Former President Donald Trump focused much of his speech Tuesday in New Hampshire on care for the nation's veterans, which he said has been compromised after President Joe Biden undid reforms made during his administration.
Outlining his agenda for veterans at a campaign stop in Windham, New Hampshire, Trump said he will restore accountability at the Veterans Administration, focus more attention on preventing veteran suicides, stopping the VA from funding gender transition care and procedures, and restoring his ban on transgender persons serving in the military.
"Joe Biden puts bureaucrats first," Trump said. "I put veterans first and I put America first."
Trump said when he took office, the VA was a mess following scandals during the Obama administration involving mismanagement and veterans who died while waiting for care at several VA facilities nationwide.
"But all of that changed when we arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," Trump said. "We went from the absolutely worst presidency for the veterans … to the greatest champion the veterans ever had in the White House."
But Trump said reforms made under his administration — including the VA Accountability Act, which made firing inefficient VA workers easier — were undone when Biden took office.
"Crooked Joe Biden has been a disaster for American veterans," Trump said. "As one of his first acts in office, Biden gutted my historic VA reforms. He gutted them out making it [harder] to remove bad VA employees from the job in a shocking act of betrayal of America's veterans, as well as the tens of thousands of dedicated professionals."
He said on his first day in office, he will bring the Accountability Act "back in full force and we already have the legislation passed. So, I don't have to go through Congress.
"All we have to do is make it work," he said. "The hardest part is done and [I will] direct my Secretary of Veterans Affairs to fire every corrupt VA bureaucrat who Joe Biden has outrageously refused to remove from the job or put back in the job."
In July, the VA reached a settlement with 5,000 workers represented by the American Federation of Government Employees who were fired in 2017 following implementation of the law. Trump said as a response, he will ask Congress "to take every penny of those funds to finally build a brand-new state-of-the art VA hospital right here in the great state of New Hampshire.
"I don't know if you know this, but we can say that no longer will New Hampshire be the only state in America without a full-service facility," Trump said. "You'll have it, and you'll have it done quickly."
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