VA Chief Responds To Staff Mutiny With An Armed Guard Outside His Office

David Shulkin Image by Getty

By Ari Feldman March 9, 2018

David Shulkin, the Veterans Affairs Secretary, only meets with a few select staff members he trusts. His faith in his senior staff has eroded so much, there is now an armed guard outside his executive office, the Washington Post reported.

Shulkin has by many accounts notched several wins at the VA during the first year of Trump’s administration. He is the only cabinet member from Obama’s administration to keep his job under Trump.

The main conflict between Shulkin and a number of senior staff concerns private healthcare for veterans. Shulkin and his allies are hoping to give veterans a wider variety of services by letting them choose private healthcare. Opponents within the VA think this will lead to the downsizing of the massive federal agency — second only in budget to the Department of Defense.

Shulkin’s private healthcare bid has Trump’s support. But Shulkin’s attempts to create a bipartisan compromise on the issue have reportedly disappointed Trump. Trump’s own supporters have accused Shulkin of being unwilling to “drain the swamp” of the VA’s bureaucratic ranks.

The legislation that would cement the compromise is currently gridlocked in Congress.

Contact Ari Feldman at feldman@forward.com or on Twitter @aefeldman

Ari Feldman is a staff writer at the Forward. He covers Jewish religious organizations, synagogue life, anti-Semitism and the Orthodox world. If you have any tips, you can email him at feldman@forward.com. Follow him on Twitter @aefeldman.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

This year, we have stood together in strength and sorrow. Our Forward team has worked around the clock to help you find clarity amid the chaos.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.

— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO