#187 Doug Collins - United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs

Doug Collins is the 12th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs, sworn in on February 5, 2025. A Republican with a track record of public service, Collins served as U. S. Representative for Georgia’s 9th district (2013–2021) and in the Georgia House (2007–2013). An Air Force Reserve chaplain since 2002, he deployed to Iraq in 2008 and was promoted to colonel in 2023. With a Master of Divinity and a Juris Doctor, Collins combines faith, law, and military experience in his mission to overhaul the VA by focusing on efficiency, transparency, and veteran care. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD https://AmericanFinancing.net/SRS | NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org https://trueclassic.com/SRS Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at trueclassic.com/SRS ! #trueclassicpod https://ZipRecruiter.com/SRS https://ExpressVPN.com/SRS https://hometitlelock.com/SRS Go to https://hometitlelock.com/srs and use promo code SRS to get a FREE title history report so you can find out if you’re already a victim AND 14 days of protection for FREE! And make sure to check out the Million Dollar TripleLock protection details when you get there! Exclusions apply. For details visit https://hometitlelock.com/warranty https://Hillsdale.edu/SRS https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/SRS | Download the app today and use code SRS Secretary Doug Collins Links: X - https://x.com/SecVetAffairs Call 1-800-MyVA411 (1-800-698-2411) – This is always the right number to reach VA and available 24/7/365. Are you a Veteran in crisis or concerned about one? Dial 988 and Press 1 to reach the Veteran Crisis Line – confidential and standing by 24/7/365. More information: http://www.veteranscrisisline.net/. Call 1-877-4AID-VET (1-877-424-3838) if you are a Veteran at risk of homelessness or a family member, friend, or advocate. Confidential and available 24/7/365. You may also chat online: National Call Center for Homeless Veterans - VA Homeless Programs Submit your question to https://ask. VA.gov/ if you prefer to digitally send VA sensitive or private information. Login to www. VA.gov or use the VA Health and Benefits Mobile App to directly message your health care provider. Schedule 1-on-1 virtual or in-person assistance with a VA Benefits Expert: https://va.my.site.com/VAVERA/ Find a VA facility near you: https://www.va.gov/find-locations/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks. Made with whole fruit, and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love, and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks. Now made with no artificial dyes.

• 0:58Shawn Ryan?

  Guys like me don't trust the VA. We just don't.

• 1:02Speaker 03

  You're not going to be getting your sex change at the VA anymore. That's not what our services are for. And everything that we're taking money-wise away to that would take away from money that I could be spending on something else that are helping vets directly, who are not even getting primary healthcare.

• 1:16Shawn Ryan?

  480,000 VA employees, and there are 450,000 active-duty Army. That's 30,000 more than active Army members. I hope you're taking this in, because I am the guy you're trying to reach.

• 1:37Shawn Ryan?

  Secretary Collins, welcome to the show. Sean, glad to be here, bud. It's an honor to have you here. So, uh, the new Secretary of the VA. Yep. Lots of stuff to work on. It's a, what do we call it, a target-rich environment? Yeah.

• 1:54Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I'll bet it is, probably even more than I know. But, um, so we got a bunch of stuff to talk about today, a whole lot of topics to cover. But I'm just, how did, how did Secretary of the VA pop up on your radar?

• 2:07Speaker 03

  Well, I think it come about a lot of things, you know, the President and I had known each other for a while. And when I was in Congress for eight years, especially those last few years, I was in leadership and I had to, uh, was the ranking member of the VA, not the VA Committee, but the Judiciary Committee, which put me in close proximity to the President because we had to deal with the sham Russia stuff. We had to deal with the Mueller, we had to deal with impeachment. And so, uh, he and I got to know each other pretty well and, you know, from my fighting, you know, during those days to keep the truth just out there about what we were seeing. And so we just had developed a closeness and we kept it up over the time when he was out. And when he started campaigning again, I would be out there and I show up. And, and after a while, about a year or so ago, he, you know, he said, look, I, I think, I think you need to come with me.

• 2:48Speaker 03

  And he just said, you know, you know how, if you've ever been around him, he's like, I just want, you know, you need to come with me. And this was a year out. And I said, Mr. President, I said, you, I said, let's get you elected. We'll talk about whatever you want to. And after that happened, um, we had some conversations, some other ideas that was thought about. But then, um, I had some ideas about this and it came about and I said, you know, this, this will be a, a good spot. It takes my career, takes my passions and puts it in a position that is, as most well known as a politically sensitive, uh, department because of Congress and, and everybody on the veteran thing. I said, I think we can manage this because we're going to have to make some change that actually matters. And I said, we're going to have to work at it hard and I think we can do that. So, uh, he, he agreed, uh, brought me in, we discussed it for just a little while. And then I asked him when he said, he said, you want to do this? I says, yes, sir.

• 3:32Speaker 03

  He said, I said, what do you want me to, to, I said, what, what do you want me to do, sir? And he said, just take care of my veterans. That was it. That was it.

• 3:38Shawn Ryan?

  Nice. You don't tend to do that.

• 3:40Speaker 03

  You better believe it.

• 3:41Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect. Perfect. Well, before we get too far into the weeds here, everybody gets a gift.

• 3:46Speaker 03

  All right.

• 3:47Shawn Ryan?

  Even the Secretary of the VA.

• 3:49Speaker 03

  All right. There we go. I love it.

• 3:51Shawn Ryan?

  Who's your own sleek gummy bear is made in the U.S. and, uh, they're legal at all 50 states.

• 3:56Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 3:57Shawn Ryan?

  Don't worry about feeling weird after you had some of those or anything.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  I love it.

• 4:00Shawn Ryan?

  But, um, all right. So everybody gets an introduction too. So.

• 4:04Speaker 03

  All right.

• 4:06Shawn Ryan?

  Doug Collins, Secretary of the VA. You are the 12th Secretary of the Departments of Veterans Affairs, confirmed by the Senate in February of 2025, to lead the charge for our nation's veterans. You earned a degree in political science and criminal justice from the University of North Georgia. You earned a master's degree in divinity from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and pastored

• 4:29Speaker 03

  Chickapee.

• 4:31Shawn Ryan?

  Chickapee Baptist Church for 11 years. In 2006, the people of Georgia's 27th State House District elected you to represent them. During your first term in the state legislature, you graduated from Atlanta's John Marshall Law School and established your own legal practice. You were the US Representative from Georgia's 9th Congressional District from 2013 to 2021. You're a veteran who served as a chaplain in the Air Force Reserve, including a deployment to Iraq in 2008 with the 94th Air Wing. You remain a Colonel in the Air Force Reserve. You're a husband and a father, and most importantly, a Christian. And some of the things that you've already done, you've already cut DEI programs and

• 5:16Shawn Ryan?

  shifted $14 million to VA healthcare and caregiver support, set up telehealth in remote and rural areas, changed the flag policy to only American and POW flags, and over 1 million disability claims in 2025 already. That's two weeks faster than the normal that we've seen. So

• 5:40Shawn Ryan?

  what are some of the things that you want to change about the VA? I have right now the size and scope of the VA. I know your Doge advisor is here somewhere today. And so what, what does that look like?

• 5:53Speaker 03

  Yeah, well, he's my, and a great part about it is he's my VA employee, who helps me with liaison to them, which is a great thing, because we've incorporated the whole work of what I think the President's new vision is into our organization in a way that works with us and not against us. I think that's one of the things that there's this idea out there that, you know, there's this ominous, you know, thing happening in DC, and the truth of the matter is, is no, we're, I'm still the Secretary of VA. It comes through my desk. We make decisions, and mine will always be for the veteran, and then, you know, how that works out through our VA employees. The, where we're seeing the most issue right now is, is Sean, and this is something Almost for many military person, anybody that wants to think about it. The first thing when you come into a branch or you come into anything, it's, it's, you're told about the culture.

• 6:38Speaker 03

  Okay, the culture is this, the culture, you will be a airman, you will be a, you know, Navy, you'll be a SEAL, you'll be a, whatever it is, you've got the culture. Well, the only thing interesting is, is, is, in all fairness, that's, culture is at the end of the, of the pipe. It's what comes out of the pipe. It's what goes in at the top that gives you culture. There's this idea of somewhere that you out there that you all of a sudden, you know, you can just pop up culture. And, and that's just not true. You've got to have people and ideas at the top that then permeate through the system. So like it, just like you were eating, so, and it comes out the other end, well, it comes out, it's culture. And so, really, that's the first step for me.

• 7:16Speaker 03

  The first step is, is developing a culture that says, we've done it this way for so long, is this still the right way to do it? And that's, you know, look, I'm running against people who don't want to change. I'm running against, you know, media, union bosses, members of Congress and the Senate who just, you know, they've put in, here's their problem, they've invested so much in a system that's not working. That now it's hard for them to admit, maybe we need to do something different. So, you know, all the things we're going to talk about today is going to come back to that culture issue. So that's why I'm out here talking to you, that's why I've been on, on social media, you know, Twitter, anything else I could find. Just tell the truth, and I fought back against, um, the lies.

• 7:55Speaker 03

  I'm not, I think the sum up my first five weeks is, you may have been able to, the VA may have been a whipping post for a long time. Some of it, I'll agree with you, probably needed to be, but nobody's ever stepped forward to fix it. So here's my thought to everybody. We're not going to be your whipping, uh, post anymore. I'm going to tell you the truth, and I'm going to give you the answers that we need to do. And I'm going to take care of our veteran, number one, and I'm going to make sure our VA employee is the best that we can. So it's a lot goes into it, but it's culture that has to start at the top. And also has to filter down and buy in, and that's what I'm fighting the most right now. Yeah, you know, I've.

• 8:31Shawn Ryan?

  Got a whole slew of complaints about the VA. And, um, you know, it's funny, but it's not. I mean, I haven't stepped into a VA. I got a hundred percent. Yeah. Haven't stepped into a VA in about almost ten years. Mm-hmm. Because my experience has been just atrocious. It was, here's these pills. We can't see, uh. I mean, I remember just going to my, uh, I can't even remember what they call the appointments where you go in and you get checked out. Consultations. Yeah, the consultations. I'm having doctors come to me. They don't even know what a Navy SEAL is. They're asking me why I didn't go to medical when I'm, when I'm, when I'm attached to a FOB base. They don't understand what combat is. My doctor shows up in a sweatsuit, barely even speaks any English.

• 9:15Shawn Ryan?

  And it's just time and time again. And then if you know anything about my show, it started with all special ops combat veterans. And everybody has the same complaints and the same issues. And, and it, it is created. Look, I don't know any, any one of my friends. And I have friends with the top warfighters on the planet. Mm-hmm. None of them have a good experience at the VA. None of them have anything positive to say about the VA. None of them trust the VA. And that's why I quit going. I mean, I have more friends that have died of suicide and drug addiction and depression and PTS.

• 9:56Shawn Ryan?

  And everybody's struggling with, especially the special operations guys with the, with the traumatic brain injuries. And we just aren't getting any answers at all from the VA. And so, and, and then it's just created this distrust. So what I do with my check is I, I buy my own healthcare. Instead of use the VA because I just, I don't trust the system. I don't like the system. I get treated like shit when I go there. It's like, like, um, it's, like I'm faking an injury or something. And, and so I just got to the point where I just threw my hands up. And I was like, man, fuck this. I'm not doing it. I will, I will personally pay for my own healthcare on the civilian side, which is much, much better than anything I've ever had in the VA.

• 10:41Shawn Ryan?

  And so. And then you see a lot of these therapies, and I want to dive into this too, but I mean,

• 10:49Shawn Ryan?

