{"id":32405,"date":"2025-02-04T19:51:55","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T19:51:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/senate-confirms-doug-collins-to-lead-the-department-of-veterans-affairs\/"},"modified":"2025-02-04T19:51:55","modified_gmt":"2025-02-04T19:51:55","slug":"senate-confirms-doug-collins-to-lead-the-department-of-veterans-affairs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/04\/senate-confirms-doug-collins-to-lead-the-department-of-veterans-affairs\/","title":{"rendered":"Senate confirms Doug Collins to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Senate confirmed former Rep. Doug Collins to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs<\/a> on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Collins scored one of the widest bipartisan votes of any Trump Cabinet nominee so far: 77 to 23. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was confirmed 99-0.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Air Force Reserve <\/a>chaplain served in Congress from 2013 to 2021, where he defended President Donald Trump during the 2019 impeachment inquiry.<\/p>\n

Collins also passed through the Veterans\u2019 Affairs Committee on a wide bipartisan vote \u2013 only Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, voted against him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Collins will now head an agency marred by budget shortfalls, millions paid out to executives who weren\u2019t eligible to receive them, and complaints from veterans about long wait times for care. It\u2019ll be his first time leading an organization as sprawling as the VA, with its 400,000 employees and 1,300 health facilities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

HAWAII’S HIRONO ONLY SENATOR TO VOTE NO ON COLLINS, CONTINUING PARTISAN STREAK AT HEARINGS<\/u><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

“I do not come into this with rose-colored glasses. This is a large undertaking that I feel called to be at,” Collins said. “When a veteran has to call a congressman or senator\u2019s office to get the care they have already earned, it\u2019s a mark of failure.”<\/p>\n

In response to questions about Trump\u2019s focus on budget cuts and a hiring freeze, Collins said he would work to ensure that did not come at the expense of veterans\u2019 care.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I’m gonna take care of the veterans. That means that we’re not gonna balance budgets on the back of veterans benefits.”<\/p>\n

Collins said he aligned with Trump on allowing veterans choice for their healthcare. Trump during his first term pushed through the Mission Act, which allowed veterans to choose the VA or private care in their communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I believe you can have both. I believe you have a strong VA as it currently exists and have the community care aspect,” he said.<\/p>\n

Democrats repeatedly asked Collins to promise not to privatize the VA, so many times that Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., asked him to “pinky swear” not to do it. Collins held up his pinky to promise that would not happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Senate confirmed former Rep. Doug Collins to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday. Collins scored one of the widest bipartisan votes of any Trump Cabinet nominee so far: 77 to 23. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was confirmed 99-0.\u00a0 The Air Force Reserve chaplain served in Congress from 2013 to 2021, where … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}