{"id":93236,"date":"2017-02-21T16:37:08","date_gmt":"2017-02-21T16:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/uncategorized\/2017\/02\/21\/shulkin-promises-problematic-va-workers-will-be-fired\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T09:44:43","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T09:44:43","slug":"shulkin-promises-problematic-va-workers-will-be-fired","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/militarytimes\/veterans\/2017\/02\/21\/shulkin-promises-problematic-va-workers-will-be-fired\/","title":{"rendered":"Shulkin promises problematic VA workers will be fired"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin promised to crack down on underperforming employees in his first televised interview since being sworn into the post last week. “When you have one or two or three people who really aren’t doing their job, they bring everybody down,” he said during an appearance with Fox News host Pete Hegseth, taped Sunday<\/a>. “And so the very best thing I know from my private sector experience is you’ve got to deal with that, you’ve got to get them out of the system, because it helps not only the veterans, but the people who work in VA who are trying to do the right thing for veterans.”The interview, which will be shown in sections on the “Fox & Friends” morning show throughout the week, is the first real public comments from Shulkin since he became the first non-veteran in American history to oversee the federal veterans agencies. He promised to work with Congress on new accountability legislation but also to be an advocate for VA workers, calling them “the best people in health care.”Hegseth, an Iraq War veteran who was under consideration from President Trump for the VA secretary post, in the interview accused former VA Secretary Bob McDonald of being more interested in maintaining the status quo at the department than firing troublesome employees. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Shulkin pushed back on that accusation, saying: “What I heard (McDonald) saying is that it\u2019s very important to have a due process. You don\u2019t want to arbitrarily fire people.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n