  I'm just gonna share my experiences with you because I think you need to know. And, I mean, I just talked about traumatic brain injury. I mean, these guys have been breaching doors with high explosives for 20 years. They can't remember where the hell they are. They can't remember what they're doing. The short-term memory loss. They drive somewhere. They're driving their kids somewhere. They forget where the hell they're going. They're, they're, they're, they, when I say they, I mean, we, you know, we're, we're temperamental. We're quick to fly off the handle. There's chemical imbalances. There's the burn pit shit. And now, all these different, I mean, i- i- it's across the board. I mean, you're seeing all these nonprofits that are stood up by veterans, and they're, they're,

• 11:34Shawn Ryan?

  they're the ones that are actually taking care of us. It's not the VA. And psychedelic therapy is one of the big ones, uh, that, that we've seen a tremendous amount of benefit from, especially with traumatic brain injury. I mean, Stanford did a study, fly these guys down. They, they, they do a brain scan. They fly these guys down to Mexico, do an IbaGAIN treatment. Uh, my friend Trevor's, uh, he's Ambio Life Sciences. There's all these black holes in the brain, you know, uh, on the brain scan. They go down there where it's, where their brain's not working. They do the IbaGAIN treatment. They fly them back up to Stanford. Oh, magically, the entire brain is lit up. I mean, you're, I just wanna, I

• 12:17Shawn Ryan?

  have to tell you some of this stuff, because it's important. One of my, one of my best friends of all time, I've known him for probably at least 15 years. We contracted it at, um, CIA together. Retired Green Beret, sustained one of the biggest blasts I've ever seen somebody walk out alive from. Uh, massive traumatic brain injury. Then he gets shot in the head.

• 12:45Shawn Ryan?

  His wife called, he's been hiding this stuff. His wife calls me and she's like, Sean, he's bedridden five to six days a week. He can't walk without a cane because he has vertigo. He can't go outside even on a cloudy day without his sunglasses because the light sensitivity is so bad. He can't, we haven't had sex in over two years. He goes down there. Nobody can help him. Nobody at the VA can help him. He goes down there. He does the ibogaine treatment. He leaves his cane there at the facility. He comes home, doesn't need, he doesn't need the cane anymore, doesn't need the sunglasses, is not bedridden at all anymore. All the vertigo is gone. And then he

• 13:25Shawn Ryan?

  goes home, has sex with his wife. And it's, and that was probably nine months ago. Same. It was like one week to fix that. And I don't even, I don't know. I mean, like I said, I haven't stepped foot in the VA, I just gave up on it. But why, why aren't they looking at stuff like that that actually works? Instead of doing the same old shit. Oh, here's some pills. Here's this. Let's go do a brain scan. Oh, we don't have any answers. And it's, it's, it's discouraging. And, you know, that's not the only non, that's vets, um, that I'm talking about, veterans exploring. I can't remember. It's vets. Vets.org. But, but, um, treatment solutions. But

• 14:11Shawn Ryan?

  why isn't the VA getting, I mean, and then we have the, the veteran suicide epidemic. And the numbers are all over the board. They say 22 a day. I hear reports that it's actually 40 a day when you start looking at the, the overdoses and stuff like that. I mean, so what's the plan here?

• 14:29Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  This episode is brought to you by Welch's Fruit Snacks. Back to school season can be tough on parents. But choosing a snack you and your kids can both get behind doesn't have to be. Stock up on Welch's Fruit Snacks. Made with whole fruit and now made with no artificial dyes. It's a snack kids already love and one you can feel good about giving them. Go back to school with Welch's Fruit Snacks. Now made with no artificial dyes.

• 15:26Speaker 03

  Well, look, Sean, you've expressed as you were doing there what you're seeing with your friends, you're seeing with everybody else, and I think it's the battle we face. Okay. When I was in Congress, we'd have, I think the interesting part is one of the things I told all the senators, especially when going through confirmation, which I had to go through to get this. I said 60% of your constituent calls, in other words, 60% of the calls to your office for help in some way involved the VA. Either VHA or health benefits or their other benefits, disability benefits, other things like that. 60%. Some of them looked at me like, no. And it was interesting, the staff would be sitting in the side going. 60% of what? 60% of all their calls. So like a phone call to a congressman or a senator.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  I need, I'm having trouble. 60%. Okay. Then that's, and some would actually be higher, some actually maybe a little lower. So just average out around 60%. Like I said, some of the members were like, I don't know. But yet their staff was sitting there, yeah, it is. It is. Because they hear it all the time. Think about that for a second. Let's just ponder for just one second. That that many people, and we're talking thousands with each congressman, each senator, a year calling about a organization that is supposed to be already set up to give them what they have earned, to give them the benefits that they have earned through Congress action. This is none just dreamed up by a president.

• 16:56Speaker 03

  This is all from statutory, you know, law. But yet having to call them because they can't get the health they need. Only in Washington DC do we call that normal. Only in Washington DC do we call that okay. I call it failure. And I've called that out since the day that I got sworn in. That we're not going to allow anymore this discussion. That it's okay to have to call for what you should be getting already. Now, if you don't want it, don't take it. Go other way. That's why we have choices. That's why we have other things to do. But when it gets into the stuff that you're talking about, this just goes back to that culture argument that I was talking about to start with. It gets into the situation where we've just sort of done it this way.

• 17:38Speaker 03

  We've in in the argument at the VA is, well, everybody complains, everybody does rightfully so, even if they're new employees, they get, well, the VA is awful. And there's been a lot of problems and probably in a lot of stuff to back that up. I'm not going to disagree with you. But there's also a lot of times when you got the ones who are trying to do it are getting bogged down in the people trying to get in a system that is broken. So it'd be like me, I do a lot of counseling, I have for years, of course, when I was pastoring in a chapel and everything else, I'll count. And if you in a relationship, the relationship starts, let's say, with with a man, you know, husband and wife, and a member, it doesn't matter if they're military or not, but if they have a relationship and they have a issue in which one does not trust the other.

• 18:22Speaker 03

  And you come into that position, then they've they've now developed into a problem where they don't talk, they're fighting, they're, you know, maybe going to get divorced or breaking up, whatever. And then I walk into the room and I say, I want to help you, but the only thing that I can give you, the one thing you got to have to fix the relationship is the one thing that's broken. To fix a relationship, you gotta have trust. If you can't have trust, you're not going to fix a relationship. You can smooth it, you can paste it over, you can do whatever you want to do, but you gotta have trust. In the VA, we're a similar situation. In a sense that people have for so long said, I have to do it by this prescribed method, by this prescribed way, or there's going to be a congressional person, you know, say something or do something, or I'm going to get complained about, or we're going to do

• 19:04Speaker 03

  this, or the union says, we got to keep your job, so you just keep doing whatever you're doing, we'll protect your job and go forward. So when it comes to new ideas. There's, you know, there's some good things that you would never hear about. But when it comes to ideas such as you're talking about with a new generation of warfighter. This new generation of warfighter doesn't come that they're starting to come to the VA if they have issues of prosthetics, they have issues of, you know, they've lost limbs, they've done stuff like that, because there's some of that we do probably as well, if not better than most anywhere you're gonna find. But when it comes to other areas like the traumatic brain injury, to like the issues of sleep deprivation, the issues of addictions, those things, we're stuck in a system that is not allowing it.

• 19:49Speaker 03

  Now, in the Bronx, there's a clinical study on psychedelics that we've actually been a part of, and it's working. We're seeing tremendous change. Bobby Kennedy, who's now the new HHS Secretary, Health and Human Services Secretary, he and I sat in my office two weeks ago and talked about this very issue. And how do we get it incorporated in? Some of it, we're bound, because we're actually a healthcare, actually hospital healthcare organization, we're bound by some of the walls that Congress has made that have bound us into what we can use and what we can't use. I'll use a big example there is marijuana. Marijuana's always been a fight treatment, you know, in some areas, and you've had a lot of congressmen say, "We're not gonna do that, we're gonna keep it where it's at." And so that, it binds us a little bit.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  But in, one of the areas I'm looking at to get what you're talking about, is a number of years ago, Donald Trump actually promoted a thing called "Right to Try." It was legislation in which if you were dying, if you had other issues, why not let you try something? What are we hurting here? You know, and if it works, then it's a miracle and we're good. We're actually exploring right now, among the many things that I'm shoveling as fast as my shovel can shovel, is to see, is there ways under "Right to Try" that we can expand some of those programs right now into psychedelics, into others, treatments, you know, from, ranging from hypobareic to everything else, that says, "Is this working? You know, is it working? How do we expand it out?" We know from case studies like what you just talked about, that it is working.

• 21:17Speaker 03

  We know from experience that in some people, this is, this is, you know, a dead-on treatment for what they need. But I've gotta get a mindset change that says, and this is what I'm facing almost all the time, is...

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Well, you can do that, but there's a risk. Sean, getting up out of bed in the morning and going to the bathroom and taking a shower is a risk. I'm gonna fall and bust my head and die. That's a risk. Getting up and walking in, getting in a car is a risk. I want us to help the people who need help. But then there's also another generational issue we're having right now. And the generational issue is something that's a little bit, gonna be a little bit harder for me to tackle. Because it's not just the VA assimilating itself to the, the younger warfighter, the GWAT fighter, my generation fighter, your generation fighter, who are not joiners. We don't join Kiwanis, we don't join Rotary, we don't join, you know, for most of this generation. They don't join the VFW, they don't join the American Legion, they don't do those things.

• 22:16Speaker 03

  They go with their buddies, they, they're drawn to nonprofits who are actually doing something on 10% margins instead of the opposite way around. 90% of what they do is going to fixing something instead of 90% going to fix the organization. 10% may be helping. These are the kind of things that we gotta deal with. So now I've gotta get them back, just like you, to say, how, what can I do inside the VA to make enough change that I get, that I can get another shot? That I can get another shot to say, look, if you want the care here, fine. But if not, we're gonna pay for it in the community. See, that's another issue that, that the previous administration, the last four years have been horrific for expansion of care, which Donald Trump promoted in his first term, and I voted for when I was in Congress. They just went away from it, Sean.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  They, because it's a mindset, you've got to understand the mindset of the VA. And the mindset that the Biden administration and the previous administration spent tens of billions of dollars, well over a hundred billion, and tens of thousands of employees, well over 50,000 in the last four years alone. Four years. And you know what? Our metrics have either just stopped, or they've actually went backwards. So all these people that are screaming, you know, that, you know, you can't cut anybody, you can't change it. Well, you've tried that now for, for the past 10 years. And you know what GAO says, Government Accounting Office has said, you're on the high risk list. VA has been on the high risk danger list of phrase fraud and abuse and poor quality healthcare

• 23:45Speaker 03

  in many of our facilities for 10 years.

• 23:50Speaker 03

  That's just unacceptable. But yet, the past three or four weeks, if you've watched any of the headlines, I'm being skewered and pilloried by some of our VSO community and some of our members of the Senate and House. That you can't change, you're gonna hurt wait times, you're gonna hurt. You've done that already. Our wait times are not where they need to be. Our backlog is too high. It was under 60,000 when Trump left office. It's over 225,000 now. And that's with all those members I just told you. This is just bull crap. Okay, we can't keep doing the same thing the same way. So really what those folks on the Hill and some of those outside and the outside agencies and groups are saying

• 24:34Speaker 03

  is the VA, oh yeah, we know it's bad. And you just gotta keep throwing stuff at it because it protects our jobs, protects our workers and protects the system.

• 24:43Shawn Ryan?

  See, that's what I see. I see a bunch of bureaucrats that don't actually give a shit about veterans. They only give a shit about the VA. And not that the VA is actually doing its job, but I mean, I've got a stat written down here. There are 480,000 VA employees and there are 450,000 active duty Army. Now, how? And veterans all over the country have been dying, waiting to get treatment. Commit suicide, dying, you know, because they can't get.

• 25:20Shawn Ryan?

  So with 480,000 VA, that's 30,000 more than the active Army members. How can't they, why can't they get in? Or why couldn't they get in?

