WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump on Wednesday fired David Shulkin, the embattled head of the Department of Veterans Affairs, the latest high-profile ouster to roil the White House.
In a tweet, the president named Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, the chief White House physician, as the next VA secretary. Until Jackson can be confirmed, the acting head of the agency will be Robert Wilkie, the undersecretary for personnel at the Defense Department, Trump tweeted.
Shulkin has been besieged by allegations of ethical lapses coupled with a determined campaign against him by conservatives who favor greater privatization of the huge VA health care system.
Over the weekend, Christopher Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax, a conservative news site, who is a friend of Trump’s, said in television interviews that he had talked to the president and that Shulkin was “likely to depart the Cabinet very soon.”
Shulkin, the one Obama administration holdover in the Cabinet, was a Trump favorite early on. Trump called him the “100-to-nothing man” — a reference to the unanimous Senate vote to confirm him in early 2017 — and joked that Shulkin was safe from being fired because he helped push legislation through Congress last year to speed disability appeals at the VA.
But he came under fire after he took his wife on a government-paid trip to Europe last year that appeared to involve more tourism than work. He also was the focus of an inspector general inquiry into whether he used his security detail to perform personal errands.
He also ran afoul of some conservatives for his go-slow approach to expanding government-paid private care for military veterans outside the VA system. Shifting more veterans to private care is a top priority for the influential network of conservative groups funded by Charles and David Koch.
Despite the criticism, Shulkin retained support from many traditional veterans organizations and key members of Congress, who shared his ambivalence about privatization at the federal government’s second largest department.
The disarray at the VA created a quandary for Trump, who repeatedly vowed during the 2016 campaign to improve veterans’ services, especially for the generation who fought in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
Once in office, Trump faced growing pressure from conservatives who favor opening up options for military veterans to seek private care paid from the VA budget.
Trump wavered on replacing Shulkin for months, at times openly touting potential replacements while his aides insisted there were no plans to make a change.
The decision to replace him now comes after Shulkin helped broker a deal, supported by major veterans groups, that expands options for veterans to seek private medical treatment while keeping intact the VA system of government-run hospitals.
A physician and former hospital executive, Shulkin served as undersecretary for health at the VA during the Obama administration.
