[00:52:58,980]: If we can get that that’s how I’m gonna see results

[00:53:01,000]: That’s how I’m gonna see bottom line

[00:53:02,200]: That’s how I’m gonna see that our vet centers are getting maybe some more people

[00:53:06,200]: Or I’m gonna hear it in the community

[00:53:08,520]: I’m gonna see it in our judges who are actually seeing these people in front of them because they’ve crashed their car while they were drunk

[00:53:15,440]: They’ve gotten to a domestic violence situation because they didn’t know who they were hitting and they were hitting their own kid

[00:53:23,280]: This isn’t playtime anymore for me Sean

[00:53:26,280]: We’ve got to seriously deal with this in this country and we gotta deal with our veterans

[00:53:30,620]: So for me that’s the way I’m gonna hopefully see it play out

[00:53:33,380]: Did I hear you say that you planned on using nonprofits to help

[00:53:37,200]: Yes I’ll use anybody that’s willing to help

[00:53:39,620]: I’ll use anybody willing to help

[00:53:41,180]: If that’s a VSO one of the big six VSOs or any of those if they’re willing to get in the game and help and try new ways I’m ready to help

[00:53:48,680]: I’m ready to use nonprofits

[00:53:50,220]: I’m ready to use somebody that’s willing to come in and we’ll work the barriers and we’ll do whatever it takes to get there

[00:53:55,480]: Because here’s the situation

[00:53:58,360]: We’re looking at a generation that is not functioning the way we did 20 years ago even 10 15 years ago because they’re more influencer driven they’re more socially media driven they’re more we just saw that in the last presidential election

[00:54:17,860]: That Donald Trump won because he reached voters who nobody were going after

[00:54:21,840]: He was speaking to them on platforms that they had never heard before

[00:54:26,740]: So why would I not use things like this or nonprofits who are and I can name the many but I wouldn’t want to forget anybody

[00:54:35,220]: I mean you’ve got a lot of them out there that are putting good money to the actual end or putting lead on the target so to speak down range and they’re using very little of it for administrative cost

[00:54:46,160]: And we don’t do that

[00:54:47,780]: So if you’ve got organizations that have always been doing it they want to try new ways I’m all for it

[00:54:53,460]: But you’ve also got to be willing to get in and dig a little bit and know that you don’t always have all the answers

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[00:58:35,162]: As far as care and some of these other treatments that we’re talking about is there any way that the VA can partner with somebody other than I don’t know who you guys partner with the American Legion

[00:58:49,302]: We listed a whole bunch of them that the modern day warfighter veteran does not use anymore

[00:58:55,622]: They’re all using we are all using mom and pop nonprofits

[00:59:01,042]: So I brought up how are you guys going to get how are you going to get people into the VA system more and get them to their initial appointments where they get their disability

[00:59:15,742]: Is it going to be it sounds like it’s going to be very bureaucratic and hard to push through

[00:59:20,762]: So is there a way to get nonprofits like Veterans Advocacy Services some type of a grant or give the veterans some type to where they can hey Peggy knows the system

[00:59:37,982]: She can get guys through she can help guys through she can I mean is there a way that the VA can partner with these smaller mom and pop organizations and fund them so that they can get a bigger team and to get more vets pushed through

[00:59:54,802]: Yeah look I think one of the things here is that doing that in such a way that encourages good work

[01:00:04,122]: Now look some of our VSOs they offer free help we’ll get you through and I’m not criticizing that in a situation

[01:00:09,962]: But many times they’re willing to go through a situation why are we having to use so much help

[01:00:16,402]: I’m actually attaching it hopefully attacking it at a different end

[01:00:20,622]: Why do we need as I said earlier the VA whisper why can’t we do this easier

[01:00:27,082]: But until then until then yeah I’ll look at any way I can to help organizations that are helping veterans get the services they need without having to join an organization without having to do anything else just get what they have earned

[01:00:40,442]: And also I can tell you why

[01:00:41,942]: Okay

[01:00:42,982]: Because it’s like I mentioned before nobody trusts the VA

[01:00:46,442]: When they go to somebody like Peggy she’s like a protector

[01:00:51,922]: Guys like me just about everybody that’s been on the show that’s been to war they trust her they know that she’s going to protect them through that process

[01:01:00,722]: They know that if something goes bad Peggy’s got it

[01:01:04,522]: You know what I mean

[01:01:05,242]: That’s why that’s happening

[01:01:06,882]: And that’s where we’ve got to start rebuilding trust in a system that has free I can’t explain this enough the frustration I have with a lot a lot of people I’ve got 480 000 there’s many many many many dedicated people who want to help our veterans period okay

[01:01:27,502]: They are

[01:01:28,342]: I promised them as Secretary of VA that they will not have a better advocate for the good work that they do and to do it right to fight to make sure we’re doing what we need to do

[01:01:38,182]: But I’m also not going to tolerate status quo

[01:01:40,422]: I’m also not going to tolerate lower standards

[01:01:43,442]: We’re going to have higher standards

[01:01:44,602]: We’re going to push this up

[01:01:47,982]: But at the same point in time it’s going to take a holistic look at everything that we’re doing

[01:01:55,562]: It can’t simply be how do we fix the third party helpers here

[01:01:59,162]: How do we fix the system itself

[01:02:02,582]: Instead of me having to hire a driver to get me to the grocery store because I don’t know how to drive how about we make it better to where I learn how to drive myself

[01:02:13,762]: And I think that’s going to be but again there’s going to be parties and equities that that’s not the way they’ve done it

[01:02:21,402]: That’s not the way they do their business model

[01:02:24,642]: Because if they have people that come to them they either get help from outside agencies or other stuff

[01:02:31,162]: I’m finding a whole different world that I’m just getting into the background of of how we’re working this stuff

[01:02:37,682]: And folks if you’ve earned a benefit take your benefit

[01:02:41,762]: You’ve earned the benefit but also there’s a lot of them who are encouraged to go back and go back

[01:02:46,982]: And I think that frustrates a lot of veterans

[01:02:49,182]: And you’ve heard this like I have I want it to be known veterans are not victims

[01:02:54,682]: We’re not

[01:02:56,142]: We chose we went into the profession we’ve done that

[01:02:59,942]: And now many of us and you and others you’ve talked about we may have conditions now we may have stuff that have cost us in that time of service

[01:03:08,642]: And that’s why the system was set up is to say okay we’re going to do something

[01:03:12,942]: The history of the VA was really set up for our veterans who were outside of cities and outside of areas where there were not hospitals

[01:03:20,562]: The VA was set up because we had so many coming back in from World War I and then of course as it expanded through World War II that weren’t in areas where hospitals were

