Trump slashes over 83,000 jobs at the Department of Veterans Affairs

• Trump plans to fire 83,000 employees of the The Department of Veterans Affairs, slashing employment by over 17% at the federal agency that provides health care for millions of veterans, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press on March 5, 2025.

• The VA manages and directly provides comprehensive services for veterans. Those services include health care, short- and long-term housing options, life insurance, pensions, education stipends, and assistance in jails and courts. The VA also engages in pathbreaking public health research. One-quarter of the VA’s 482,000 employees are veterans. The huge cuts come at a time when the VA is seeking to serve an even larger number of vets. The VA enrolled 400,000 veterans in its benefits system from March 2023 through March 2024, 30 percent more than the prior year. It also expanded eligibility for former service members to receive VA health care.

• Trump’s mass firing of federal workers across the government will lead to firing many more veterans since federal law gives a preference to hiring vets. Due to this veterans preference, nearly 30% percent of federal workers are veterans, half of whom are disabled. 

• One VA clinic, already too understaffed to accept new patients for mental health services, now faces even deeper cuts—threatening care for the very veterans it was created to help.

• Trump is dismantling key support systems for veterans, including the Veterans Crisis Line and VA research programs. With up to 900 crisis-line workers facing layoffs or forced office returns, veterans at risk of suicide could encounter deadly delays when seeking help. Between 2009 and 2017, nearly 3 million calls to the crisis line resulted in 82,000 emergency responses—life saving moments now in jeopardy.

• Trump’s ordered a halt to research on poverty and race in veteran health.  Trump’s firings will result  in 350 researchers into health care issues like mental health, substance abuse and cancer and will be fired. 

• Trump is pushing Congress to make huge cuts in health and nutrition, which will impact millions of vets. Trump’s budget plan will slash Medicaid, which serves one-in-ten vets. Another 1.2 million vets get food through the SNAP (food stamp) program. 

Trump Threatens Veterans' Care and Services

• Trump’s elimination of collective bargaining rights for VA nurses, like those at National Nurses United (NNU), puts veterans’ health and safety at risk. Nancy Hagans, an RN and president of NNU, emphasized how vital bargaining is for ensuring patient safety and proper care, especially for veterans, many of whom are older and disabled. Without bargaining rights, Hagans fears nurses will face retaliation for speaking up about conditions that affect the care veterans receive, ultimately compromising veterans' safety and well-being.

Trump plans to funnel more taxpayer dollars to private health care providers

• Trump weakened the VA system from within through the VA Mission Act in 2018, which expands the "community care" network and increases the VA's reliance on private providers. Mark Foreman, a Vietnam War veteran, voiced his concern, fearing that the VA’s traditional care model, which had supported his physical and emotional recovery after a bullet wound and helped fund his art school education, would be dismantled, leaving veterans like him without essential services. Trump’s further cuts to the VA will further strip the ability of the VA to provide care and push more vets into private care. 

Trump stripped away care, silenced the VA, and drove out caregivers by targeting transgender veterans and those who serve them.

• Trump ordered an end to hormone therapy prescriptions and gender-affirming care referrals — a move that left veterans like retired Army Staff Sgt. Alleria Stanley feeling abandoned. “They just told transgender veterans, ‘You are not worthy,’” she said. The policy's impact prompted VA clinicians like Dr. Mary Brinkmeyer to resign in protest, fearing the harm caused by denying life-saving care. As stated in a letter signed by dozens of VA staff, “Veterans — especially those who are transgender — now live in fear. And staff do too.”

• Trump instructed staff to remove Pride flags, erase pronouns, and report colleagues for using LGBTQ+ terminology. One anonymous VA provider told The Advocate, “People across facilities have been signing with the promise for anonymity… some staff want to sign the letter but worry they could be fired if their names get out.” Another clinician described the shift: “It happened in small steps, as oppression often does.”

Trump Propels V.A. Mental Health System Into Turmoil

• Trump reversed longstanding V.A. remote work policies, ordering thousands of mental-health providers, like a psychiatrist treating veterans with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, to return to crowded office cubicles, where sessions risk being overheard or interrupted. She described feeling stunned by the violation of patient privacy and ethics, telling her manager, “I’m ready to walk away if it comes to it.” This is a particularly cruel policy reversal for the V.A., which pioneered the practice of virtual health care two decades ago as a way to reach isolated veterans, 

• Trump's chaotic restructuring of the Department of Veterans Affairs has upended care for veterans like Sandra Fenelon, a Navy veteran who spent a year building trust with her psychologist after struggling to readjust to civilian life. Now, she fears her therapist will quit due to unworkable office conditions, saying, “I feel like I’m now forced to be put in a position where I have to start over with someone else.”