• 25:33Speaker 03

  Well, because a lot of it, think about that organizational structure. Where is most of that organizational structure going? You know, I've been told since, you know, we started the confirmation process and we started asking these questions. Well, PACT Act did this. PACT Act forced us, you know, and by the way, that was Biden. Thought of it at State of the Union, a few months acted it, not really thinking about cost. And by the way, when the House and Senate, I speak Hill because I was up there for a long time. Here's what you do. You want to make somebody think you're doing something. You pass a bill. You leave a lot of the stuff in the middle, either unfunded or open ended. You get the president to sign it and then you declare it a victory. Never mind going to the actual agency that's gonna have to, to, to do this and give them and help and instructions on how to make it happen.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  But I was told that was why, is in, why the monies and everything increased so much. Well, I've asked, where are these, where are these employees that were hired for, for PACPA? I mean, if we've hired all these employees to do PACPA, where are they at? And only get one off answers like, well, we've had to do something here. We can't. All right. I come here to, to share the truth. I, I, I'm, I'm just not BSing anymore. I mean, I just can't. I, I don't know whatever, but I can't tell you where all 480,000 of those people are. I can't tell you. Now, here's the interesting issue. You were in the, uh, military, you were in the SEAL team. You know, if you went to your, uh, commander, or you went to your, uh, headquarters, head shit, they could actually look down a list, they could pull every base, they could pull

• 27:03Speaker 03

  every unit, they could pull everything and by the line item, tell you who was assigned where and what their billet number was, what their pass number was and everything else. You would know exactly where they're at. I do not have an HR system that allows me easily to do that. Think about that for a second. Let that sink in when all these other issues we're talking about is out there. So I can't even, at this point, now I'm working on it. That's been one thing where I've already hit the ground running. I've got some people that are helping. We're gonna try and fix that pretty quick. Because if I don't know where they are, then this organization is functionally, uh, not ready for, for action. It's just not. And you've got a lot of things, we, I mean, we've had organizational structure at the,

• 27:46Speaker 03

  you know, cutting bureaucracy at the, in the, in the management level in Washington and across the, the plains is gonna be something that was one of the first looks we're gonna be. I don't need six people. I mean, it'd be like, I'm, I'm trying to put this in maybe ways that your guys and folk and gals will understand and watch this podcast. And listen, it would be almost like having in one unit.

• 28:07Speaker 04

  Having six from Air Force, having six shirts in one unit. Which one do you go to? Who answers to who? And then also having two or three chiefs above the six shirts to say, "Well, go get that approved, go get that approved, go get that approved, go get that..." Oh, and then, by the way, we'll have to go find the, uh, we get the wing commander to sign off. So from an Air Force, it's just bureaucracy layers. Some of these were started for real reasons. You know, that, "Hey, we need to manage our, like, central, our visiting care," which is our division. But they were supposed to have 20 and 30 people. Now some of them have 3 and 4 and 500. They just grow for the sake of growing, but not, nobody has called it like I'm trying to call it now.

• 28:49Speaker 04

  In a real sense of a way, is to say, "What is our return on investment? Are we helping a veteran? Is the veteran being helped?" Not a press release from the Hill, not a bill that says you're thinking you're doing something, but are we actually doing stuff that allows the veteran choice? By the way, the mission act, what we talked about, is to let you go out in the community. We're gonna pay for that because you've earned the benefit. We're gonna make it where you can go out into the community and get the care you need. But yet over the last previous administration, there was, we have documented it, and we're gonna be rolling out more of this, where we saw basically an, a turn toward de-incentivizing and actually keeping veterans from getting the care they need, even if it meant waiting longer.

• 29:31Speaker 04

  Shaun, this is, it's, this, the more I dig, the worse it gets. And we're just, we're right now making sure that we're starting to get out so that we can have a whole new culture shift to help the people we're supposed to be helping.

• 29:44Shawn Ryan?

  How is that gonna work? How's it gonna, how do, how do, how do I do that? How do I use the VA to pay for my community health care in the civilian market?

• 29:54Speaker 04

  If you meet, if you meet certain criterias like distance and time, especially, what it was designed for is especially those who are away from a VA health clinic or via, or a center that, uh, where they could get it quickly. What they can do is, is a real simple checklist to see, you know, do you qualify that? You'd, in most, you do in different areas, especially specialty care. And then you, the, here's where I don't like some of this, and I've not liked it.

• 30:17Speaker 03

  For years, one, we have a third-party administrator, which we're actually looking at. Anytime you put another third-party anything in there, it tends to to bog the system. They're supposed to be finding community doctors. They're supposed to be finding the system where we send them to. Um, the VA technically still has a sign-off right now where you see a VA dot and they're like, "Yeah, we we agree," and then you send them. That's becoming a little bit of a problem because we're seeing, we've seen some issues in which the furrows were not happening. Okay, so again, I'm I'm digging into this. It's not everybody, but I'm seeing it enough to develop a pattern here. You see it, you know, randomly, you might think, no, but when you start seeing it enough, there's a pattern of of what I call abuse of the law, basically. So you get that and then you go and then, you know, it's turned in, it's paid for, just

• 31:01Speaker 03

  as if you were going to, you know, through the VA system itself. So these are out there, these parts have been there, well, mission act gave that, it expanded that. But you gotta also use it. I mean, I can give you the best rifle in the world, but if you don't know, if you don't use it, it's just useless to you.

• 31:16Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I think a lot of, I think a lot of people don't know how to use the VA system. I'm one of them.

• 31:22Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 31:22Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, and I want to get into this later, but I mean, even even just to get the the initial, to get the benefits, to go through the the doctor's appointments to, you know, "Oh, my shoulder's messed up, I got tinnitus, I got TBI," whatever, all those, what do they call those, the initial appointment?

• 31:40Speaker 03

  The consults, yeah.

• 31:41Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, the consults, yeah. You know, a lot of vets, they don't even know how to get into the consults. Or then you get in the consults and it's almost like a damn interrogation. And it's like, like, I'll give you an example, they denied my tinnitus. I'm a Navy SEAL. I shot a lot of guns, I blew a lot of shit up, I've seen a lot of combat, I have fucking tinnitus. Sorry, lady, I don't know, like, what the hell you're talking about. You can't even test for that. Just give me the tinnitus, look at my service record. They deny it, you know? And then I gotta go find, then I got introduced to this woman, Peggy Matthews, Veterans Advocacy Services, she's like...

• 32:22Shawn Ryan?

  Probably 80 years old runs it is like an angel to me and my guys because she's the one that can take our package, turn it into something and somehow, some way, she gets it fast-tracked through the VA. But for us to like try to navigate the Veterans Administration, it's impossible.

• 32:41Speaker 03

  Why should we have that Sean? Think about that.

• 32:44Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I'm asking.

• 32:45Speaker 03

  But I'm also bringing it back is if someone, you know, look, I would, looking ahead in five weeks of sitting here doing this job, I have been seeing the exact same, asking the exact same questions. And say, why is it you have to have a VA whisperer, so to speak, to get what should be honestly yours to state and to take part in, okay? You're exactly right. I mean, right now, as we look at this, this is the concern that a lot of us are having. But how many government agencies are like this? Think about it. You're supposed to pay your taxes. I'll just use another, the IRS, you're supposed to pay your taxes. But yet you call the IRS hotline and they can't answer your questions. The very ones

• 33:28Speaker 03

  who will put you in jail for not paying your taxes can't answer some of your basic questions about how to file your taxes. Well, as we get into the process of the VA, and we, and I was just with a local vet center here, and one of the things I asked him, I said, "Tell me something, let, start telling me, getting up to me, tell me things that hinder veterans from getting the benefits or being a part of this system. Tell me what in our paperwork process, what in our setup is causing us problems?" Because here's what we are seeing though. To those, unlike some experiences you've had, especially a number of years ago, but what we're seeing today, there's been an improvement. Is it once they can get through the system, we're seeing general satisfaction rating among veterans of different

• 34:13Speaker 03

  generations saying, "Okay, this may not be," you know, they like the care. "They may not be what I want, it may not be for everybody," but 80, 90% you know, saying, "Hey, this is, this is okay, I'm getting what I need." Or the benefits, they're getting their package. But getting to it has been our problem. Getting us through that front line. To say, "This is an agency that is open." Look, I don't have my phone with me right now, but if I had my phone with me right now, I bet your private insurance, I know my healthcare with my wife, who I've been on state health in Georgia forever, I can right now pull up on my phone all my prescriptions, my doctor's appointments, I could talk to my doctor if I wanted to. We don't have that.

• 34:54Speaker 03

  Why is the large, and here's the other thing, we're the largest healthcare system in the country. By far, by far. Now, there's a couple of privates that like to say they're close. I have 170 hospitals, over almost 1500 clinic, C-Box clinics, and that's not counting the mobile stuff we do and everything else. That's how massive this organization is, okay? And they've all run on siloed issues. I heard an issue today that was about, you know, just simple things, it's transportation. Well, and when they were asked for help, they said, "Well, that's not a VHA issue, which is our health side. That's a VBA issue, which is our benefit side." Well, I'm here to say, "I'm the secretary of all of you. We're gonna start acting like we're one company and not three companies working in the middle."

• 35:39Speaker 03

  And we're gonna, but again, Congress has facilitated this. Some prior administrations have facilitated this. Because here's the thing, Sean, how many times do you run across somebody who wasn't a veteran? And especially in public life, if they're not a veteran and they run for office there, it's hard for them to have honest questions to a veteran or to veteran service organizations, which may or may not have the interest that they need to be promoting, or another organization. And they say, "Well," and I had a gentleman on the floor of the House one time. And, good friend, good guy, never served. And there was an issue on the floor, and it was wrong, it was just wrong. I mean, we should be doing it differently, okay?

• 36:24Speaker 03

  It was a budget item. And I said, "You know," and I went to this person, and I said, because they're very vocal, I said, "You know this is wrong. We shouldn't be doing it this way. This should go into the budget, it shouldn't be done separately, this is the way we should be doing it." And I'll never forget, and it just floored me. The person looked at me and he said, "Doug, I know that." He said, "But I'm not a veteran." And he said, "I can't have somebody attacking me as being against veterans."

• 36:56Speaker 03

  Sean, think about what he just said.

• 37:00Speaker 04

  He was willing to make a bad vote because he was scared of the political fallout of being seen as against veterans. We've seen this consistently with policy that comes out of Congress for the VA. We've seen it consistently in situations where the VA, they will pass budgets and then complain about it. Because that's the way you do it. We have veteran service organizations that honestly at times seem more at war with me and the VA than they do their membership. Now, they're good people. I'm not trying to throw them under the bus. That's not what I'm trying to say here. But if your only way that you satisfy

• 37:41Speaker 04

  your membership is to say, "We fought the VA and won," huh? We're on the same, we're supposed to be on the same page here. We're trying to help veterans too. But we can't have adversarial roles to fix the problems that you're talking about. Because when we do that, we're just simply going in circles. It's gotta be an all-in approach. Lord willing, Donald Trump's here. I know I've got hopefully four years to do this. But I really got 18 months. My mission is about 18 months. To get in, to start making the transformational process, to take the generational change that Donald Trump said he was gonna bring to DC. And I saw him just the other day. He, I mean, he and I talked last Friday. And

• 38:25Speaker 04

  he said, he said, "What about my," you know, and he brought up the community care. He brought up all the folks being able to go out and get the choices they need. And I said, "Sir, we're working on it." And I said, "But I got some problems. We're gonna, I need your help." He said, "No, whatever do. We'll, we'll take care of it." But these are the kind of generational change we gotta have. And so now, one of the things we're experiencing is, you mentioned how much we have. Well, we've had a, across the board, a reduction in force is what it's called. A RIF. Now, the interesting thing is, the legacy media, liberal media, the unions are all going nuts. How can you cut this money out of the federal government? The federal government will never survive if we cut 15% out of the workforce. Well, Bill Clinton and Al Gore in the 90s cut 13 or 14%, or 12 to 14% out of the federal government. Several hundred thousand jobs.

• 39:10Speaker 04

  Nobody gripped. And by the way, we're still 20 something years in the future, almost 30. The government not only survived, it got bigger again. So what we're looking at now is how do we do this? And we go into systems that are broken and take out the layers that don't need to be there. The things that are keeping veterans from getting the benefits that they've earned. Keeping them from healthcare, keeping them from going into the community and getting the care that they need. Getting access to new treatments like psychedelics or other things. We need to get that funding that's been there to fund positions and worry about funding veterans' healthcare and worrying about funding veterans' benefits. If we can do that, then we've got a chance.

