During Trump’s First 100 Days, Veterans Come First

You can judge a nation by how it takes care of its veterans. During the Biden administration, and frankly, going back to the Obama administration, veterans have been an afterthought. President Trump worked to change that during his first term as president. He understands how important it is that we take care of the men and women who bravely served this country. Well, during his first 100 days, we’re now seeing that veterans have been a top priority for this White House. 

I worked in my local congressional office in Louisiana after we decided to move out of D.C. I can tell you firsthand that these veterans were not receiving the proper care and attention. Our office would get calls from veterans who were not receiving their benefits, were struggling to get an appointment or the care they needed from the VA hospital. Hearing their stories was devastating—and it was a consistent trend. The Biden administration and the VA leadership had ignored the very responsibility they had sworn to uphold. On Monday, Veterans Affairs Secretary under President Trump, Doug Collins, announced the ways the VA has changed during Trump’s first 100 days, and it’s all for the better. 

In an op-ed for the D.C. Journal, Secretary Collins highlights both the problem and the action that’s been taken to make changes:

“About 100 days ago, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was led by Biden administration officials who had lost sight of what matters most to veterans. VA was dabbling in DEI and gender ideology, abusing telework and remote work privileges to the detriment of veterans, wasting hundreds of millions of dollars on duplicative and unnecessary contracts, and slow-walking critical programs like electronic health record modernization. The results of that experiment in poor management were clear. Wait times for VA health care got worse under the Biden administration, as did the department’s disability benefits claims backlog.” 

To be clear, these are exactly the type of examples I was referring to—crazy wait times for care and ridiculous backlog for benefits, with some claims taking months to get worked out. I couldn’t imagine serving my country honorably, and then an administrative mistake or oversight costs me months of stress and financial burden, with no help from the ones who caused the problem. It’s infuriating. 

Secretary Collins also laid out the changes that have been made at the VA: 

“One hundred days into the second Trump administration, and VA is no longer content with poor results. Under President Trump’s leadership, we have already stripped away many of the costly distractions that were coming between VA beneficiaries and the benefits they have earned. And we’re looking to make even more historic reforms to better serve veterans. President Trump’s mandate to shake up Washington and make it work better for the American people is guiding our efforts to put veterans first at the department. In the first week of the second Trump administration, we stopped VA’s wasteful spending on DEI initiatives, which only divided veterans and staff. The most important identity to us is “veteran,” and by ending DEI programs, we now have $14 million more to spend on our core constituency.”

This is what we voted for—the complete dismantling of the costly DEI programs that have absolutely nothing to do with the mission of the Department of Veterans Affairs. This has been one of the major problems. The focus has not been on caring for our veterans, but lining the pockets of these insane DEI contracts that only benefit the bureaucracy. I’m grateful this $14 million will now be spent helping veterans. 

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Secretary Collins also announced that veterans:

• Will receive the health care choices they were promised under the MISSION Act.
• They are processing a record number of disability claims. 
• Accelerating the deployment of the VA’s electronic health records system, after the program was nearly dormant for two years under the Biden administration. 
• Taking thousands of employees off of remote work and bringing them back to the office, where they can work as a team to better serve veterans. 

100 days into the second Trump Administration, and @DeptVetAffairs is putting Veterans first! Read more via @InsideSourcesDC: https://t.co/KLX8PxhEhP pic.twitter.com/QMi9udnPYP

— VA Secretary Doug Collins (@SecVetAffairs) April 29, 2025

President Trump is securing the border, destroying the administrative state, making massive cuts through DOGE, and refueling our economy. However, we cannot overlook the changes the current administration is making at the VA. I’m grateful that veterans are once again a priority. President Trump and Secretary Collins are just getting started. For the men and women who have served this country, I’m sure these are all welcome changes. 

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