Tea Party giants Charles and David Koch are demanding the privatization of medical care for our veterans.
Veterans are not in favor of that.
Seems that the Kochs' allies in the top ranks of the Veterans Administration conspired to get Donald Trump to fire Secretary Dr. David Shulkin.
When Trump nominated Dr. Shulkin as his Secretary of Veterans Affairs, he said he had complete confidence in him.
Yesterday he fired him shortly after Chief of Staff John Kelly reassured the good doctor that his job was secure. See https://www.politico.com/story/2018/03/29/trumps-veterans-pick-agency-451219 and https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/28/politics/ronny-jackson-medical-exam-trump/index.html.
Trump wants his personal White House physician, Rear Admiral Dr. Ronny Jackson, to be his new Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Trump likes the admiral’s looks, saying he looks like a Hollywood star (something clearly impossible for Trump).
The duties of the White House physician include conducting an annual medical examination of the occupant of the White House.
Dr. Jackson did that in January and said that Mr. Trump might live for another 200 years and that his good health is a matter of genetics.
The White House Medical Office employs 24 people. The VA has 377,000 employees and has been in turmoil for some years.
Although Dr. Jackson is being widely praised, including by Dr. Shulkin, there is no evidence that he has substantial management experience.
The Koch allies at the VA evidently believed that their project of privatization was not being advanced by Secretary Shulkin.
Never afraid to ask significant and sensitive questions at the request of DNC Chair Tom Perez, associate solitary reporter Johanna Jones confronted Adm. Jackson earlier today.
“ Admiral, Mr. Trump obviously needs the support of the Kochs and the Tea Party.”
“The Trump Organization is privately owned, so we at the DNC assume that Mr. Trump wants medical care for veterans to be privatized, something that Dr. Shulkin clearly resisted, and that cost him his job."
“Back in January, you examined Trump's whole obese body, including his privates.”
“Does that tell you anything about his private thoughts?”
“I ask because nobody seems to know what or how he thinks.”
“Did he boast about how much exercise his privates have on a daily basis, and did he say with how many women?"
“When you did the examination in January, isn’t it true that he said that he wanted to fold all of the Veterans Administration into the Trump Organization?”
“Johanna, you answered your own questions. To tell you the truth, I’m a lot more comfortable being a physician treating one man. So I think you better tell the Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, Senator Johnny Isakson of Georgia, that I’d rather go back to the White House.”
“But if I am confirmed by the Senate, my heart and my astute political instincts tell me that Mr. Trump will bring his notoriously unqualified New York doctor, Harold Bornstein, in there to replace me.”
“Then pretty soon, Dr. Bornstein would be Mike Pence's physician."