• 39:53Speaker 04

  But what we've got right now is a system in which actually some Republicans and Democrats and some other organizations that are simply saying, who will look on their own webpages or websites and their statements. The VA is too much wait time, too long to do this, and broken. But yet, I've seen quotes and tweets. Secretary Collins needs to be careful on how he does the reorganization of the VA. It needs to be more structured and more, or better yet, some actually said, "We don't need to get rid of anybody at the VA." What that's basically saying is, for 10 years, GAO has said we're on high risk. That we can't get rid of bad employees, by the way, did you know that? When we had, the President signed the Bill Accountability Act back at the end of his term,

• 40:38Speaker 04

  and we fired, there was almost 4,000 people fired at the VA for stuff like showing up drunk in the OR. Doing other things. We fired them. Guess what? The union and others had lawsuits. And when Donald Trump left office, basically the Biden administration, through some series of bad judgment, just basically quit. And said, "We'll bring them all back and give them back pay, whether they came back or not." This is the kind of problem we're dealing with, Sean. It's not an easy, just get your head out of your rear system. We've got to actually make structural changes so that, number one, we can get rid of the bad, hire good, and put a culture in that the veteran is first.

• 41:23Speaker 04

  I've said it every day I have been in this office, and I'm not taking a day off really yet.

• 41:30Shawn Ryan?

  So how do you plan on, how do you plan on leaning that process out for these guys to get benefits?

• 41:36Speaker 03

  It's gonna be, here's where we're starting right now. We're starting a process using career employees, others in the system to say, okay, where, because we're under this, to mandate to get the fat out, and then we can use that money to redirect. We're already redirecting over 500 million dollars right now that's in the process of being redirected towards suicide, which by the way, I want to talk about, you need to hear what's going on there, and you're not gonna like it, but you need to hear. Homelessness is the same way. We're redirecting that toward prosthetic care, we're redirecting it toward community care, we're redirecting that money. All that money that was sitting out here, that was, you know, for PowerPoint and meeting notes kind of stuff that we were doing, is now going back to the veteran itself. We're gonna have to, as we go through looking for this reduction force, we're gonna take

• 42:19Speaker 03

  out folks that are not forward-facing when it comes to veterans' health. In other words, it's amazing to me, and I don't know if you read just recently the paper, we let 2,400 people go, about two weeks ago, three weeks ago. And all of a sudden, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, all the legacy media, The Hill, senators and others, union members, Collins is killing healthcare, Collins is gutting the VA, Collins is calling, and then they'll say, well, and they'll find somebody who said they had their surgery that was put off, or that their appointment was rescheduled. None of the people, the people we fired were publicists, interior designers, laborers, I mean, this is what we're talking about here. How has your surgery been put off because an interior designer was laid off? It wasn't, it's a lie.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  But what we have is, you know what's interesting though? If it had gone back to January 15th of this year, and that same surgery had been put off, it would have never made a headline.

• 43:13Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 43:14Speaker 03

  Because now we're doing something. So now we just gotta start trimming those out. Forward-facing, with the healthcare, with our benefit side, are not, that's not the areas we're looking at. We're looking at, I think somebody told me the other day, think about this, we have almost 16,000 contract agents, contractors, all they do is contracts. 16,000?

• 43:36Speaker 03

  Really? Let's take a look and see if we need 16,000 contract agents. Let's see if we need five and six levels of bureaucracy in some of these situations. And instead, take those money, redirect it back to where it needs to go. Then you're gonna be able to get, you know, quicker access. Then you're gonna be able to cut, oh, by the way, I'm also gonna look at, you know, if we can, if there's 10 sheets of paper for you to get in, let's see if we can do that with four sheets of paper. Let's see if we can ask better questions and get better results.

• 44:11Shawn Ryan?

  Let's talk about the suicide.

• 44:13Speaker 03

  Let's do it.

• 44:15Shawn Ryan?

  What do you want to say about that?

• 44:17Speaker 03

  Um, whatever we have been doing for the last five years, for whatever good there was, and there's been some, explain to me how in the past five years, six years of budgets, we spent approximately 15 billion dollars, and the number is, is basically unchanged. We spent 588 million dollars, 588 million, on preventive supposed suicide. We spent 2.3 billion in what we'll call treatment of either the mental aspect, has health aspect that, you know, issues that they've had with hurting themselves, other things like it. 2.3 billion. So 3 billion dollars total, roughly, in suicide.

• 45:00Speaker 03

  And yet, our numbers are not changing, Sean. We go from a low of about 63, 6400 up to almost 7,000 a year. Now, you may have mentioned earlier of what's the real number. That's, that's arguable debate. And I've heard this, you know, from others. It actually may be 25, 30, um, depending on how you classify overdose and how you'd, or, or also frankly, in rural communities. I grew up in a rural community. Suicide is something you don't talk about. And you get, you get some of these medical examiners and coroners in these smaller counties, you know, they may not, they, they'll call it accidental or something else. So we may not know, because there's just that stigma of, of suicide that's attached.

• 45:39Speaker 03

  So what I'm looking at here is, is what's actually working? What we're doing frankly, and just all fairness ain't working. You can't do that much this long and say it's working. So what we're trying to do now, and what I'm beginning to do is I want to know why that 588 million is going for. I want to know what are we supposedly doing to, and don't just tell me you're putting a Facebook ad out there. Don't tell me that you're, you know, running, you know, the call the crisis line number out there, you know, which are all fine and good, but where are we at actually hitting to the members who are listening to your podcast who have no want to, to go to the VA? Because here's the other part of that.

• 46:20Speaker 03

  Whether the number's 17 or the number's 24 or even higher, the statistics are pretty good that say that 50% of those folks have never been touched by the VA. 50%. That's just unacceptable.

• 46:38Speaker 00

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• 48:05Speaker 04

  So my, one of the things I'm starting, starting right here with you, I'm starting with other things that we're gonna be doing, I'm trying to reach that veteran who's sitting out there, who's saying, you know, "Screw the VA. I went over there one time, they didn't even treat me like I was human." Or that was their perception. You know, look, everybody's got a perception. And, you know, that may be your perception, you wasn't treated well. It may have been a bad day for them, bad day for you. But then they're sitting in their, in their home, and they're self-medicating, or they're, you know, going off doing destructive things, they're gonna end up toward the point where they don't see a reason to go on. But if they listen to your podcast, they listen to somebody, I'm gonna sit here and say, "Look, folks, you know, let's get help. Let me send somebody, go to an organization you trust.

• 48:48Speaker 04

  Call your battle buddy, call your airman, call your wingman, whoever it is. We gotta get out of this stigma that is, that we don't touch people that are saying they have problems. I mean, think about your friend that you just talked about. He's not gonna run out in the front yard and say, "Hey, I'm really not able to function today." They're not gonna do that. But we gotta find them, we gotta hit ways that people like his wife and others have the ability to reach out to somebody and say, "Here's real ways we can help." And get back to the simple fact of, hey, are we actually treating this as what it is? And that is a serious condition brought on many times by things that were out of their control, or what they saw, or what they didn't.

• 49:29Speaker 04

  I was in Nashville today, at National Songwriters Association, some folks I've known for years who write country music, some of them write songs all over the world for stuff you hear on the radio all the time. And there's a couple of organizations that work with veterans, American Song, there's some others, where they get veterans together and who have had years of not being able to express themselves, not being able, they feel isolated. And they get them down, they start talking with other veterans, and they start writing a song. They say, "Write a song." And they, and they show them and talk to them about how to do that.

• 50:03Speaker 04

  I had a veteran today who told me, he said,

• 50:10Speaker 04

  "Been married fifty something years." He said, "I was in Vietnam." He said, "I never, my wife never hardly knew anything about what happened." He said, "I just, he said, "I just didn't talk about it." And he said, "Ten years ago, somebody finally got to me," and he said, "I sat down and I wrote this song." He said, "And it was not the song itself, it's the, it's the action of putting it on paper." And he says, "Now I'm able to talk to her." "I'm able to release that." There's another gentleman, this is a Vietnam vet, there's another gentleman there who, again, his, his kids, and you, you know the saying, how, how many times do people say, "Tell me a war story, Sean, tell me, tell me what you did, tell me what was cool." This guy was saying, he said, "He didn't want to talk about it." And his kids would ask him, "Well, granddad, dad, what are you doing?" And he couldn't talk about it, he got in this position.

• 50:56Speaker 04

  In a power of a song, where he wrote down

• 51:02Speaker 04

  what happened him at Tet, way back when, when he saw his buddies burned up in a tank.

• 51:11Speaker 04

  When he saw that, and you could see it as if it was today in his eyes. But then he was able to say, "If you want to know it, then listen to this song. Listen to the words that I wrote down." That's a totally different way to look at this stuff. We've got to reach the veteran where they are. And if it's hunting, let's take them, you know, let's, let's match them with a, with somebody that, that can talk to them and get them out on a, a duck blind somewhere, or get them out in the field. If they can't, if they want to do exercise, let them do that, or if they just want to sit and get coffee, or they want to, you know, go have a beer, do something. Instead of just funding five hundred and eighty-eight million dollars on programming, let's see if our program is actually being effective. I'm just not going to sit here, I may do a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong in the next few years, but I will tell you this, I will not sit here

• 51:57Speaker 04

  for the next four years and spend that amount of money and do the same damn thing. I'm just not going to do it.

• 52:04Speaker 04

  How will you know if it's working? Well, see if my numbers go down. I'm gonna see how many people are responding. I'm gonna see if we're reaching people that we've not reached for, because if we're starting to touch them, then we're gonna start seeing them in into our systems and our... I'm looking to use nonprofits. By the way, I'm non-discriminatory here. I don't care if they they come to the VA or not. I want them to come to the VA because we got resources to help them. But if they're willing to go to a nonprofit somewhere, if they're willing to go down to their church somewhere, but they heard about it from this weird guy from Georgia who happens to be the Secretary of VA, to say, "Go get help, it's okay", then we're gonna see our communities put back together better. We're gonna see people and families come back together. You're gonna hear it from your buddies. I'm gonna hear it from mine. Because those people, we hear about them,

• 52:48Speaker 04

  but they're not getting help that they need because it's so quiet. I'll use an example for you. My daughter has spinal bifida. She was born, she's 32 years old now. If she were to come in here and she roll in in her little chair, she would she'll knock socks off of her. She's got a smile, she she's never walked down her life. I mean,

• 53:09Speaker 04

  you know, I've watched her not experience the quote "normal", you know, going on dates and getting married and all that. I just, you know, I've watched it. Broke my heart. For her, she just gets up and goes every day. She goes to work five days a week. She works at a hospital. But if you were to come in here, or we were to take her over here to the mall, people would come up to her and they'd feel sorry for her. They'd try to help her. They'd try to open a door. They'd try to, you know, help her get to what she needs.

• 53:35Speaker 04

  But if I was to stand up in that same mall

• 53:39Speaker 04

  and say, "Folks, I don't know what's wrong, but my mind's broke",

• 53:44Speaker 04

  we don't we don't look to open a door for that person. We don't look to to run to them. Too much in our time is we're moving away from them. We've gotta change the whole scenario here, especially in the VA and our veteran community. For for brothers and sisters who we've served with, they've gotta know it's okay. You're not gonna...

• 54:04Speaker 04

  Be wrong in reaching out and giving somebody some help. And the person who needs the help needs to see somebody willing to sort of run the mile with them. If we can get that, that's how I'm gonna see results. That's how I'm gonna see bottom line. That's how I'm gonna see that our vet centers are getting some, maybe some more people. Or I'm gonna hear it in the community. I'm gonna see it in our judges who are actually seeing these people in front of them.

• 54:28Speaker 04

  Because they've crashed their car while they were drunk. They've, they've gotten to a domestic violence situation. Because they didn't know who they were hitting and they were hitting their own kid.

