No longer muzzled

No longer muzzled, Shulkin takes on Trump’s White House

The fired Veterans Affairs secretary claims he was politically knifed: ‘It should not be this hard to serve your country.’

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA and LOUIS NELSON

Ousted Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin is going down swinging.

Instead of disappearing into obscurity like others who were summarily fired by President Donald Trump, Shulkin is using his dismissal as an opportunity to step into the spotlight. Freed from the constraints of serving in the Trump administration, Shulkin is publicly — and loudly — raising red flags about what he sees as a sinister plot to privatize veterans’ health care.

Within hours of Trump’s announcement via Twitter that he is replacing Shulkin with White House physician Ronny Jackson, the newly unseated secretary had published an op-ed in The New York Times and conducted an interview with NPR.

Shulkin is flipping the script on an unspoken rule in Washington that fired Cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials should keep their grievances to themselves out of respect for the president. But Trump’s unconventional presidency, which has spit out a string of jilted ex-staffers, is challenging that long-standing practice.

Former Trump administration officials are quick to anonymously lambaste the president and his team to reporters. And a small number have started doing it on the record.

Former chief strategist Steve Bannon infuriated Trump after his critical on-the-record comments in Michael Wolff’s recent book came to light. Former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman went on the reality show “Big Brother“ after getting fired, where she repeatedly turned on her colleagues in the White House.

In contrast, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who was also fired via Twitter, has said little so far about his own disagreements with Trump, only hinting at his frustrations in farewell remarks to State Department staff in which he called Washington a “mean-spirited town.”

Shulkin, for his part, blamed his ouster on “the ambitions of people who want to put VA health care in the hands of the private sector,” something he opposes, lamenting that a political power struggle over his department made it tougher to do the work of running and improving the VA.

“They saw me as an obstacle to privatization who had to be removed,” Shulkin wrote in his New York Times op-ed, published shortly after midnight on Thursday. “As I prepare to leave government, I am struck by a recurring thought: It should not be this hard to serve your country.”

Shulkin’s firing on Wednesday came after weeks of speculation that he would be removed as VA secretary, the latest in a string of personnel changes that has included the ouster of Tillerson, economic adviser Gary Cohn and national security adviser H.R. McMaster. Shulkin was the lone holdover from the Obama administration to continue serving under Trump, having led the Veterans Health Administration for two years prior to his confirmation as VA secretary.

Shulkin, according to aides, lost Trump’s confidence and infuriated senior administration officials, who were shocked when Shulkin told reporters he had the White House’s blessing to purge his department of his internal critics. Even as they batted down rumors that Trump would fire other senior members of his administration, White House aides had long ago stopped pushing back on stories saying Shulkin was on thin ice with the president.

Trump announced Shulkin’s firing on Twitter, writing, “I am thankful for Dr. David Shulkin’s service to our country and to our GREAT VETERANS!”

Shulkin had come under criticism in recent months after a VA Inspector General’s report accused him of improperly accepting tickets to the Wimbledon tennis tournament and using his staff at the VA to arrange a sightseeing tour of Denmark and England. Shulkin repaid the VA for the alleged misconduct and hinted in his op-ed that he had been the victim of a political knifing.

“I am a physician, not a politician. I came to government with an understanding that Washington can be ugly, but I assumed that I could avoid all of the ugliness by staying true to my values,” he wrote. “I have been falsely accused of things by people who wanted me out of the way.”

The former VA secretary laid out in his op-ed his argument against the privatization of health care for the nation’s veterans, a goal he said exists within the Trump administration. The private sector, Shulkin said, is “ill-prepared” to deal with health care for veterans, who are numerous and have specific needs different from those of the general population. The VA, on the other hand, has an understanding of the health problems faced by veterans and has done “groundbreaking research” that, taken together, cannot be easily replicated by the private health care system.

“I believe differences in philosophy deserve robust debate, and solutions should be determined based on the merits of the arguments. The advocates within the administration for privatizing V.A. health services, however, reject this approach,” Shulkin wrote. “That is because I am convinced that privatization is a political issue aimed at rewarding select people and companies with profits, even if it undermines care for veterans.”

In the interview with NPR, Shulkin lobbed even more pointed criticisms at the administration, alleging that he wasn’t permitted to defend himself in the aftermath of reports about his trip to Europe.

“There was nothing improper about this trip, and I was not allowed to put up an official statement or to even respond to this by the White House,” he said. “I think this was really just being used in a political context to try to make sure that I wasn't as effective as a leader moving forward."

And he referenced reports that White House political appointees were working against him from inside his own department.

"We've gotten so much done, but in the last few months, it really has changed,” Shulkin said. “Not from Congress, but from these internal political appointees that were trying to politicize VA and trying to make sure our progress stopped. It's been very difficult."