[01:03:28,682]: So that’s how this sort of all started

[01:03:31,002]: We just sort of lost our roots a little bit

[01:03:34,362]: Because it’s easier just to say well it’s for the veterans so let’s just throw some money at it and let’s throw some more people at it

[01:03:41,522]: But then let’s legislate it to death that it can’t get outside these boxes because we want to make sure that we’re still in control

[01:03:51,002]: That’s a big part of government issue that we have not just the VA but a lot of agencies

[01:03:57,342]: So how would you partner with a nonprofit for that

[01:03:59,822]: Well I think there’s ways that we can look at that I’m exploring right now

[01:04:02,842]: We can do things together

[01:04:07,322]: I can say look this is a group that we’re meeting with

[01:04:11,822]: What’s your ideas

[01:04:12,582]: Bringing those ideas to me

[01:04:13,882]: I’ve already met with several that are saying we have an example right now that is coming out and without getting into deep details about it that they’ve had issues with data collection they’ve had issues with stuff

[01:04:27,142]: And it should be something we should willingly be a part of

[01:04:31,262]: And for some reason the VA chose to be a stumbling block there

[01:04:34,982]: So it’s like well I’m now looking at that and saying no let’s see if we can remove those stumbling blocks

[01:04:40,182]: Let’s get the data we need

[01:04:41,642]: Let’s make sure we have this out there so that we get good answers

[01:04:45,762]: Then there’s also ways again as we look going ahead is there ways that we remove some of the bureaucratic structure find ways to then partner with as you said could it be through a grant possibly so or other ways to help other organizations help us get better

[01:05:02,242]: That’s my goal

[01:05:03,342]: I don’t want to simply put out this idea that we need a whole nother layer

[01:05:09,782]: You’ve had VSOs out here helping forever and you’ve had all these others now just bringing a sort of another layer because this group trusts this group better than this one

[01:05:17,442]: Why don’t we actually look at the root cause

[01:05:19,402]: If you came to me and you know my fingers were turning blue and I was having you know I was tingly and for some reason it looked like a circulation issue

[01:05:32,362]: Well the problem we’ve had lately is we just put your hands in warm water or we get them warm and we rub on them and they get the circulation back in them instead of realizing maybe there’s a heart problem here

[01:05:42,942]: Maybe we’re not pumping well

[01:05:44,882]: Well I want to get back to the question is is the VA heart pumping right

[01:05:48,702]: Are we putting things into place that help the veteran and not hinder the veteran

[01:05:54,382]: And are we getting to a place

[01:05:55,822]: I said this in my confirmation

[01:05:57,202]: I said I want us to become a place instead of initially to where we’re reactively no to it to a reactively let’s get there

[01:06:04,642]: Yes

[01:06:04,762]: Where we’re actively saying instead of saying you know I’m not sure we can to say I think there’s a way we’ve got to have that mindset difference to say look you have benefits you’ve earned

[01:06:16,182]: You’ve had health care you’ve earned

[01:06:17,282]: We’re here for a reason

[01:06:19,262]: But we’re not to make it harder

[01:06:21,062]: And that’s I think that’s become the adversarial system that nobody sort of talks about here that it makes it seem and again perception before anybody listened to this and screams Oh that ain’t the true world

[01:06:31,602]: No it doesn’t matter what I think you think or any other group things when the perception is it’s broken

[01:06:37,342]: When the perception is it’s bad

[01:06:38,942]: And when the perception is I’m going to get told no then that’s the reality

[01:06:42,622]: Perception is reality to veterans

[01:06:45,442]: And we’ve got to break that product

[01:06:46,822]: We got to break that cycle

[01:06:48,702]: What about nonprofits for treatments

[01:06:51,702]: There’s a lot of nonprofits out there that have that have great treatment programs that are proven to work

[01:06:57,722]: You know like I mentioned that’s that’s that’s that’s probably the biggest one that I know of that’s doing psychedelic stuff

[01:07:04,282]: There’s Tom Satterly is a former Delta guy

[01:07:06,942]: He’s got the All Secures Foundation very therapeutic experience

[01:07:11,502]: They lots of coaching that’s been working

[01:07:14,402]: I mean is there is there a way where because it sounds look I get it like you guys can’t just be like oh we’re doing Ivocaine treatments

[01:07:23,682]: Now I realize that’s going to be that’s going to be an act of Congress and the senator however works to get that through

[01:07:31,082]: But you know maybe there’s a way where where the veteran can look

[01:07:38,342]: Maybe there’s a voucher program or something where the where I want to try this nonprofit and maybe maybe those nonprofits get

[01:07:48,322]: There’s some sort of there’s something to go through you know kind of certified from the VA in the in the in the VA says to the veteran I’m not going to give you the money but when when you go to vets when you go to All Secure Foundation when you go to Veterans Advocacy Services when you go to any of these nonprofits that are approved look you want you want psychedelic therapy for your traumatic brain injury

[01:08:15,122]: We’re going to give you the voucher

[01:08:17,462]: You pick which which which nonprofit you want to use it for when they and then they email in some kind of a document that says hey we sent this person down that I mean that would just that would streamline it so fast because then those then those nonprofits don’t have to focus so much on fundraising so they can get these guys down there and women down there to do these things or or or their therapy or their whatever

[01:08:44,822]: And then the VA pays that voucher

[01:08:47,822]: Yeah

[01:08:48,262]: Is that a possibility

[01:08:49,542]: I think it’s a possibility

[01:08:50,382]: I think everything for me is on the table right now

[01:08:52,182]: And that doesn’t mean everything’s going to prove that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen

[01:08:55,622]: But for me is I want to say OK if we have these possibilities that we’re seeing you know the the the mentoring the counseling the treatment especially stuff like that are working can we partner with that

[01:09:08,102]: Can we you know what’s stopping me in my organization either either policy wise or or statutory wise what the law says I can and can’t spend money on that because there is some of that and I’m never going to say there’s not

[01:09:20,322]: But if it’s something we can now try then then I’m going to I’m going to be looking at this and we’re going and we’ve already started talking to these groups to say how can that be

[01:09:28,662]: I’m going to go to my people and say tell me what the problem is here

[01:09:31,962]: And if the answer is well we we can do that better into the I’m say no no no no no

[01:09:37,102]: You’re going to do what you’re doing

[01:09:38,382]: But why can’t I have people out here that can go try this

[01:09:41,002]: And how do we do it

[01:09:42,122]: Tell me as I’ve changed I’ve changed my entire general counsel which by the way we have a lot of lawyers