• 54:38Speaker 04

  This isn't playtime anymore for me, Sean. We've got to seriously deal with this in this country. And we gotta deal with it with our veterans. So for me, that's the way I'm gonna hopefully see it play out. Did I hear you say that you planned on using nonprofits to help? Yes, I'll use anybody that's willing to help. I'll use anybody willing to help. If that's a VSO, one of the big six VSOs or any of those, if they're willing to get in the game and help and try new ways. I'm, I'm ready to help. I'm ready to use nonprofits. I'm ready to use somebody that's willing to come in and we'll, we'll work the barriers and we'll do whatever it takes to get there. Because here's the situation.

• 55:13Speaker 04

  We're looking at a generation that's, that is not functioning the way we did 20 years ago. Even 10, 15 years ago. Because they're more influencer driven, they're more socially media driven, they're more, uh, you know, we just saw that in the last presidential election. That Donald Trump won because he reached voters who nobody were going after. He was speaking to them on platforms that they had never been, they had never heard before. So why would I not use things like this or, or nonprofits who are, you know, uh, and I could name them many, but I wouldn't want to forget anybody. I mean, you've got all, a lot of them out there that are putting good money to the actual end or putting, you know, lead on the target, so to speak, downrange.

• 55:57Speaker 04

  And they're using very little of it for administrative cost. And, and, and we don't do that. So if you've got organizations that are, have always been doing it, they want to try new ways, I'm all for it. But you've also got to be willing to get in and dig a little bit and know that you don't always have all the answers.

• 56:13Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, as far as care and some of these other treatments that we're talking about, I mean, is there any way that the VA can partner with somebody other than, other than, I don't know who you guys partner with, the, the, the American Legion, we, we, we listed a whole bunch of them that the modern day warfighter veteran does not use anymore. They're all using, we are all using mom and pop nonprofits. So I brought up, you know, how are you guys going to get, how, how are you going to get people into the VA system more and get them to their, to their initial appointments where, where, where they get their disability?

• 56:52Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 56:53Shawn Ryan?

  Is it going to be, it sounds like it's going to be very bureaucratic and hard to push through. So is, is there a way to get nonprofits like Veterans Advocacy Services?

• 57:05Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:06Shawn Ryan?

  Some type of a grant or give the veterans some type, to where they can, they can, hey, Peggy knows the system.

• 57:15Speaker 04

  Yeah.

• 57:15Shawn Ryan?

  She can get guys through. She can help guys through. She can, I mean, is there a way that the VA can partner with these smaller mom and pop organizations and fund them so that they can get a bigger team and, and, and, and to get more vets pushed through?

• 57:33Speaker 04

  Yeah. And, and look, I think one of the things here is, is that you're doing that in such a way that encourages good, you know, work. Now, look, some of our VSOs, they offer, you know, free help will get you through, and I'm not criticizing that in a situation. But many times they're willing to go through a situation, why are we having to use so much help? I, I'm actually attaching it, hopefully attacking it at a different end. Why do we need, as I said earlier, the, the VA whisper, why can't we do this easier? But until then, until then, yeah, I'll, I mean, I'll look at any way I can to help organizations that are helping veterans get the, the services they need without having to join an organization, without having to do anything else, just get what they have earned. And also-

• 58:18Shawn Ryan?

  I can tell you why.

• 58:19Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 58:20Shawn Ryan?

  Because it's like I mentioned before, nobody trusts the VA. When they go to somebody like Peggy, she's like a protector.

• 58:29Shawn Ryan?

  Guys like me, just about everybody that's been on the show that's been to work, they trust her, they know that she's gonna protect them through that process. They know that if, if something goes bad, Peggy's got it.

• 58:42Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 58:42Shawn Ryan?

  You know what I mean? That's why that's happening.

• 58:44Speaker 03

  Yep, and that's where we gotta start rebuilding trust in a system that has

• 58:50Speaker 03

  for, I can't explain this enough. The frustration I have with a lot, a lot of people, I have 480,000, there's, there's many, many, many, many dedicated people who want to help our veterans, period. Okay? They are. I, I, I've promised them as Secretary of VA that they will not have a better, you know, advocate for the good work that they do and to do it right to fight, you know, to make sure we're doing what we need to do. But I'm also not gonna tolerate status quo. I'm also not gonna tolerate, you know, lower standards. We're gonna have higher standards, we're gonna push this up.

• 59:26Speaker 03

  But at the same point in time, it's, it's, it's gonna take a holistic look at everything that we're doing. It can't simply be, how do we fix the third-party helpers here? How do we fix the system itself? Instead of, instead of us, me having to hire a driver to get me to the grocery store because I don't know how to drive, how about we make it better while I learn how to drive myself?

• 59:51Shawn Ryan?

  Mm-hmm.

• 59:51Speaker 03

  And I think that's gonna be, and look, but, but again, there's gonna be parties and equities that, that's not the way they've done it. That's not the way they do their business model. Because if they have people that come to them, they either, you know, get help from outside agencies or other stuff. I'm finding a whole different world that I'm just getting into the background of, of how they, you know, how we're working this stuff. And folks, if you've earned a benefit, take your benefit. You've earned the benefit. But also, there's a lot of encouragement to go back and go back, and I think that frustrates a lot of veterans. And you've heard this like I have. I want it to be known, veterans are not victims.

• 1:00:32Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:00:33Speaker 03

  We're not. We chose, we went into the profession, we done that, a- and now we're, we're, many of us and you and others you've talked about, we, we may have conditions now, we may have stuff that have cost us i- in that time of service, and that's why the system was set up. Is to say, okay, we're gonna do something. You know, the history of the, of the VA was really set up for our veterans who are outside of cities and outside of, of areas where there were not hospitals. The VA was set up because we had so many coming back in from World War I, and then of course, you know, as it expanded through World War II, that wasn't in areas where hospitals were. So that's how this sort of all started. We just sort of lost our roots a little bit. Because it's easier just to say, well, it's, it's, it's for the veterans, so let's just

• 1:01:16Speaker 03

  throw some money at it, and let's throw some more people at it, and, uh, but then, let's legislate it to death. That it can't get outside of these boxes. Because we wanna make sure that we're still in control. That's a big part of government issue that we have, not just the VA, but a lot of agencies.

• 1:01:35Shawn Ryan?

  So how would you partner with a nonprofit for that?

• 1:01:38Speaker 03

  Well, I think there's ways that we can look at, that I'm exploring right now. We, we can profit, you know, uh, you know, do things together. We can, you know, I can, you know, say, look, you know, this is a group that I, you know, that we're meeting with, what's your ideas? Bringing those ideas to me. I've already met with several that are saying, you know, well, we have an example right now that is coming out and without getting into deep, you know, details of that, you know, that, that need, we've had, they've had issues with data collection, they've had issues with stuff, and it should be something we're, should be willingly be a part of, and for some reason, the VA is all, is, is chose to be a stumbling block there. So it's like, well, I'm now looking at that and saying, no, let's, let's see if we can remove those stumbling blocks, let's get the data we need, let's, let's, let's make sure we have this out there so that, you know, we get good answers.

• 1:02:23Speaker 03

  Um, then there's also ways, again, as we look going ahead, is there ways that we remove some of the bureaucratic structure, find ways to then partner with, as you said, it, could it be through a grant? Possibly so, or other ways to help other organizations, help us get better. That's my goal. I don't wanna, I don't wanna simply put out...

• 1:02:44Speaker 04

  This idea that we need to, you know, a whole nother layer. You've had VSOs out here helping forever. And you've had all these others now just bringing a sort of another layer because this group trusts this group better than this one. Why don't we actually look at the root cause? If you came to me and um, you know, my my fingers were turning blue and I was having, you know, I was tingling. And for some reason it looked like a circulation issue. Well,

• 1:03:11Speaker 04

  the problem we've had lately is is we just put your hands in warm water or we get them warm and we we rub on them and they get the circulation back in them. Instead of realizing maybe there's a heart problem here.

• 1:03:20Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:03:21Speaker 04

  Maybe we're not pumping well. Well, I want to get back to the question is, is the VA heart pumping right? Are we putting things into place that help the veteran and not hinder the veteran? And are we getting to a place, I said this in my confirmation, I said, I want us to become a place instead of initial to where we're reactively no to to reactively, let's get there, yes, where we're actively saying, instead of saying, you know, I'm not sure we can to say, I think there's a way. We've got to have that mindset difference to say, look, you have benefits you've earned. You've had healthcare you've earned. We're here for a reason. But we're not to make it harder. And that's, I think that's become the adversarial system

• 1:04:02Speaker 04

  that nobody sort of talks about here, that it makes it seem, and again, perception, before anybody listens to this and screams, oh, that ain't the true world. No, it doesn't matter what I think you think or any other group thinks. When the perception is it's broken, when the perception is it's bad, and when the perception is I'm going to get told no, then that's the reality. Perception is reality to veterans. And we've got to break that, we've got to break that cycle.

• 1:04:27Shawn Ryan?

  What about nonprofits for treatments? There's a lot of nonprofits out there that have that have great treatment programs that are proven to work. You know, like I had mentioned,

• 1:04:36Speaker 04

  Yep.

• 1:04:37Shawn Ryan?

  That's, that's, that's, that's probably the biggest one that I know of that's doing psychedelic stuff. There's Tom Satterley, he's a former Delta guy, he's got the All Secures Foundation, very therapeutic experience. They, lots of coaching, that's been working. I mean, is there, is there a way where, because it sounds, look, I get it, like, you guys can't just be like, oh, we're doing Ivo Kane treatments now. I realize that's going to be, that's. Going to be an act of Congress and the Senator, however it works to get that through. But, you know, maybe there's a way where, where the veteran can up... Look, maybe there's a voucher program or something where the, where I want to try this nonprofit.

• 1:05:22Shawn Ryan?

  And maybe, maybe those nonprofits get...

• 1:05:26Speaker 03

  There's some certification, there's something, something to go through.

• 1:05:28Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, some kind of certified from the VA in the, in the, in, in the VA says to the veteran, "I'm not going to give you the money, but when, when you go to vets, when you go to All Secure Foundation, when you go to Veterans Advocacy Services, when you go to any of these nonprofits that are approved, look, you want, you want psychedelic therapy for your traumatic brain injury? We're going to give you the voucher. You pick which, which, which nonprofit you want to use it for. When they, and then they email in some kind of a document that says, "Hey, we sent this person down." That, I mean, that would just, that would streamline it so fast because then those, then those nonprofits

• 1:06:11Shawn Ryan?

  don't have to focus so much on fundraising so they can get these guys down there and women down there to do these things or, or, or their therapy or their whatever. And then the VA pays that voucher.

• 1:06:25Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:06:26Shawn Ryan?

  Is that a possibility?

• 1:06:27Speaker 03

  I think it's a possibility. I think everything for me is on the table right now. And that doesn't mean everything's going to get approved. That doesn't mean it's, it's going to happen. But it's, for me is, I want to say, okay, if we have these possibilities that we're seeing, you know, the, the, the mentoring, the counseling, the, the treatments, especially stuff like that that are working. Can we partner with that? Can we, you know, what's stopping me in my organization either, either policy-wise or, or statutory-wise, what the law says I can and can't spend money on that? Because there is some of that and I'm, I'm never going to say there's not. But if it's, if it's something we can now try, then, then I'm go, I'm going to be looking at this and we're go, and we've already started talking to these groups to say, "How can that be? I'm going to go to my people and say, "Tell me what the problem is here."

• 1:07:10Speaker 04

  And if the answer is, well, we can do that better in the VA, I'm saying, no, no, no, no, no. You're gonna do what you're doing in the VA, but why can't I have people out here that can go try this? And how do we do it? Tell me, as I've changed, I've changed my entire general counsel, which by the way, we have a lot of lawyers. I've changed their whole mindset into say, don't tell me no, tell me how to get to yes. If I'm asking you to get to a problem, you get me to yes, because I'm an attorney as well. I can get you to no quicker than you can. Get me to yes. Get me to a part where I can take what you're giving me. And so I'll go to our health people and say the same thing. Get me to yes. Don't tell me the standard line, like we found out something today, we had to go, it happens almost every day. I have to ask the question, Sean, and this is how it gets very frustrating.

