GOP leader on Trump and VA: ‘He’s going to bring the disruption that needs to happen’
By Sarah B. Boxer
With the Department of Veterans Affairs head under fire, a prominent Republican leader tells Yahoo News that Donald Trump could lead the charge to change the agency.
VA Secretary Bob McDonald is under fire for comments he made on Monday that many found insensitive at best, if not insulting. He was talking about wait times at VA hospitals, and compared the experience to long lines at Disneyland.
“When you go to Disney, do they measure the number of hours you wait in line? Or what’s important?” McDonald told reporters at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast in Washington on Monday before apologizing one day later. “What’s important is what’s your satisfaction with the experience?”
In an interview with Yahoo Global News Anchor Katie Couric, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., said, “Things need to fundamentally change at the VA, not just at the top.”
McMorris Rodgers, who is the highest-ranking Republican woman in Congress, also said: “It cannot be status quo. Things need to change. I think that Donald Trump can be that positive disruption.”
McMorris Rodgers has a bill waiting to go to the House floor that would enable veterans to use technology to self-schedule their medical appointments. “Bottom line: They do not welcome new ways of delivering services, even though their current processes are failing our veterans.”
Washington’s primary is today, and McMorris Rodgers has mailed in her ballot for Trump. “I’m confident that he’s going to bring the disruption that needs to happen within some of these federal agencies,” she told Couric.