[01:09:48,242]: I’ve changed their whole mindset and to say don’t tell me no

[01:09:51,602]: Tell me how to get to yes

[01:09:52,662]: If I’m asking you to get to a problem you get me to yes because I’m an attorney as well

[01:09:56,982]: I can get you know quicker than you can get me to

[01:10:00,142]: Get me to a part where I can take what you’re giving me

[01:10:03,762]: And so I’ll go to our health people and say the same thing

[01:10:06,102]: Get me to yes

[01:10:07,142]: Don’t tell me the standard line like we found out something today

[01:10:10,042]: We had to go

[01:10:10,622]: It happens almost every day

[01:10:12,202]: I have to ask the question Sean and this is how it gets very frustrating

[01:10:16,922]: I have to ask the question is this policy from the V A

[01:10:20,802]: or is it statute from Congress

[01:10:22,722]: Because there’s a big difference here

[01:10:24,882]: Statute from Congress

[01:10:26,602]: That’s a that’s a that’s our red line

[01:10:28,422]: OK I can’t I have to operate within the law policy I made

[01:10:33,842]: I mean you know if there’s a policy that you can’t have ice cream on Fridays well we made the policy

[01:10:38,562]: Guess what

[01:10:38,802]: You got ice cream on Fridays

[01:10:39,882]: I can change that all day long

[01:10:42,262]: So we’ve got to now delineate because many times in the V A because they’re scared of criticism they’re scared of of what you know members of the Congress or or the media or unions or anything would say about them

[01:10:56,122]: Is that they much rather just say no we can’t

[01:10:59,762]: Instead of well why

[01:11:01,362]: And then if you ask them well the law just won’t let us do that

[01:11:04,302]: Well policy and law

[01:11:06,302]: We can change those kinds of so I’m willing to look at it from from all angles to see if we can

[01:11:11,802]: And if it’s treatments then then I think that’s where we’re going to have to make sure that we’re operating because I can’t bypass a law that says I can’t do X treatment and just give you money to go do it somewhere else

[01:11:22,502]: I understand

[01:11:23,202]: I’ve got to work that out in Congress

[01:11:24,502]: And that’s where folks like you and others that can help me and also working with Bobby Kennedy over at HHS to get some of this stuff approved in different ways

[01:11:32,522]: Having a president you know who would be willing to to say look let’s do whatever we can

[01:11:37,402]: That’s just when it’s going to take the the push of the veterans to say these are the things that are working for us

[01:11:43,702]: Doesn’t work for everybody but at least for these it is working

[01:11:47,102]: I hope you’re taking this in because I am the guy you’re trying to reach

[01:11:54,682]: Yeah

[01:11:54,722]: And I’m and not only would that work with the treatment but it would also help build the trust back within the VA because because guys like me don’t trust the VA

[01:12:04,862]: We just don’t

[01:12:06,702]: But we do trust Tom Satterly who is a retired Delta operator

[01:12:13,022]: He’s seen it all

[01:12:14,322]: He has seen it all

[01:12:15,302]: And I know that he has my best interest because he’s my friend or my friend is his friend

[01:12:21,242]: And everybody looks up to guys like Tom or Marcus Capone who’s running vets with the psychedelic stuff

[01:12:28,462]: It’s if if if the VA can be an interim and say yes we’re aware of what they’re doing

[01:12:35,542]: They’re on our list

[01:12:36,642]: We have a partnership with him

[01:12:38,342]: We want you to do that

[01:12:40,242]: Here go

[01:12:41,602]: That that is a that is a big step in getting guys like me to trust the VA again

[01:12:50,642]: And then hopefully all these nonprofits can go away because the problem solved

[01:12:55,662]: And once this shit’s all passed through Congress then that we don’t even need that those nonprofits anymore because hopefully they all wind up going away because the problem’s fixed

[01:13:05,482]: But in the interim it’s a great way one to get the treatment two to build the trust back

[01:13:11,102]: I think you’re right

[01:13:12,182]: And I think that’s what I want to look at

[01:13:13,482]: That’s why I’m out in the field

[01:13:14,642]: That’s why we’re doing things like this

[01:13:17,622]: It at times five weeks feels like I’ve been there five years

[01:13:20,162]: And in five weeks I realized my God I’ve been there five weeks and going there

[01:13:24,422]: And I’ve had in just in that amount of time we’ve had to deal with our first sort of contract looks where we found we went through two percent of our contracts two percent and found almost five hundred eighty billion nine or a billion and a half about a billion and a half that are contracts that were were non mission critical non mission essential

[01:13:43,122]: That’s just in two percent

[01:13:44,222]: We’ve had to deal with that

[01:13:45,042]: I’ve had to deal with the probationary firings which helped us get begin this thing get started

[01:13:51,222]: We’re dealing things and you mentioned it earlier by the way we’ve had the issue of the flags

[01:13:57,662]: We’ve we’ve changed that policy so that we’re we’re back to one force under the American appeal

[01:14:02,362]: W flag is all we’re doing

[01:14:03,662]: We we’ve took the D out

[01:14:06,282]: We’re doing that today even just as we’re coming on

[01:14:09,822]: We changed the policy on transgender

[01:14:11,582]: You’re not going to be getting your sex changed at the VA anymore

[01:14:15,962]: If you’re currently in treatment we’re going to continue that

[01:14:18,542]: What was started before we ever got there just as the sex deaths did in his side

[01:14:22,962]: But because we don’t want anything bad to happen to somebody who’s under those treatments

[01:14:26,602]: But you know from this point on you’re not going to we’re not changing your sex

[01:14:29,722]: You’re going to get it

[01:14:30,302]: We’re going to treat you with respect and dignity if you come to the VA for all your for your services

[01:14:34,362]: But we’re just not going to be participating in changing your sex

[01:14:38,142]: That’s not what our services are for

[01:14:40,582]: And everything that we’re taking money wise away to that would take away from money that I could be spending on something else that are helping vets directly

[01:14:47,282]: We’re not even getting primary health care

[01:14:49,322]: That’s the things that we’re looking at

[01:14:50,622]: So we’re in the process of doing as much of this as we possibly can

[01:14:56,022]: And so we’re taking every new idea

[01:14:58,462]: I’m taking it back

[01:14:59,682]: Our team is starting to process it

[01:15:02,222]: And we’re working toward this end of making it a much more accessible much more idea friendly if you would VA that restores trust

[01:15:13,162]: I’m hoping that restoring trust in the VA is me using social media in every possible way I can to tell people what’s actually going on

[01:15:21,262]: And this is that coming on your show doing other shows and going into the media and going on and saying guys no I’m not going to let senators lie to you anymore