• 1:07:54Speaker 04

  I have to ask the question, is this policy from the VA or is it statute from Congress? Because there's a big difference here. Statute from Congress, that's our red line, okay? I can't, I have to operate within the law. Policy, I made. I mean, you know, if there's a policy that you can't have ice cream on Fridays, well, we made the policy. Guess what? You can have ice cream on Fridays. I can change that all day long. So we've got to now delineate because many times in the VA, because they're scared of criticism, they're scared of what, you know, members of the Congress or the media or unions or anything would say about them, is that they'd much rather just say, no, we can't. Instead of, well, why?

• 1:08:39Speaker 04

  And then if you ask them, well, the law just won't let us do that. Well, policy ain't law. We can change those kinds of stuff. So I'm willing to look at it from all angles to see if we can. And if it's treatments, then I think that's where we're going to have to make sure that we're operating, because I can't bypass a law that says I can't do X treatment and just give you money to go do it somewhere else. I've got to work that out in Congress. And that's where folks like you and others that can help me. And also working with Bobby Kennedy over at HHS to get some of this stuff approved in different ways. Having a president, you know, who would be willing to say, look, let's do whatever we can. That's just when it's going to take the push of the veterans to say, these are the things that are working for us.

• 1:09:21Speaker 04

  Doesn't work for everybody, but at least for these, it is working.

• 1:09:27Shawn Ryan?

  I hope you're taking this in because I I am the guy you're trying to reach.

• 1:09:32Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:09:32Shawn Ryan?

  And and not only would that work with the treatment, but it would also help build the trust back within the VA. Because because guys like me don't trust the VA. We just don't.

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:45Shawn Ryan?

  But we do trust Tom Satterley, who is a retired Delta operator.

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:09:51Shawn Ryan?

  Seen it all. He has seen it all. And I know that he has my best interest because he's my friend. Or my friend is his friend. And everybody looks up to guys like Tom.

• 1:10:01Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:10:02Shawn Ryan?

  Or Marcus Capone, who's running vets.

• 1:10:04Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:10:05Shawn Ryan?

  With the psychedelic stuff. It's if if if the VA can be an interim. And say, yes, we're aware of what they're doing. They're on our list. We have a partnership with him. We want you to do that. Here, go.

• 1:10:19Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:10:20Shawn Ryan?

  That that is a that is a big step in getting guys like me to trust the VA again.

• 1:10:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:10:28Shawn Ryan?

  And then hopefully, all these nonprofits can go away because the problem's solved.

• 1:10:33Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:10:33Shawn Ryan?

  And and once this shit's all passed through Congress, then that we don't even need that those nonprofits anymore. Because hope hopefully, they all wind up going away because the problem's fixed. But in the interim, it's a great way, one, to get the treatment, two, to build the trust back.

• 1:10:49Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think you're right. And I think that's what I want to look at. That's why I'm out in the field. That's why we're doing things like this. It if at times, five weeks feels like I've been there five years. And in five weeks, I realize, my God, I've been there five weeks. And and going there. And I've had in just in that amount of time, we've had to deal with. Uh, our first start of contract looks where we found we went through 2% of our contracts, 2%. And found almost 580 billion, nine or a billion and a half, about B and a half. That are contracts that were were non-mission critical, non-mission essential. That's just in 2%. We've had to deal with that. I've had to deal with the probationary, uh, firings, which helped us get, you know, begin this thing get started. We're dealing things and you mentioned it earlier, by the way, we've had, um.

• 1:11:34Speaker 03

  The issue of the flags, we've changed that policy so that we're back to one force under the American and POW flag is all we're doing. We've taken the DEI out. We're doing that today, even just as we're coming on, we changed the policy on transgender. You're not going to be getting your sex changed at the VA anymore. If you're currently in treatment, we're going to continue that what was started before we ever got there, just as the SecDef did in his side, but because we don't want anything bad to happen to somebody who's under those treatments. But, you know, from this point on, you're not gonna, we're not changing your sex. You're gonna get, we're gonna treat you with respect and dignity if you come to the VA for all your, for your services, but we're just not gonna be participating in changing your sex.

• 1:12:16Speaker 03

  That's not what our services are for, and everything that we're taking money-wise away to that would take away from money that I could be spending on something else that are helping vets directly, where we're not even getting primary healthcare. That's the things that we're looking at. So, we're in the process of doing as much of this as we possibly can, and so we're taking every new idea. I'm taking it back. Our team is starting to process it, and we're working toward, you know, this end of making it a much more accessible, much more idea-friendly, if you would, VA. That restores trust. I'm hoping that restoring trust in the VA is me using social media in every possible way I can to tell people what's actually going on.

• 1:12:59Speaker 03

  And this is that, coming on your show, doing other shows and saying, going into the media and going on to saying, guys, no, I'm not gonna let senators lie to you anymore. I'm not gonna let union members, I'm not gonna let the newspapers and legacy media tell you stories which they, by the way, can't back up. This is what I've been fighting. I know we're on the, I know we're getting closer to the target because the, because the flag's getting a lot heavier. Because they don't want us on this, Sean. I mean, think about this, if you redo this and get it done. In any circle of life in, in the federal government, or any other is if you talk about

• 1:13:38Speaker 03

  a problem, you develop a group that says, this is my problem. And then all along, you never really get to solving the problem.

• 1:13:49Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:50Speaker 03

  And what you've done is you've built a group. This perpetuates itself on what? The problem. So I don't care what group it is out there. If they're not sort of in many ways trying to either put themselves out of business, so to speak, because they're solved a problem, as you said, or they're perpetuating the problem and then claiming they're the help for that problem, that's what we're fighting against. And I want to make sure that we're in a position to where veterans understand that they at least from the secretary level here, and what's going to hopefully permeate down through the ranks, is that this is a, this is not acceptable where we are. There's a lot of things we do well, and there's a lot of things that frankly, um, the VA does probably better than private,

• 1:14:32Speaker 03

  uh, healthcare anywhere else because we just have more experience in it. But then there's a lot of things that we don't. So why aren't we partnering with the community? Craziest story I heard, we actually have hospitals are sitting across the, the street, literally across the street from, from world-class oncology, cancer centers, and we're worrying about hiring cancer doctors at the VA. I said, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Just send them across the street and contract the care across the street. I don't need to hire the doctor. They've already got them over here. But that's the kind of thinking, Sean.

• 1:15:07Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 1:15:07Speaker 03

  That's your thinking. When your mindset is organizational and not patient, or in our case, veteran-centric, that's the kind of things you get.

• 1:15:19Shawn Ryan?

  What was your conversation like with Bobby Kennedy about psychedelics?

• 1:15:23Speaker 03

  Eye opening. Because, you know, of course, he is a, a very, you know, make America healthy again, you know, getting people, you know, getting the food additives out, getting those kinds of stuff. And I asked him specifically, because we were talking about this, I said psychedelics. Because he's, he, you know, his agency would have some, some say and some, you know, the studies and stuff on that. And it was really interesting. Bobby starts talking about this and he says, one, he said, I was a heroin addict. He said, putting stuff in your body, he said, for me to, to begin to talk about, you know, having something put in my body to quote fix, he said, I'm just, he said, I'm just, that's just nowhere close for me, he said, because of my past. He said, but then he wanted to explain a family member of his, this child of his, who had

• 1:16:06Speaker 03

  an experience using psychedelics that changed his life drastically. And he said, I would have never thought this, would have never saw, you know, it's sort of, I let him, I would let him explain it the way he sees it, but he said, this is working. He said, I've changed my mind about this. Because, he said, I actually see it happening and see it work. And, and he said, in my own, you know, flesh and blood. And I think that's the, the part that, you know, for me began to be exciting a little bit. And to see, here's someone who is so sensitive to those issues of medication.

• 1:16:48Speaker 03

  And one of the things too, is, and I think you see this as well, the answer to people many times, if they're having, you know, episodes and, just this idea that the ideas that you can medicate them to health is, is problematic to me. I just believe it is. And it doesn't mean that medicines don't work, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying go stop your medication, I'm not saying don't give them, but, but is there other ways to help in that regard that can reduce that dependency? And if we can, that'd be great. So Bobby's the same way. So for us, it was, I got a partnership now, that he and I are going to continue to work on from the research side and from the, the other. Also bringing, hopefully bringing DOD involved a little bit in this as well.

• 1:17:32Speaker 03

  Because that's part of our problem, Sean, we hadn't even really talked about this. The transition from DOD to civilian, or what we would term VA our side, is really bad. We don't do this well. And it's not just the VA health or VA benefit, not just the benefit, it's we're not giving a lot of our young service members and even older service members the transition that they need. We send them through the programs, you do the briefings, you've been there. And is it really working? And the answer has to be that probably it's not working like it should. Because we're seeing too many people end up in suicidal issues, we're seeing too much

• 1:18:15Speaker 03

  end up homelessness issues, or financial breakdowns, marriage breakdowns. Because as much as for those of us in the military who can gripe about the structure at times, you take away the structure, and even the harshest rebel who rebelled against structure would say, "I need that structure." So I think that's where it's really changed for me in looking at how we do this and how we go about it. So again, having partners like that is going to be, whether it be at DOD, whether it be at HHS, or with us at the VA is going to be very important moving forward.

• 1:18:51Shawn Ryan?

  What is the plan? Like with psychedelics? What is the plan moving forward? How does it get introduced into the VA? What needs to happen?

• 1:19:05Speaker 03

  Well, the first thing we're going to do is, and I'm getting this information now. Again, this is a part of this, I've already had a few who have came in who've actually talked about it, who want to talk about it some more. And then we got this study that's being done in conjunction up in New York. I want to see if there's possibility to expand that program. Where is it right now? Again, some of this I'm getting, and again, I'm not trying to be anything evasive here. I've got to get the knowledge of what we're doing and what we have not done. So I'm going to get that information and see. I know what the program you're talking about, and I've heard about it as well. So let's get data on that, have our people start reaching out across the board to say, "Okay, what is out there?" Then we've got to also then take that and look at what is the structural limitations

• 1:19:50Speaker 03

  that I have? What is the VA structural problems?

• 1:19:55Speaker 03

  To either entering into a larger study or entering into a trial basis or you know basically possibly even you know as you said earlier voucher funding or whatever that may be. What are my structural limitations that Congress has put on me there? Is there structural limitations that says you can use X dollars for this but you can't use X dollars for that? Okay? And then if there is and we find enough evidences in our place to do it, then I'm gonna go to Congress, I'm gonna go to the House, the House of Veterans Affairs Committee, I'm gonna go to the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, and then I'm gonna go to the, to the leadership and say, "Look, these are things that I need changed." Y'all may not be able to agree on a lot of things here, but these are some things I'm hopefully you can agree on. Give me the statutory ability, and even if you want to do it on a limited basis to start

• 1:20:40Speaker 03

  off with, I'll, I'll take that so that I can actually start trying. If I find out I don't have some of the statutory limitations, then I want to know what policy-wise may be hindering this, or is there a policy that can make sure that we're working with partners, um, to do this? Now, again, you said it earlier. The fiduciary role I have, I take very seriously. You get close to a vet, you get close to, and I, and, and Sean, you may have heard me say this already in this, in this discussion, I, I call them my vets and my employees. I don't do that to belittle, I don't do that, I just, it's just personalized to me. So, if you get close to them, we're gonna make sure you're doing it right.

• 1:21:22Speaker 03

  My fiduciary duty is, I gotta make sure that no matter how great you think your program is, I gotta make sure that we're not opening something up that, that nobody else has seen. And it would, and that's just due diligence, kind of thing. So, we're gonna make that happen. One of the things that was concerning me and almost to sidetracked to what we're talking about here, is there's a lot of residential, uh, treatment facilities in the private sector now that because of wait times for some mental health issues, uh, they're now popping up. Okay? I got no problem with us and, and Congress is sort of backing this up and we're putting some more money in there for it, but one of the concerns is, is have we created a cottage industry?

