Behind Trump’s big-money battle to shake up the VA: ‘I think it’s an existential threat’

Investigators tried to find links between the shocking violence in New Orleans and Las Vegas. Fortunately, they found no evidence of a larger terrorist plot linking Shamsud-Din Jabbar, who allegedly murdered 14 people in his pickup truck on Bourbon Street, with Matthew Livelsberger, who shot himself in the head and then blew himself up behind the wheel of a passenger car. Tesla Cybertruck parked in the driveway of the Trump International Hotel in Las Vegas. But these two men had one important thing in common: years of service in war zones in the U.S. Army. Livelsberger clearly stated how his time in uniform had affected his state of mind, leaving a note that said, “I need to clear my mind of the brothers I have lost and free myself from the burden of the lives I have taken.”

It is unclear whether Jabbar’s military experience shaped his motivations. But the deaths of both men served as a reminder of the epidemic of mental health problems plaguing American veterans: About 6,000 veterans commit suicide each year, according to data. Department of Veterans Affairs. “We actually lost one of our best experienced leaders in December,” he says Allison Jaslow, CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “I don’t know a vet who doesn’t know someone, another vet, who died by suicide.”

As if this photo wasn’t disturbing enough, the second one Donald Trump the administration appears poised to make major changes to the VA, the agency that provides health care 9 million vets. Critics say these changes appear to be driven by big right-wing money like the Koch brothers, a network of donors backed by billionaires which has been promoting libertarian causes through think tanks, legal groups and advocacy organizations for decades.

“The Koch brothers are trying to prove that privatization works and the government is bad,” he says Paweł Rieckhoff, an Army veteran who fought in Iraq before becoming a veteran advocate and podcaster. “And the VA is their test case.” Senator Tammy Duckworth– who lost both legs in 2004 when the Army Black Hawk helicopter she was piloting was shot down over Iraq – is even more blunt. “It’s motivated by money,” says the Illinois Democrat. “The last time Trump was president, he had this shadow VA Cabinet at Mar-a-Lago. This bunch, people who have never served each other, are just trying to make money off the backs of veterans.

Trump’s previous dealings with the VA have been tumultuous. Initially he raised Dr. David Szulkin, an Obama administration official who ran major hospital systems to lead the agency. But just over a year later, Trump suddenly tweeted that he was replacing Shulkin with his White House physician, Dr. Ronny Jackson. The move collapsed under the weight of allegations of misconduct made against Jackson. (At the time, Jackson called the allegations “baseless and anonymous attacks on my character and integrity.”) Trump’s next choice Robert Wilkie, was successfully installed, but occurred later accused of trying to discredit a victim who made allegations of sexual assault at a VA medical facility. (Wilkie called the accusations against him “false.”)

Meanwhile, a plan to privatize more VA services was being debated. Shulkin told me he was surprised during a 2018 White House briefing on the topic when Trump he demanded to receive Pete Hegseth over the phone to ask his opinion. At the time, Hegseth was a Fox News contributor and former executive director of Concerned Veterans for America, an advocacy group funded by the Koch brothers. CVA defended providing veterinarians with greater access to private doctors; either way the bills would be paid by taxes.

Shulkin claims that Hegseth – whom Trump has now named Secretary of Defense – supported broader privatization, and when Shulkin rejected it, pointing to his assessment that it could cost the government at least $50 billion a year, Trump agreed to a less extensive version of the Veterans Choice Program . “Every health care executive must balance doing the right thing with limited resources,” Shulkin says. “But if you are a political ideologist, don’t worry about it. You just say, “This is what the world should look like, and someone else will have a hard time figuring out how to pay for it.”

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