JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Veterans' groups are raising alarm about what they call indiscriminate cuts across the Department of Veterans Affairs by the Trump administration. That includes thousands of jobs cut this month, though it's hard to say exactly how many and how the cuts are affecting veterans' health and benefits. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle say the new VA secretary has not been answering their questions. NPR veterans correspondent Quil Lawrence is here with the latest. Hi there.
QUIL LAWRENCE, BYLINE: Hi.
SUMMERS: So, Quil, you have been reporting on this, and you've reported that many of the people who were fired, they're veterans themselves. What can you tell us about who's been let go?
LAWRENCE: Yeah. Well, first off, I mean, there are 400,000 people, more than that, work at the VA. They serve about 9 million veterans. The vast majority of those staff are health care providers, and they've mostly been excluded from the hiring freeze. But the cuts have come fast. There were 1,000 cut two weeks ago, another 1,400 last week. Probably thousands of other empty posts that are empty because of the hiring freeze, not getting filled.
And VA sources, who don't want to be named for fear of getting fired, say that these job cuts are affecting veterans' care and that they were done in haste. And there have been errors. The VA, in both rounds of cuts, let people go from the veterans suicide crisis hotline. And I'm told by VA and congressional sources that those people let go were all reinstated, but whiplash is the word I'm hearing a lot.
SUMMERS: Yeah, and speaking of whiplash, you've also reported that the VA said billions of dollars' worth of contracts would be cut, but now they're reversing course and saying that the contracts are not going to be cut.
LAWRENCE: Yeah, there were 875 contracts. On Tuesday, the secretary of the VA said on social media that these cuts would save the VA $2 billion. I've seen the list, and I've seen the email that says these contracts will be terminated. They included cancer treatment and safety inspectors and a huge database full of years' worth of medical research. It included contracts to audit VA for waste and abuse. And then by yesterday, a VA spokesman said, no, the contracts are just under review and these cuts aren't final.
It was the same thing with an email that went out to VA staff nationwide that their purchase cards were limited to $1. These are cards that they use to buy anything under $2,500. It's supposed to streamline the purchasing process. But they use it to buy parts for dialysis machines or, on the bottom end, like, checking IDs for hiring, which costs $2.50. And again, 24 hours later, a VA spokesman told me that, going forward, the VA is going to conduct its own review of expenses, so these purchasing cards, they're working again.
So VA staff from one day to the next, they're hired or they're fired, or they can't afford to fix their medical equipment. One doctor told me he just felt trolled, like DOGE thought it would be funny to put in a cute $1 spending limit instead of just saying no spending. But this is for dialysis machines. It's not funny.
SUMMERS: It is not funny. So, I mean, the VA has been dealing with chronic shortages for years, really, of medical staff, of people to read disability claims as a few examples. How is morale there?
LAWRENCE: Yeah. I've been covering VA for about a dozen years. I've never had so many VA staff reach out to me anonymously because they're afraid to get - that they'll get fired. But so many of them are veterans - as you mentioned, about 30% - and they feel like this is a sacred mission. I've heard from people working on homeless veterans' issues who say they can't get the staff to find the housing. I've heard from people in years-long medical research...
SUMMERS: Yeah.
LAWRENCE: ...That are worried they're going to get canceled.
SUMMERS: OK.
LAWRENCE: Morale is low.
SUMMERS: NPR's Quil Lawrence, thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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