• 1:22:04Speaker 03

  For this now, because, look, money in DC is like water on a pavement. It's gonna go to, it's gonna go to its lowest part. It's gonna find its way out, okay? So if all of a sudden people hear, "There's money in this," then they're gonna be, there's always gonna rise to meet that demand. But is that demand always good? No, it's not. Because they're doing it quickly, they're doing it for the money, they're doing it for, you know, the possible... Not every one of them, but probably some. So we're having to deal with that right now in those kind of programs. And I'm having to deal with our folks to say, "Are we making sure that if we're using these, are they up to standard that we need to be at?" Because if we don't, then we're gonna be giving money to things that aren't working and in the end hurting us in the long run. And I think that's something that I've got to be aware of.

• 1:22:49Speaker 03

  So for me, it really goes down to that. That's where we're already starting. We're gonna have more meetings as, as we go about this to make sure we're getting the information and as quickly as possible, start to find those solutions that we, that we can do something with.

• 1:23:03Speaker 00

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• 1:23:32Speaker 01

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• 1:24:00Shawn Ryan?

  Would advocacy help at all? Does it help you to get veterans that have been through X, Y, and Z treatments in front of Congress to vouch?

• 1:24:11Speaker 03

  Yeah, it never hurts. It never hurts to do that. Because again, I've said this for years, the best spokesman for anything is the satisfied customer. You know, and I think that's the part and the recognition that it may or may not be for everybody, but for me, this worked. And so in conjunction with what we're going to do over the next few weeks and maybe come months is seeing what are our limitations? Beginning the process to say, hey, this has worked for me. I'm not sure where we're at in the process, but Mr. Congressman, Ms. Congressman, or Madam Senator, Senator, whatever. I want you to know this has worked for me. I just want to give you this information. And I would appreciate if you know, help the Secretary find us a way to this. I believe this could help others.

• 1:24:53Speaker 03

  That's always a good, I would never turn anybody down to talk about what they have.

• 1:24:57Shawn Ryan?

  The reason I'm asking is earlier you're talking about how media is attacking you about this stuff. And so would a hearing with a thousand, I mean, you're talking to the largest veteran population in the world right now on this show. And so would it help if there was some type of a hearing at Congress and you brought in a thousand vets that have been through different treat, you know, whatever, whatever you're advocating for change wise? To bring in people that have actually, that has actually worked for in front of Congress televised, here it is.

• 1:25:34Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:25:34Shawn Ryan?

  Media, put this on.

• 1:25:36Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think we could, I think that's something definitely working with Congress and working with the two committees in particular to to say as we go forward, here's things that we want to emphasize. And some of that's been done a little bit, but I think it could be done more. I'm not going to downplay that there's not been an interest in Congress about this. But it's not just the VA committee there. It's the Energy and Commerce, which does a lot of the healthcare stuff and everything else. So there's different ways, but yeah, I think those are definitely ways if we can get partnership with the Congress to say, are there better ways to do this? And I think frankly, I think. Be a Republican and Democrat, um, coming together on it. I think you're gonna see both parties be willing to look at stuff that work. You're gonna have some on both ends who say,

• 1:26:19Speaker 03

  no, we're not gonna touch this, or, or no, this is bad. But you're gonna have enough in the middle to say, well, let's at least listen to it. So I think as we progress in the next little bit with our information and then working with Chairman Boston, the House, and the, and the Committee, and Chairman Moran on the other side, uh, to say, hey, you know, we've got some ideas here. Is this something we could get you to take a look at? We can make sure you have all the, you know, the, the witnesses you want in dealing with this. Um, I think it'd be definitely something. Now, I'm not gonna also fool anybody. You start dealing with everybody's, uh, sort of piece of the pie out there, you know, nonprofits, VSOs, everybody starts shuffling, you're gonna make a lot of people nervous on. Mm-hmm.

• 1:27:01Speaker 03

  Because, again, you're dealing in livelihood, so to speak, with, with stuff that they're doing and how they've done it, and do we need to change and not change? I'm just not, I'm not bought and sold to anybody. I'm bought and sold to the veteran, getting the help that they need and not dying anymore. So, look, it, it's, this is where we gotta have it. And, and, and right now, the bigger fights that we gotta have is getting a structural basis. These are things that we can work on. But bringing it back to where we sort of started this whole thing, is I've got to, to work on getting the VA in the best possible shape it can be to actually do its mission. And right now, we're probably a little, more

• 1:27:45Speaker 03

  than probably, we are heavy in where our allocation of employees are, where allocation, and where our contracts have been spent, and how the money is being spent and should be spent differently. Those are the things that we're working on very hard right now. But again, when you got Congress who has put this money out there, telling everybody it's gonna work, but the reality is it's not, they're gonna be very hesitant to be told that what they did was wrong. Or to do it better. And so we're fighting those battles right now that are keeping me away from dealing with some of these other issues. Uh, on how can we, you know, find new and inventive ways to do things? How can we actually try things that haven't been tried before?

• 1:28:29Speaker 03

  So I'm fighting a bunch of battles on different, different levels right now. And wherever veterans can help, that's where I, I would love to have them be a part of this, this solution.

• 1:28:40Shawn Ryan?

  Man, it's just a damn shame, you know, you got the entire veteran population that's screaming, we need help. This is how you help us. And then you got the fucking bureaucrats that are getting in the way that are slandering whatever's happening in the media. And it's just, it's, I think that's what makes it so frustrating is we know what we need and we know what we want. And we can't get it done because some fucking politician in DC who didn't ever step a foot on a fucking combat ever, never is making the decisions for us and it pisses us off.

• 1:29:12Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:29:13Shawn Ryan?

  And, you know, but earlier you had mentioned about community healthcare.

• 1:29:17Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:29:17Shawn Ryan?

  How does that, how is it working now? And what would you like to see happen?

• 1:29:21Speaker 03

  It's, it's not working as good as it should, I believe. And I think this is where we need to make it easier. And I think, and again, I look at this generationally. And, and this, and I don't mean to, to put everybody in a pigeon hole here. But we're dealing with different generations of veterans. Okay. I still got World War II veterans. I still got Korean veterans have, still have a lot of Vietnam veterans. And then there's a sort of that, if you, if you know your history, sort of that low time, that seventies and eighties. There was sort of after the Vietnam, before Gulf War. That is a veteran that is, has a lot of different needs. They were in a lot of different things, but just they're sort of the quiet veteran that measured in the middle. And then you sort of pick up with Gulf War and then GWOT. Okay. Think about that for a second.

• 1:30:06Speaker 03

  You go from boomers, well, not even boomers, you know, you got pre boomers. Uh, to the greatest generation through boomers, through X, through everything else. The, the mentality of those generations and how they interact with the VA, uh, is very different. And so. The issues of the older ones are more attracted to the VA centers themselves, the health, the hospitals, the C-Box, they want that care there. If, as they get older, some of them can't drive as far, they can't get that help, so it's more advantageous for them to go to a local eye doctor instead of driving 80 miles to the VA where they've always been forever. That's the help.

• 1:30:46Speaker 03

  But then you get into that Gulf War GWAT veteran, who has visions of the VA from their moms or dads, or from others from the Vietnam era, which they were, they don't want any part of that. But they want still the help, especially if they're struggling with financially or something else, they want to have the healthcare that they need. And by the way, we've got to do a better job, I'm going to take a little turn here for a second, we've got to do a better job at preventive health for veterans. We don't do a very good job at this right now. We were trying, but I've talked to our folks. So like, my generation and others, that we have the issues of healthcare, mental health, but just the basics of getting our diabetes under control.

• 1:31:29Speaker 03

  Make sure we're still eating right, make sure we're doing the things that run our cost up long-term and also take away quality of life. If we can do that in the VA system, then we're going to not only save money, but we're also going to help people, you know, in the long run too, from losing fingers, losing arms, especially the diabetic stuff. We're two and a half more times than the average population for diabetes. We're much more high propensity for hypertension and blood pressure, cholesterol, those kind of things. Those are areas that we've got to fix. But if they're not willing to go into the VA to get it, or have been turned off from the VA as you have, then the community care needs to be accessed, in my opinion, more readily. Now, the first thing I'm getting accused of, Sean, and I can tell you right now, somebody

• 1:32:13Speaker 03

  listening, right now, they say, Doug wants to privatize the VA. No, I don't. VA will always be there for folks to get care. In one way or the other, it's always going to be there. We're not privatizing anything if I'm paying the bill for you to go to a local doctor that you feel comfortable with and get the care that you need. That's not privatization. That's simply being smart and also following the law. The law says we're supposed to. But yet, we've also got to deal with the realities that in some of our areas, the private healthcare, public healthcare, the public hospitals have as much of a problem with finding doctors and nurses and all as we do.

• 1:32:55Speaker 03

  And so like I know down in our part of the world where I'm from in Georgia, the wait time for mental health and for psychiatry and some of the stuff like that in the private sector is actually longer than it is unreasonably than it is for the VA. So to dump all of a sudden, to put a lot of stuff, pressure back on communities that can't handle that anyway, we've got to find a balance. That means we have to staff up in areas that helps us get to the points that we need to be. But that's a generational issue. But right now, what's happening, and I'll just tell you candidly, in the last administration, they moved away from that model altogether. They just seemingly turned their back on getting people into the community healthcare if they chose it.

• 1:33:39Speaker 03

  They were trying to keep all of it or as much of it into the VA itself. And if people hadn't figured out why yet, I'll go ahead and break the sad news. It's because if I keep them more in the healthcare, then I can ask for more money. I can keep more people here. Now, there are also things that we do that others don't do, but that's fine. But when you're keeping them from the healthcare, then you're also putting them at risk that if they're not getting the healthcare out there and they're not coming to see you, then you're not helping them in the way that you should. So that's the way community health should work. That's where our community care programs should be. We're going to get it back to where that is more applicable. And there actually is some legislation right now, both in the House and the Senate, to

• 1:34:22Speaker 03

  actually strengthen that by reducing some of the limitations to community care so that it's easier to access. That will help us all in the long run, especially our rural healthcare and especially our suburban healthcare, that sort of middle ground healthcare where they're maybe not too, they're not too far from a VA center, but they're not close enough and they just want to be in their community. But Sean, how many, how many of our generation want to drive 90 miles? To a center or a C-boc that they don't know anybody and they go in and their peer group is much older than them probably and they go sit around and say, I'll just go to my doctor down the street or I'll go to the quick care and and just if I need something or I'll just keep,

• 1:35:06Speaker 03

  you know, doing this myself.

• 1:35:08Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody wants to be able to do that.

• 1:35:10Speaker 03

  So that's what we're looking at.

• 1:35:12Shawn Ryan?

  So that's what it. So are you saying it will be a choice? You can either go to the VA where you can.

• 1:35:17Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:35:17Shawn Ryan?

  Cause that's what I've been advocating.

• 1:35:19Speaker 03

  There is, there, there's choice in there. There's some criteria that's been set up, you know, because again with the, the mileage and stuff like that, but even in the House and the Senate, they're trying to refine those down to where it makes it easier to get that community care. And what we're gonna, well, you know what I think is a probably the

• 1:35:37Speaker 03

  result of some of this, and this is me speaking, this is like, I think you're gonna see as it gets better and better with working with the community and working with the VA, you'll start seeing a lot more split care. You'll start seeing some for like instance, I want to, like say you had orthopedic issues or you had, we've got some great of some of our medical centers, especially orthopedic and bone are probably some is good, if not better than a lot of the, the private house. They may go there to get an orthopedic issue, but they're gonna go outside to get their cardio, their cardiac care or they're gonna go outside to get their kidney doctor. So you'll have a split model, which is exactly what the, the law envisions. So you don't have to be stuck to one or the other. You get the best care you can at the way that you want it got.

• 1:36:23Speaker 03

  But yet we've got to get to a system in which we take out the middle people, we take out the processes, we get it streamlined into where VA has the control it needs to make sure fiduciarily, we're doing what we're supposed to do, but not the control to where we keep it ourselves. That's, there's a big difference there. There's a big difference in, in signing off and agreeing, this is the condition, I see this, I'm gonna give this person a referral. Instead of saying, well, I see this condition, but let's see if we can get them back in in two weeks to talk to them again. You know, those kinds of things. I'll just say this, in the coming weeks, you're gonna see some more of this coming out from our office. I would just say, stay tuned. Um, it's bigger than what I can even describe here.