[01:15:29,762]: I’m not going to let union members

[01:15:32,462]: I’m not going to let the newspapers and legacy media tell you stories which they by the way can’t back up

[01:15:38,302]: This is what I’ve been fighting

[01:15:39,622]: I know we’re on the I know we’re getting closer to the target because the because the flack’s getting a lot heavier because they don’t want us on this Sean

[01:15:48,462]: I mean think about this

[01:15:49,542]: If you redo this and get it done

[01:15:52,942]: In any circle of life in the federal government every other is if you talk about a problem you develop a group that says this is my problem

[01:16:07,462]: And then all along you never really get to solving the problem

[01:16:11,582]: Then what you’ve done is you’ve built a group

[01:16:14,222]: This perpetuates itself on what the problem

[01:16:17,922]: So I don’t care what group it is out there

[01:16:20,042]: If they’re not sort of in many ways trying to either put themselves out of business so to speak because they’re solved a problem as you said or they’re perpetuating the problem and then claiming they’re the help for that problem

[01:16:32,882]: That’s what we’re fighting against

[01:16:34,662]: And I want to make sure that we’re in a position to where veterans understand that they at least from the secretary level here and what’s going to hopefully permeate down through the ranks is that this is a this is not acceptable where we are

[01:16:47,362]: There’s a lot of things we do well and there’s a lot of things that frankly the VA does probably better than private health care anywhere else because we just have more experience in it

[01:16:57,762]: But then there’s a lot of things that we don’t

[01:17:00,242]: So why aren’t we partnering with the community

[01:17:03,522]: Craziest story I heard

[01:17:05,802]: We actually have hospitals are sitting across the street literally across the street from from world class oncology cancer centers

[01:17:14,262]: And we’re worrying about hiring cancer doctors at the VA

[01:17:17,582]: I said that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard in my life

[01:17:20,662]: Just send them across the street and contract the care across the street

[01:17:24,062]: I don’t need to hire the doctor

[01:17:25,422]: They’ve already got them over here

[01:17:26,902]: But that’s the kind of thinking Sean

[01:17:29,402]: That’s your thinking when your mindset is organizational

[01:17:33,522]: And not patient or in our case veteran centric that’s the kind of things you get

[01:17:40,922]: What was your conversation like with Bobby Kennedy about psychedelics

[01:17:45,062]: Eye opening because you know of course he is very you know make America healthy again you know getting people you know getting the food additives out getting those kind of stuff

[01:17:55,762]: And I asked him specifically we were talking about this

[01:17:57,842]: I said psychedelics because he’s you know his agency would have some some say in some you know the studies and stuff on that

[01:18:04,842]: And it was really interesting

[01:18:06,962]: Bobby starts talking about this and he says one he said I was a heroin addict

[01:18:11,882]: He said putting stuff in your body he said for me to to begin to talk about you know having something put in my body to quote fix he said I’m just he said I’m just that’s just nowhere close for me he said because of my past he said but then he wanted to explain a family member of his child of his who had an experience using psychedelics that changed his life drastically

[01:18:37,502]: And he said I would have never thought this would have never thought it sort of I let him I will let him explain his the way he sees it but he said this is working

[01:18:47,842]: He said I’ve changed my mind about this because he said I actually see it happening and see it work

[01:18:53,662]: And he said in my own you know flesh and blood

[01:18:57,342]: And I think that’s the part that you know for me began to be exciting a little bit and to see here’s someone who is so sensitive to those issues of medication

[01:19:10,562]: And one of the things too is and I think you see this as well the answer to people many times if they’re having you know episodes and just this idea that the ideas that you can medicate them to health is a problematic to me

[01:19:27,822]: I just believe it is

[01:19:29,502]: And it doesn’t mean that medicines don’t work

[01:19:31,262]: That’s not what I’m saying

[01:19:31,982]: I’m not saying go stop your medication

[01:19:33,322]: I’m not saying don’t give up

[01:19:34,962]: But but is there other ways to help in that regard that can reduce that dependency

[01:19:39,382]: And if we can it’d be great

[01:19:41,522]: So Bobby’s the same way

[01:19:43,082]: So for us it was I got a partnership now that he and I are going to continue to work on from the research side and from the other also bringing hopefully bringing DOD involved a little bit in this as well because that’s part of our problem

[01:19:55,422]: Sean we haven’t really talked about this

[01:19:58,262]: The transition from from DOD to

[01:20:03,182]: So they and or what we would say V A our side is really bad we don’t do this well we don’t and it’s not just the V A

[01:20:11,082]: health or V A

[01:20:11,662]: benefit not just the benefit is we’re not giving a lot of our young service members and even older service members the transition that they need

[01:20:20,822]: You know we send them through the programs

[01:20:22,262]: We you know you do the briefings

[01:20:23,942]: You’ve been there you know and and is it really working

[01:20:26,882]: And the answer has to be that probably it’s not working like it should because we’re seeing you know too many people end up in suicidal issues

[01:20:36,742]: We’re seeing too much end up homelessness issues or you know financial breakdowns marriage breakdowns because as much as for those of us in the military who can gripe about the structure at times you take away the structure

[01:20:49,282]: And even the the harshest rebel you know who who rebelled against structure would say I need that structure

[01:20:56,562]: So I think that’s where it’s really changed for me and looking at how we do this and how we go about it

[01:21:04,322]: So again having partners like that is going to be whether it be a D O D whether it be at HHS or you know with us at the V A is going to be very important moving forward

[01:21:14,002]: What is the

[01:21:16,882]: What is the plan like with

[01:21:21,542]: Psychedelics what is what is the plan moving forward

[01:21:24,122]: How does it get introduced into the V A

[01:21:26,522]: What needs to happen

[01:21:27,622]: Well the first thing we’re going to do is and I’m getting this information now

[01:21:30,922]: Again this is a part of this

[01:21:32,542]: I’ve already had a few who came in who’ve actually talked about it who want to talk about this more

[01:21:36,502]: And then we got this study that’s being done in our in conjunction up in New York

[01:21:42,482]: We I want to see if there is a possibility to expand that program

[01:21:45,782]: Where is it right now

[01:21:46,762]: Again some of this I’m getting

[01:21:48,462]: And again I’m not trying to to be anything evasive here

[01:21:51,602]: I’ve got to get the knowledge of what we’re doing and what we have not done

[01:21:54,762]: So I’m going to get that information and say I know what the program you’re talking about you know I’ve heard about it you know as well

[01:22:01,202]: So let’s get data on that you know have our people start you know reaching out across the board to say OK what is out there

