Hegseth and Collins’ push for cutting veterans health benefits alarms servicemembers and veterans groups
CNN
“Get Pete Hegseth on the phone!”
“Get Pete Hegseth on the phone!” It was March 2018, and then-President Donald Trump was meeting with his Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary, Dr. David Shulkin, about how to reform veteran health care. But it was Hegseth, then a Fox News personality, whose opinion Trump really wanted. Hegseth, now Trump’s nominee to serve as secretary of defense, had been a vocal and persistent advocate for veterans having unfettered access to private health care, rather than having to go through the VA to keep their benefits. He’s also lobbied for policies that would restrict VA care and believes veterans should ask for fewer government benefits. “We want to have full choice where veterans can go wherever they want for care,” Hegseth told Trump on speakerphone as Shulkin listened, according to Shulkin’s 2019 memoir. Trump’s pick to serve as the next VA secretary, Doug Collins, has also expressed support for greater privatization of veteran health care, which advocates characterize as giving veterans greater choice over their doctors. If veterans “want to go back to their own doctors, then so be it,” he told Fox News last month. For Shulkin, a rare “holdover” from President Barack Obama’s administration to Trump’s, this was “the worst-case scenario” for veteran health care, and one he had repeatedly warned Hegseth against.
The Justice Department’s release of thousands of documents and pictures related to investigations into Jeffrey Epstein on Friday was highly anticipated and provided a glimpse into the life of the late sex offender and his associations with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world.
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President Donald Trump is expected to make an announcement about shipbuilding alongside his Pentagon chief and Navy secretary on Monday, according to a person familiar with the plans.
The Providence mayor wants the Reddit tipster to get a $50,000 FBI reward. It might not be so simple
His detailed tip helped lead investigators to the gunman behind the deadly Brown University shooting – but whether the tipster known only as “John” will ever receive the $50,000 reward offered by the FBI is still an open question.
The Trump administration is removing numerous career ambassadors from their posts abroad, marking the latest shake-up of the US State Department and diplomatic corps.
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For more than a month, a Virginia high school football coach accused of child pornography offenses has remained missing after vanishing from his home without a trace.
They are still the rarest of Republicans – those who have spoken out and stood up to President Donald Trump over the past year, willfully saying something he rarely hears: No.
The Trump administration has signaled to the Smithsonian Institution that the White House could withhold federal funding from the museum organization if it does not comply with the administration’s unprecedented, sweeping review.
This weekend’s gathering of young Republicans and conservative influencers in the Arizona desert offered a glimpse into the divisions already fraying President Donald Trump’s coalition even before its lame-duck leader is out of the picture.
The US is pursuing a vessel in international waters near Venezuela on Sunday after attempting to intercept it, a US official said, as President Donald Trump’s administration tightens its crackdown on the country’s oil industry.
Power was restored Sunday morning to the bulk of the 130,000 homes and businesses in San Francisco impacted by a massive outage on Saturday that caused major disruptions in the city.
When Rep. Dan Goldman first ran for Congress in 2022, he was cheered on the left as the party’s top lawyer during President Donald Trump’s first impeachment.