Trump replaces David Shulkin as Veterans Affairs secretary

President Donald Trump nominated his personal White House physician as the new Veterans Affairs secretary, he announced in a tweet on Wednesday.

David Shulkin will likely be replaced by Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, pending Senate confirmation.

….In the interim, Hon. Robert Wilkie of DOD will serve as Acting Secretary. I am thankful for Dr. David Shulkin’s service to our country and to our GREAT VETERANS!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 28, 2018

Jackson has served since 2013 as the Physician to the President, and gained a national profile earlier this year for holding a sweeping press conference on the president’s health.

Robert Wilkie, the current Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness for the Department of Defense, will serve as acting secretary.

The selection of Wilkie bypasses VA Deputy Secretary Tom Bowman, who has come under criticism for being too moderate to push Trump’s agenda of fixing veterans’ care.

Shulkin is the second Cabinet secretary to depart over controversies involving expensive travel, following former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s resignation last September.

Shulkin had continued to insist he had the full confidence of the White House amid continuing investigations over his travel and leadership of the department.

He had agreed to reimburse the government more than $4,000 after the VA’s internal watchdog concluded last month that he had improperly accepted Wimbledon tennis tickets and that his then-chief of staff had doctored emails to justify his wife traveling to Europe with him at taxpayer expense.

Shulkin also blamed internal drama at the agency on a half-dozen or so political appointees who were rebelling against him and Bowman, insisting he had White House backing to fire them.

But the continuing VA infighting and a fresh raft of VA watchdog reports documenting leadership failures and spending waste — as well as fresh allegations being reviewed by the IG that Shulkin used a member of his security detail to run personal errands — proved too much of a distraction.

The move comes amid multiple shakeups among senior White House staff members, most notably the firing of Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

In the last three weeks, Trump also parted ways with his chief economic adviser, chief national security adviser, communications director, personal aide and two of his lawyers.

The Washington Post detailed in an article earlier this week that Trump was gearing up to make more personnel changes, telling associates that he wanted to oust Shulkin.

Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax, talked to the president Saturday and then said on television Sunday that Shulkin is “likely to depart the Cabinet very soon.”

The publication also said that he had been on the verge of leaving for several weeks, but White House officials were unable to find a replacement.

Shulkin was unanimously confirmed by the Senate last year.

Having pushed through legislation in Trump’s first year making it easier to fire bad VA employees and speed disability appeals, Shulkin leaves behind a department in disarray.

Several projects remain unfinished, including a multibillion-dollar overhaul of electronic medical records aimed at speeding up wait times for veterans seeking medical care as well as expanded mental health treatment for veterans at higher risk of suicide.

The sudden departure comes as Trump is currently seeking to expand the Veterans Choice program, a campaign promise that major veterans’ groups worry could be an unwanted step toward privatizing VA health care. His plan remains in limbo in Congress after lawmakers declined last week to include it in a spending bill.

During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly pledged to fix the VA, which was still reeling after a 2014 scandal at the Phoenix VA medical center, in which veterans waited months for care even as VA employees created secret waiting lists to cover up delays.

Criticizing the department as “the most corrupt,” Trump said he would bring accountability and expand access to private doctors, promising to triple the number of veterans “seeing the doctor of their choice.”

The Department of Veterans Affairs is government’s second largest department, responsible for 9 million military veterans in more than 1,700 government-run health facilities.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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