[01:22:07,022]: Then we’ve got to also then take that and look at what is the structural limitations that I have

[01:22:13,462]: What is the V A

[01:22:15,102]: structural problems to either entering into a larger study or entering into a trial basis or you know basically possibly even you know as you said early voucher funding or whatever that may be

[01:22:26,502]: What are my structural limitations that Congress has put on me there

[01:22:29,882]: Is there structural limitations

[01:22:31,642]: It says you can use X dollars for this but you can’t use X dollars for that

[01:22:36,002]: OK

[01:22:36,382]: And then if there is and we find enough evidences in our place to do it then I’m going to go to Congress

[01:22:43,482]: I’m going to go to the House the House Veterans Affairs Committee

[01:22:46,502]: I’m going to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee

[01:22:47,982]: And I’m going to go to the to the leadership and say look these are things that I need changed

[01:22:53,042]: Y all may not be able to agree on a lot of things here but these are some things I’m hopefully you can agree on

[01:22:57,422]: Give me the statutory ability

[01:23:00,282]: And even if you want to do it on a limited basis to start off with I’ll take that so that I can actually start trying

[01:23:07,402]: If I find out I don’t have some of the statutory limitations then I want to know what policy wise may be hindering this

[01:23:16,342]: Or is there a policy that can make sure that we’re working with partners to do this

[01:23:22,742]: Now again you said it earlier

[01:23:24,962]: The fiduciary role I have I take very seriously you get close to a vet you get close to and and and Sean you may have heard me say this already in the Senate in this discussion I call on my vets and my employees

[01:23:36,342]: I don’t do that to belittle

[01:23:37,742]: I don’t do that

[01:23:38,382]: I just it’s personalized to me

[01:23:41,382]: So if you get close to them we’re going to make sure you’re doing it right

[01:23:45,102]: My fiduciary duty is I got to make sure that no matter how great you think your program is I got to make sure that we’re not opening something up that that nobody else has seen

[01:23:55,762]: And it would and that’s just due diligence kind of thing

[01:23:58,502]: So we’re going to make that happen

[01:24:00,322]: One of the things that’s concerning me and I want to sidetrack to what we’re talking about here is there’s a lot of residential treatment facilities in the private sector now that because of wait times for some mental health issues that are now popping up

[01:24:14,542]: OK I got no problem with us

[01:24:16,402]: And Congress is sort of backing this up and we’re putting some more money in there for it

[01:24:20,322]: But one of the concerns is has have we created a cottage industry

[01:24:25,676]: For this now because Look money in DC is like water on a pavement

[01:24:30,676]: It’s gonna go to it’s gonna go to its lowest part It’s gonna find its way out

[01:24:34,636]: Okay so if all of a sudden people here there’s money in this Then they’re gonna be there’s always gonna rise to meet that demand but is that demand always good

[01:24:45,216]: No it’s not because they’re doing it quickly

[01:24:47,856]: They’re doing it for the money They’re doing it for the you know the possibly not every one of them but probably some so we’re having to deal with that Right now in those kind of programs and I’m having to deal with our folks to say are we making sure that if we’re using

[01:24:59,836]: These are they up to standard that we need to be at because we’re if we don’t Then we’re gonna be giving money to things that aren’t working and in the end hurting us in the long run I think that’s something that I’ve got to be aware of

[01:25:11,076]: So for me it’s really goes down to that That’s where we’re already starting We’re gonna have more meetings as we go about this to make sure we’re getting the information and as quickly as possible Start to find those solutions that we put that we can do something with would advocacy help at all Does it does it help you to get

[01:25:29,036]: Veterans that have been through X Y Z treatments in front of Congress to vouch Yeah it never hurts It never hurts and to do that because again the bet I’ve said this for years The best spokesman for anything is the satisfied customer you know And I think that’s the the part in the recognition that it may or may not be for everybody but for me this work And so in conjunction with what hopeful we’re gonna do over the next few weeks and maybe come on to see what are our limitations

[01:25:57,916]: Beginning the process to say hey this is work for me I’m not sure where we’re at in the process

[01:26:02,916]: But mr

[01:26:03,216]: Congressman miss miss congressman or you know madam senator senator What I want you to know this is work for me I just want to give you this information and I would appreciate if you know help the secretary find us a way To this I believe this could help others

[01:26:16,456]: That’s always a good I would never turn anybody down to talk about what they have I mean the reason I’m asking is earlier you’re talking about how Media

[01:26:25,156]: Oh yeah I could give you about this stuff

[01:26:26,936]: And so would it would it would a hearing with a Thousand I mean you’re talking to the largest veteran population in the world right now on this show and so would it help if there was some type of a hearing at Congress and you brought in a Thousand vets that have been through different tree you know whatever whatever you’re advocating for change wise To bring in people that have actually that has actually worked for in front of Congress Televised here it is

[01:26:58,476]: Yep media put this on Yeah I think we could I think that’s something definitely working with Congress and working with the the two committees in particular to To say as we go forward here’s things that we we want to emphasize and some of that’s been done a little bit But I think it could be done more I’m not going to downplay that there’s not been an interest in Congress about this But it’s not just the VA committee

[01:27:18,776]: There’s it’s the energy in commerce which does a lot of the health care stuff and everything else So there’s different ways But yeah I think those are definitely ways if we can get partnership with the Congress to say are there better ways to do this

[01:27:31,256]: And and I think I frankly I think it’d be a Republican and Democrat Coming together on it

[01:27:36,596]: I think you’re gonna see both parties be willing to look at stuff that work You’re gonna have some on both ends who say no we’re gonna touch this or or no this is bad But you’re gonna have enough in the middle to say well let’s at least listen to it so I think as we progress in the next little bit with our information and then working with Chairman Boston the house and the committee and chairman Moran and the other side to say hey you know We’ve got some ideas here

[01:28:00,976]: Is this something we could get you to take a look at we can make sure you have all the You know the the witnesses you want in dealing with this I think it’d be definitely something now

[01:28:11,296]: I’m not gonna also fool anybody you start dealing with everybody’s Sort of piece of the pie out there you know Nonprofits VSOs everybody start shuffling

[01:28:23,056]: You’ll make a lot of people nervous on mm hmm because again you’re dealing in livelihood So to speak with with stuff that they’re doing and how they’ve done it and do we need to change and not change

[01:28:33,216]: I’m just not I’m not bought and sold to anybody I’m bought and sold to the veteran getting the help that they need and not dying anymore So look it’s this is where we got to have it and right now the bigger fights that we’ve got to have is getting a Structural basis

