Why Trump’s Potential Cuts to Veteran Affairs Would Be a “Disaster” – Mother Jones

Politics
March+April 2025 Issue

Why Trump’s Potential Cuts to Veteran Affairs Would Be a “Disaster”

“DOGE’s grand plan is to lay off federal government jobs. Well, 30 percent of those jobs are veterans.” Trump promised retribution in his second term. For our March+April issue, we spoke with those targeted about lessons from the first term, fears of a second, and plans to fight back.

Read the whole package here.

In one of his many day-one executive orders, President Donald Trump called for a 90-day hiring freeze of federal employees to “reduce the size of the Federal Government’s workforce through efficiency improvements and attrition.

”Michael Embrich, a US Navy veteran of the Iraq War and War in Afghanistan who also does advocacy work for veterans—including as a policy advisor for the Secretary of Veterans Affairs—has regularly raised his concerns in Rolling Stone and other outlets about how such a freeze would affect those who have served in the military.

“Medical professionals, crisis hotline responders, and claims processors are desperately needed to keep the VA running,” Embrich wrote in Rolling Stone. “Now, with hiring frozen…veterans will wait longer for care, disability claims will pile up, and crisis lines—lifelines for veterans on the brink—will be understaffed.”

Although Trump’s Inauguration Day order states that it “does not apply to military personnel of the armed forces” and submitted an exemptions list via the VA, a subsequent memo from the department says that additional exemptions to the hiring freeze for veterans must pass through the Office of Personnel Management and the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. I talked with Embrich in January about what is happening and the importance of the VA for not only veterans but also citizens.
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