• 1:37:07Speaker 03

  We got some other stuff coming out and I'll just say, just bear with us there. We're working through this community care issue to overcome what we've had in the last four years.

• 1:37:17Shawn Ryan?

  That sounds good. That sounds real reassuring. What about the burn pits? You know, a lot of, I mean, there's all these weird cancers popping up. It's like every day I got a new buddy that's got cancer that died of cancer, that's got stage four cancer, you know, nobody knows what it's from. A lot of people think it's from the burn pits or the, the, the vicinity around high explosives, breathing in that shit, especially in Afghanistan, you know, the burning tires to keep warm. We breathe that in. I remember, I remember spitting in the sink and my spit was gray because I had breathed in so much crap. I mean, it sounds like there's something going on there with the burn pits.

• 1:37:58Speaker 04

  Yeah, the pack that was designed to, to, to address some of that. The, the problem is, is look, the pack that was, was a good uh, step into dealing with it. Look, I'm a burn pit guy as well. I mean, I was at Malad every day in our, uh, you know, while I was there, you'd wake up in the morning. When I first got there, I don't know if it's your experience, I got there and I was like, why is it so hazy around here? You know, I thought, I thought it was an environmental, I'd never been in the desert kind of thing. So I thought, but then I got to realizing it was just the constant flow of the burn pit area that was going over, um, our, our huts over there. This is what it was all the time. It was there all the time. I remember riding by and you could see it burning.

• 1:38:38Speaker 04

  It reminded me of growing up in North Georgia where everybody in our neighborhood had the 55 gallon drums and had the bomb out and you throw your trash in and you burn your trash. I mean, I smelled the same smells and worse that I was smelling in the burn pit. There was, there was used to be when we were burning plastics and crap and everything in the, in the trash bin. So yeah, there's, I think there's a lot to go on there. What my concern was, is they sort of took this from the nine 11. If you remember timeframe wise here, they had a lot of exposure. So President Biden at the time got up in the say the union said, we're going to address this. Well, all of a sudden they threw a bill together, which had been already been worked on, but they sort of threw out everything that had been worked on and threw this bill together that.

• 1:39:26Speaker 03

  It's part good, but also very rushed. Which is, I'll be kind today. Okay, it was rushed, and then thrust upon the VA to say, here, do this. Did you know part of that bill, I bet most people didn't know, do you know that that bill actually requires the VA to test every veteran? The test of, were you near a burn pit, were you near toxic chemicals, were you near, they ask those basic questions that I'm supposed to ask every veteran? I mean, there's over 18 million, 19 million veterans in this country, only 9 million roughly have been touched in any way by the VA. How am I supposed to find the 9 million if they don't want to be found? But that's the kind of thing that was put in the bill.

• 1:40:08Speaker 03

  And I actually asked one, I happened to be in a meeting the other day with someone who actually wrote that bill, and they, I mean, they were nice about it, but they didn't really have a good answer. And there's no way for me to reach these people. So, I say all of that to say, that's the conduit around PAC Act, was that looking for the diseases. Right now, we have basically permissively allowed almost, almost every condition under that, that if you have, then it's going to be found under the PAC Act. And then how treatment goes from there will be just determined on what, like, everything, cancers of the head, which technically, there is no such thing as cancers of the head. It's specifics

• 1:40:52Speaker 03

  in there, but that, we have a terminology of cancers of the head. Okay, I mean, we've turned that in, and the previous secretary added in, I think it was the previous secretary, and I don't know if it confirmed, but the, these presumptive conditions were added for hypertension, and prostate, and everything else. Okay, I get it, but, you know, we're just sort of, at this point, just say, if you've been near a burn pit, or you can answer one of these questions, you're just going to get healthcare. Which is in some ways burdening the system a little bit and the benefit side, the disability side of this. But if that's what the intent of Congress should do is just basically give everybody disability checks for that, then, you know, that's what you're gonna have to look at going forward.

• 1:41:35Speaker 03

  So for me, it's saying, okay, what are the real medical consequences of this? What can we do to treat this? This is also something I brought up that was Bobby Kennedy and I actually talked about as well. On from, but we talked about it from a vaccine perspective, but also some others. You know, it's just saying, you know, how can we, you know, look at these conditions and begin to know that what we're seeing and, and the treatments are effective to what we have. And I think that's the question sometimes never asked. So for me, I'm having to live with PACTAC and say, how do we fix it? It's a good thing to get these people in who have these cancers, have this, to make sure we're treating them, getting the help care in the community or, or with us. So that's really where for the burn pit people and for the exposure people, we're, you know,

• 1:42:19Speaker 03

  keeping that commitment. And contrary to lies, we didn't cut any toxic exposure funds. We actually had, the Congress just actually added in, uh, more money in this latest, uh, CR that was just done. So again, I cannot tell you the magnitude of lies that I deal with on a daily basis. Yeah. And now we got a big one coming in too. And, and, and not a lot I can tell you is much about this. We're trying to implement that's the DOL Act, Elizabeth DOL Act, which is gonna deal with, with caregivers at home and, and other things that have been building up over time. I'm now trying to figure out, how do I do that and process it properly? Cause some of it, we were not funded for. Here's, here's another trick, you know, and look, I've been in Congress, so I, I participated on, you know, fortunately in this, is we pass stuff, we don't fund it.

• 1:43:05Speaker 03

  And so we just expect the VA, which by the way, you're complaining about how much money we have now and you complain, but now you're telling me to do something that could be literally billions of dollars and I'm having to find the money.

• 1:43:17Speaker 03

  So this is, you know, but I'm having, having a ball.

• 1:43:21Shawn Ryan?

  It sounds like it.

• 1:43:22Speaker 03

  Because I believe in what I'm doing.

• 1:43:25Shawn Ryan?

  So with all these, these cuts, it's a, was it eighty-three thousand jobs right now are on the line at the VA?

• 1:43:32Speaker 03

  There's about fifteen percent, so give or take around, that's what we're looking at.

• 1:43:35Shawn Ryan?

  And so that money that's going to those jobs, that just won't disappear, that will get.

• 1:43:40Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:43:40Shawn Ryan?

  That will get reallocated into something else like healthcare.

• 1:43:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's what, I mean, that will be what we fight for is to get it reallocated. Some will, some, you know, if you get to the point, probably would go to something differently. I'm not gonna say all will just stay in, all that will, you know, especially with what we got going on, that might be my preference. But again, also is, is the workforce slimming and the monies that we can spend, um, going to where it needs to go. And I think that's gonna be the big key for us is making sure of that. Now, again, one of the things is Congress, again, holds purse strings. You know, in, in actuality, they are the ones that pass the budgets and put the monies in there and everything else. So we've got to make the decisions so that we do have cuts, we do have things that don't continue on in our budgets.

• 1:44:21Speaker 03

  Because the one thing we've not talked about, and we've had senior military leaders and, and others, our national debt and national, our deficits are a national security issue. And we can't keep going the way we're going, uh, in this. The VA will always be one that's gonna probably be looked at as to make us as efficient as we possibly can. And we're gonna do that and we're gonna do our part. We, we're already well ahead and, and working that way. But also I have to be, as I've told our staff many times, I've told, you know, worked at the White House and everybody else, is I said, look, we're gonna do it a measured way. Because at the end of the day, I'm dealing with people. I'm the only agency up there that has to deal with cuts, but actually also has to look at doctors and nurses and, and families in the face.

• 1:45:07Speaker 03

  And say, we're taking care of your healthcare. I, no other agency has to do that. Pete, DOD is about as close as, you know, I would say that comes to having to deal with the, the, the sort of real viral side of people. And, and the decisions that he makes, life or death kind of decision, where does my son or daughter get sent, kind of thing. I'm on the other end of it in which that it's very, I, we gotta be very careful where we make it. So that we're not hurting veterans and we're giving them the ability to get the disability benefits or the other benefits they've earned. So we're, I take it very seriously, but do I think we can get a large amount of that number? You better believe it. I do believe it because.

• 1:45:45Speaker 04

  And one of the reasons I know is because everybody that's coming up. Who's saying, oh, well, all the wait times are going to go up and all the backlog is going to go up. Well, I just have four years of proof that tens of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people didn't solve your problem. So why don't we try it a little differently here? Let's give them a better organization. Here's a better thing. Like I said earlier, give me an H, uh, an HR tool that actually lets me know how many people I have and where they're at. Give me a computer system that can begin to, to screen disability benefits and others to help the actual person. So that we can take the easy ones, the tinnitus and everything. Let's take those off the table. Let's quit griping. And going paperwork and paperwork about that. Let's take the easies off the shelf.

• 1:46:27Speaker 04

  So that we can get to the harder ones to determine their level of disability. Let's do things with, with AI, never taking a human component out of it. Because there's always, especially with veterans, there's complex cases. So I'm always going to have the, the, the person there to go through that and make sure that we're getting what we need to, to get and not over give, but not under give either. But why don't we use a computer and AI training to actually say. Let's do this better and do it quicker. I'm, I'm all for doing things better and quicker, Sean. Look, what, what's the old saying? Uh, slow is smooth and smooth is fast.

• 1:47:05Speaker 04

  That's where we gotta be here.

• 1:47:07Speaker 04

  And I'm committed to doing that. I'm asking questions that others may have asked. I'm just going to be doing it differently. Because as I've told all our folks. I, I sit here with you as about as content an individual as I can be. I've had, you know, fifty nine, almost sixty years of life. I've had the experiences of being around the world, sitting with presidents and kings and, and doing things in Congress and. And being with a lawyer, helping people in court, standing beside them on their worst day. And helping them out. I've, I've had the privilege of pastoring a little church that grew into a little bit bigger church. I've had a wife that's been with me for thirty six, almost thirty seven years. We've been together thirty eight. I have three kids.

• 1:47:51Speaker 04

  I'm at the point in my life where I want, I want to help others get better. I'm at that point, I want to turn around and say, for all this experience and where I've been, I want to make sure we're doing something right. I get as much joy out of somebody that's working for me, coming to me and say, hey, we got this done. That's the celebration for me. Because I've really come to the conclusion, over years of work in this and believing this one statement, that if I help enough people in life get what they want, I'll get what I want. Well, now we're at a place to really make this happen. So for me, I don't know what will happen if I get to stay for four years in this. I don't care. I get four years to make a difference in the life of my brothers and sisters and warfighters that gave something to this country.

• 1:48:36Speaker 04

  And now my job is to make sure that that country who promised them things, who set it up, actually does it. I can't think of a better calling. And I'll take the arrows, I'll take the slings, I'll go to Congress and have, you know, the other side of the aisle yell at me and tell me I'm bad. That's fine, you come at me. Because I'm gonna do the best I can with what I have, with what they gave me. But the one thing about it, Sean, is this, you're not gonna kick around the VA anymore without offering solutions. You're not gonna scare my veterans and you're not gonna scare my employees without this secretary calling you out when you are wrong.

• 1:49:17Speaker 04

  And I've seen it so much in the last few weeks, it's disgusting. I've had sitting senators lie repeatedly about who was let go. I've had sitting House members and senators lie repeatedly about, as I said earlier, appointments getting put off, surgeries getting put off, delays are already going up. There's been three weeks when 2,400 people who never touched any of those things were laid off, and you're telling me this is the problem? Where have you been for 10 years when JAO says that we're as screwed up as we have been? Don't tell me that anymore. We may not get everything I want to get accomplished, I may not be able to help every veteran, but we're damn sure gonna try.

• 1:50:00Shawn Ryan?

  Because it's not gonna happen anymore. Tired of it. Good for you. I think that's the perfect place to end this and um I'm glad you're in there. I hope these changes happen.

• 1:50:10Speaker 03

  Buddy, I'm looking forward to it. The folks like you and others, we're gonna have to make it happen.

• 1:50:13Shawn Ryan?

  Perfect. Thank you. Thank you.