[01:28:49,516]: These are things that we can work on but bringing it back to where we sort of started this whole thing is I’ve got to work on getting the VA in The best possible shape it can be To actually do its mission and right now we’re probably a little more than probably we are heavy and Where our allocation of employees are

[01:29:14,096]: We’re allocation and where our contracts have been spent and how the money is being spent and should be spent differently Those are the things that we’re working on very hard right now But again when you got Congress who has put this money out there telling everybody it’s gonna work But the reality is it’s not they’re gonna be very hesitant to be told that what they did was wrong or to do it better and So we’re fighting those battles right now that are keeping me away From dealing with some of these other issues On how can we you know find new and inventive ways to do things

[01:29:50,156]: How can we actually try things that haven’t been tried before

[01:29:52,996]: So I’m fighting a bunch of battles on different different levels right now and wherever veterans can help That’s where I would love to have them be a part of this this solution

[01:30:03,936]: Yeah it’s just a damn shame You know you got the entire veteran population that’s screaming

[01:30:08,616]: We need help This is how you help us and then you got the fucking bureaucrats that are getting in the way that are slander and whatever’s happening in the media and it’s just it’s I think that’s what makes it so frustrating is We know what we need and we know what we want and we can’t get it done because some fucking Politician in DC who didn’t never step a foot on a fucking combat Ever never is making the decisions for us and it pisses us off Yeah and you know but earlier you had mentioned about community health care

[01:30:40,676]: Yeah how does that how is it working now

[01:30:43,096]: And what would you like to see happen

[01:30:44,976]: It’s it’s not working as good as it should I believe and I think this is where We need to make it easier and I think and again I look at this generationally and and this and I don’t mean to Put everybody in a pigeonhole here but we’re dealing with different generations of veterans

[01:31:01,716]: Okay

[01:31:02,156]: I still got World War two veterans I still got Korean veterans have still have a lot of Vietnam veterans And then there’s a sort of that if you if you know your history sort of that lull time that 70s and 80s There was sort of after the Vietnam before Gulf War That is a veteran that is has a lot of different needs that we’re in a lot of different things But just there’s sort of a quiet veteran that mentioned middle and then you sort of pick up with Gulf War and then G what

[01:31:26,976]: Okay Think about that for a second you go from boomers

[01:31:32,016]: We’re not even boomers

[01:31:33,336]: You know you got pre boomers To the greatest generation through boomers through X through everything else the the mentality of those generations and how they interact with the VA Is very different and so the Issues of the older ones are more Attracted to the VA centers themselves the health the hospitals the C box They want that care there if as they get older someone can’t drive as far they can’t get that health So it’s more advantageous for them to go to a local eye doctor instead of driving 80 miles to the to the VA Where they’ve always been forever That’s a help but then you get into that Gulf War G what veteran

[01:32:13,776]: who has visions of the VA From their moms or dads or from others from the Vietnam era which they were they they don’t want any part of that But they won’t still the help especially if they’re struggling with financially or something else They want to have the health care that they need and by the way we’ve got to do a better job I’m gonna take a little turn here for say we’ve got to do a better job at Preventive health for veterans

[01:32:40,836]: We don’t do a very good job at this right now We were trying but I’ve talked to our folks So like my generation and others that we have the issues of health care mental health But just the basics of getting our diabetes under control

[01:32:53,096]: Make sure we’re still eating right

[01:32:54,516]: Make sure we’re doing the things that Run our cost up long term and also take away quality of life if we can do that in the VA system Then we’re gonna not only save money We’re also gonna help people you know in the long run too from losing fingers losing arm especially the diabetic stuff We’re two and a half more times than the average population for for diabetes

[01:33:14,636]: We’re much more high Protensity for hypertension and blood pressure cholesterol those kind of things

[01:33:20,336]: Those are areas that we got to fix But if they’re not willing to go into the VA to get it or have been turned off from the VA as you have Then the community care needs to be accessed in my opinion more readily Now the first thing I’m getting accused of Sean and I can tell you right now somebody listening right now There’s a Doug was to privatize the VA No I don’t VA will always be there for folks to get care and one way or the other it’s always gonna be there We’re not privatizing anything If I’m paying the bill for you to go to a local doctor that you feel comfortable with and get the care that you need That’s not privatization That’s simply being smart and also following the law The law says we’re supposed to but yet we’ve also got to deal in the realities that in some of our areas the private health care public health or the public hospitals all have as much of a problem with Finding doctors and nurses and all as we do and so like I know down in our part of the world where I’m from in Georgia The wait time for mental health and for psychiatry and some of the stuff like that in the private sector is actually longer than it is Unreasonably is that it is for the for the VA So to dump all of a sudden to put a lot of stuff pressure back on communities that can’t handle that Anyway we’ve got to find a balance

[01:34:40,956]: That means we have to staff up in areas that Helps us get to the points that we need to be but that’s a generational issue But right now what’s happening

[01:34:50,456]: I’ll just tell you candidly in the last Administration they moved away from that model altogether

[01:34:56,756]: They just seemingly turned their back on Getting people into the community health care if they chose it They were trying to keep all of it as more as much of it into the VA itself and if people hadn’t figured out why yet I’ll go ahead and break the Sad news is because if I keep them more in the health care then I can ask for more money I can keep more people here now There are also things that we do that others don’t do and but that’s fine But when you’re keeping them from the health care Then you’re also putting them at risk that if they’re not getting the health care out there and they’re not coming to see you Then you’re not helping them in the way that you should so that’s where community health should work That’s where our community care program should be We’re going to get it back to where that is is more applicable and there actually is some legislation right now both in the house and the Senate to actually Strengthen that by reducing some of the limitations to community care so that it’s easier to access That will help us all in the long run especially our rural health care And especially our suburban health care that sort of middle ground health care where they’re maybe not Too they’re not too far from a health VA Center but they’re not close enough and they just want to be in their community There’s not how many

[01:36:10,196]: How many of our generation want to drive 90 miles

[01:36:14,276]: To a center or a CBOC that they don’t know anybody and they go in and their peer group is much older than them probably And they’re gonna sit around say I’ll just go to my doctor down the street or I’ll go to the quick care and Just if I need something or I’ll just keep you know doing this myself Everybody wants to be able to do that

[01:36:34,396]: So that’s what we’re looking at So that’s what it so are you saying it will be a choice

[01:36:38,336]: You can either go to the VA or you can yeah that’s what I’ve been out yeah there is there there’s choice in there there’s some criteria that’s been set up you know because again with the Mileage and stuff like that but even in the house in the Senate they’re trying to refine those down to where it makes it easier to get that community care and what we’re gonna well you know what I think so is a probably the the Result of some of this and this is me speaking This is what I think you’re gonna see as it gets better and better with working with the community and working with the VA You’ll start seeing a lot more split care You’ll start seeing some for like instance

