Nine-hundred people have been fired since he has taken over the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA Secretary Robert McDonald said Sunday on
"Meet the Press."
"We're making fundamental changes in the department in terms of leadership," McDonald said told Chuck Todd in his first interview since becoming secretary in late July. "We have held accountable about 900 employees who are no longer with us that were with us before I became secretary."
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When Todd asked if that meant they had been fired, McDonald said they had.
"We've got 60 people that we fired who have manipulated wait times," he said. "We've got about 100 senior leaders who are under investigation now whose performance reviews have been deferred until we get feedback from the [Inspector General] and Department of Justice. So we're holding people accountable."
McDonald, former CEO of Proctor & Gamble, inherited a troubled department, where media investigations had uncovered fake waiting lists to cover the fact that veterans were waiting weeks and months to receive care. Some died waiting.
Todd noted that if the VA were a company, it likely would have been in bankruptcy when McDonald took over.
McDonald said he believes business principles can work in the agency and that he is will to apply them. One of the problems with government agencies is the difficulty in firing bad employees.
But McDonald sounded optimistic.
"I'm here to take business practicals and apply them to government and make them work," he said.
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