[01:37:14,016]: I want to Let’s say you had orthopedic issues or you had we’ve got some great of some of our medical centers Especially orthopedic and bone or probably something is good

[01:37:24,096]: If not better than a lot of the private house They may go there to get an orthopedic issue But they’re gonna go outside to get their cardio their cardiac care or they’re gonna go outside to get their kidney So you’ll have a split model Which is exactly what the law envisions so you don’t have to be stuck to one or the other You get the best care you can at the way that you want it got But yet we’ve got to get to a system in which we take out the middle people We take out the processes we get it streamlined into where VA has the control it needs to make sure for do surely We’re doing what we’re supposed to do but not the control to where we keep it ourselves That’s a there’s a big difference there

[01:38:05,476]: There’s a big difference in in Signing off and agreeing

[01:38:09,256]: This is the condition

[01:38:10,236]: I see this

[01:38:10,836]: I’m gonna give this person a referral Instead of saying well I see this condition but let’s see if we can get them back in in two weeks to talk to them again You know those kind of things I’ll just say this in the coming weeks

[01:38:22,436]: You’re gonna see some more of this coming out from our office

[01:38:24,696]: I would just say stay tuned It’s bigger than what I can even describe here We got some other stuff coming out and I’ll just say just bear with us there We’re working through this community care issue to overcome what we’ve had in the last four years That sounds good that sounds real reassuring what about the burn pits you know a lot of I Mean there’s all these weird cancers popping up

[01:38:51,156]: It’s like every day

[01:38:51,876]: I got a new buddy

[01:38:52,756]: That’s got cancer that diet cancer That’s got stage four cancer you know nobody knows what it’s from a lot of people think it’s from the burn pits or the the the vicinity around high explosives Breathing in that shit especially in Afghanistan you know the burning tires to keep warm

[01:39:10,146]: We breathe that in I remember I remember spitting in the sink and my spit was gray right as I had breathed in so much crap I mean it sounds like there’s something I’m going on there with the burn pits Yeah the pack tag was designed to to to address some of that

[01:39:25,786]: The problem is is look the pack that was it was a good Step into dealing with it

[01:39:30,606]: Look I’m a burn pit guys

[01:39:31,986]: Well I mean I was at blood every day in our You know while I was there you’d wake up in the morning when I first got there I don’t know if there’s a your experience I got there and I thought why is it so hazy around here

[01:39:43,186]: You know I thought I thought it was an environmental I’ve never been in the desert kind of thing So I thought but then I got to realizing it was just the constant flow of the burn air pit area

[01:39:52,826]: It was going over Our Bill our hutch is over there

[01:39:57,466]: This is what it was all the time

[01:39:58,606]: It was there all the time I remember riding by and you can see it burning it reminded me of growing up in North Georgia where everybody in our neighborhood had the 55 gallon drums and had the bottom out and you throw your trash in and you Burn your trash

[01:40:12,526]: I mean I smell the same smells and worse That I was smelling in the burn pit There was there was used to be when we were burning plastics and crap and everything in the tree in the trash bin So yeah there’s I think there’s a lot to go on there What my concern was is they sort of took this from the 9 11 if you remember the time frame wise here They had a lot of exposure

[01:40:35,066]: So President Biden at the time got up in the say the union said we’re gonna address this Well all sudden they threw a bill together which had been already been worked on But they sort of threw out everything they’ve been worked on and threw this bill together that Is part good But also very rushed

[01:40:52,746]: Let’s just I’ll be kind today

[01:40:54,466]: Okay it was rushed and Then thrust upon the VA to say here do this

[01:40:59,926]: Did you know part of that bill

[01:41:02,066]: I bet most people didn’t know do you know that that bill actually requires the VA to test every veteran

[01:41:07,486]: The test of have were you near a burn pit

[01:41:09,626]: Were you near toxic chemicals were you near to ask those basic questions that I’m supposed to ask every Veteran I Mean there’s over 18 million 19 million veterans country only 9 million roughly have been touched in any way by the VA How am I supposed to find that

[01:41:27,306]: I mean if they don’t want to be found but that’s the kind of thing that was put in the bill and I actually asked one

[01:41:33,126]: I haven’t had been a meeting the other day with someone who actually wrote that bill And they I mean they were nice about it but they didn’t really have a good answer And there’s no way for me to reach these people so I say all that to say that’s the the Conduit around pac tac was that

[01:41:52,246]: Looking for the diseases right now

[01:41:54,446]: We have basically Permissively allowed almost almost every condition under that that if you have that it’s gonna be found on the pac tac And then how treatment goes from there will be just determined on what like everything cancers of the head Which technically there is no such thing as cancers of the head

[01:42:15,446]: It’s Specifics in there but that we have a terminology of cancers of the head Okay I mean we’ve turned that when in the previous secretary added in I think it was a previous secretary and I was confirmed but the these presumptive conditions were added for hypertension and Prostate and everything else like Okay Okay I get it But you know we’re just sort of at this point just say if you’ve been near burpin or you can answer one of these questions You’re just gonna get health care And which is in some ways burden in the system a little bit and the benefit side the disability side of this But if that’s what the intent of Congress to do is just basically give everybody disability checks for that then you know That’s what you’re gonna have to look at going forward so for me

[01:43:00,106]: It’s saying okay What are the real medical consequences of this what can we do to treat this

[01:43:04,466]: This was also something my brought up

[01:43:06,626]: It was Bobby Kennedy and I actually talked about as well on From but we talked about it from a vaccine perspective but also some others you know it’s just saying you know how can we you know look at these conditions and Begin to know that what we’re seeing and and the treatments are effective to what we have And I think that’s the question sometimes never asked so for me I’m having to live with PACT Act and say how do we fix it

[01:43:29,546]: It’s a good thing to get these people in who have these cancers out of this to make sure we’re treating them Getting the health care they in the community or with us So that’s really where for the burn pit people and for the expoxy exposure people We’re you know keeping that commitment and contrary to lies

[01:43:45,746]: We didn’t cut any toxic exposure funds We actually had the Congress just actually added in more money in this latest CR that was just done so again I cannot tell you the magnitude of lies that I deal with on a daily basis Yeah and now we got a big one coming in to and not a lot I can tell you as much about this

[01:44:04,146]: We’re trying to implement

[01:44:04,946]: That’s the Dole Act Elizabeth Dole Act Which is gonna deal with with caregivers at home and and and other things that have been building up over time I’m now trying to figure out

[01:44:14,106]: How do I do that and process it properly because some of it

[01:44:18,346]: We were not funded for here’s a here’s another trick

[01:44:21,246]: You know and look I’ve been in Congress So I’ve participated on you know fortunately in this is we passed up but we don’t fund it And so we just expect the VA which by the way you’re complaining about how much money we have now you plan it But now you’re telling me to do something that could be literally billions of dollars and I’m having to find the money So this is you know But I’m having a ball

[01:44:45,066]: It sounds like it because I believe in what I’m doing So with all these these cuts it’s a dip Was it 83 000 jobs right now are on the line at the VA there’s about 15 so give or take around That’s what we’re looking at and so that money That’s going to those jobs that just won’t disappear that will get no that will get Reallocated into something else like health care

[01:45:08,006]: Yeah that’s what I mean That would be what we fight for us to get a real case some will some you know if you get the point probably would Go to something differently I’m not gonna say it all will just stay in all that will you know especially with what we got going on that might be my Preference but again also is is the workforce slimming and the monies that we can spend Going to where it needs to go and I think that’s gonna be the big key for us is making sure that now again One of the things is Congress again holds the purse strings so you know in actuality They are the ones that pass the budgets and put the monies in there and everything else So we’ve got to make the decision so that we do have cuts We do have things that don’t continue on in our budgets because the one thing we’ve not talked about and we’ve had Senior military leaders and and others our national debt national And deficits are a national security issue and we can’t keep going the way we’re going in this the VA will always be one that’s gonna probably be looked at is to make us as Efficient as we possibly can and we’re gonna do that and we’re gonna do our part We we’re already well ahead and working that way But also I have to be as I’ve told our staff many times I’ve told you know work to the White House and everybody else as I said Look we’re gonna do in a measured way because at the end of the day I’m dealing with people I’m the only agency up there that has to deal with cuts But actually also has to look at doctors and nurses and families in the face and say we’re taking care of your health care No brother agency has to do that Pete DOD is about as close as you know I would say that comes to having to deal with the the the Viral side of people and in the decisions that he makes life or death kind of decision Where does my son or daughter get sent kind of thing

[01:46:49,386]: I’m on the other end of it in the which that it’s very We got to be very careful where we make it so that we’re not Hurting the veterans and we’re giving them the ability to get the disability benefits or the other benefits they’ve earned So we’re I take it very seriously but do I think we can get a large amount of number you better believe it I do believe it because I Know and one of the reason I know is because everybody that’s coming up Who’s saying

[01:47:14,606]: Oh well all the wait times are gonna go up and all the backlog is gonna go up Well I just have four years of proof that tens of billions dollars and tens of thousands of people didn’t solve your problem So why don’t we try it a little differently here

[01:47:26,106]: Let’s give them a better organization Here’s a better thing Like I said earlier give me an H an HR tool that actually lets me know how many people I have and where they’re at Give me a computer system That can begin to to screen Disability benefits and others to help the actual person so that we can take the easy ones the tinnitus and everything Let’s take those off the table

[01:47:46,146]: Let’s quit griping and going paperwork and paperwork about that Let’s take the easies off the shelf so that we can get to the harder ones to determine their level of disability Let’s do things with with AI never taking a human component out of it because there’s always especially veterans There’s complex cases So I’m always gonna have the the person there to go through that and make sure that we’re getting what we need to get And not over give but not under give either but why don’t we use

[01:48:12,826]: computer and AI training to actually say Let’s do this better and do it quicker

[01:48:19,446]: I’m all for doing things better and quicker Shawn

[01:48:22,506]: Look what what’s the old saying

[01:48:24,766]: Slow is smooth and smooth as fast

[01:48:26,866]: Mm hmm that’s where we got to be here and I’m committed to doing that

[01:48:32,226]: I’m asking questions that others may have asked

[01:48:35,086]: I’m just gonna be doing it differently because as I’ve told all our folks I Sit here with you is about as content an individual as I can be I’ve had you know 59 almost 60 years of life I’ve had the experiences of being around the world sitting with presidents and Kings and and doing things in Congress and and being with a Worst day and Helping them out

[01:49:02,466]: I’ve had the privilege of pastoring a little church that grew into a little bit bigger church I’ve had a wife that’s been with me for 36 almost 37 years

[01:49:11,286]: We’ve been together 38

[01:49:12,386]: I have three kids I’m at the point in my life where I want I Want to help others get better

[01:49:19,286]: I’m at that point I want to turn around and say for all this experience and where I’ve been I want to make sure we’re doing something right

[01:49:24,846]: I get as much joy out of somebody that’s working for me coming to me and say hey we got this done That’s the celebration for me Because I’ve really come to the conclusion Over years of work in this and believing this one statement that if I help enough people in life get what they want I’ll get what I want Well now we’re in a place to really make this happen So for me I don’t know what’ll happen if I get to stay for four years in this I don’t care I get four years to make a difference in the life of my brothers and sisters and warfighters that gave something to this country and Now my job is to make sure that that country who promised them things who set it up Actually does it I

[01:50:09,206]: Can’t think of a better calling and I’ll take the arrows

[01:50:12,286]: I’ll take the slings I’ll go to Congress and have you know the other side of the aisle yell at me and tell me I’m bad That’s fine

[01:50:18,686]: You come at me Because I’m gonna do the best I can with what I have with what they gave me But the one thing about it Sean is this you’re not gonna kick around the VA anymore without offering solutions You’re not gonna scare my veterans and you’re not gonna scare my employees without this secretary calling you out when you are wrong And I’ve seen it so much in the last few weeks

[01:50:43,526]: It’s disgusting I’ve had sitting senators lie Repeatedly About who was let go

[01:50:50,926]: I’ve had sending house members and senators lie repeatedly about as I said earlier Appointments getting put off surgeries getting put off delays are already going up There’s been three weeks when 40 2 400 people who never touched any of those things were laid off and you’re telling me This is the problem Where have you been for 10 years when GAO says that we’re as screwed up as we have been

[01:51:13,126]: Mm hmm Don’t tell me that anymore We may not get everything I want to get accomplished I may not be able to help every veteran but we’re damn sure gonna try But it’s not gonna happen anymore Tired of it good for you

[01:51:28,406]: I think that’s the perfect place to end this and Blood you’re in there

[01:51:32,606]: I hope these changes happen but I’m looking forward to the folks like you and others We don’t have make it happen

[01:51:37,766]: Perfect You No matter where you’re watching Sean Ryan show from if you get anything out of this please like comment subscribe And most importantly share this everywhere you possibly can and if you’re feeling extra generous Please leave us review on Apple and Spotify podcasts

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