During a Senate Democrats press briefing on Thursday, Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) spoke about the Trump Administration's proposed layoffs at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Well, thank you. You know, as a veteran, an Iraq veteran, a proud Marine, I worry
00:07because what is about to happen with these cuts will cause veterans to die.
00:13There's just no other denying that. Elon Musk's decisions and Donald Trump's
00:17decisions to arbitrarily cut veterans from their jobs, it's going to increase
00:21depression, it's going to increase potentially suicides. We know what's
00:26going to happen if you cut VA services. Not just the workers, but the services.
00:31Because I saw it happen when I first got back from the war. When we first got back
00:36in 2005, it was nearly impossible for us to find room at the VA. We couldn't find
00:42the therapist to help us. I lost many of the guys I served with to
00:47suicide. Some are still luckily alive, are still struggling with alcoholism, have
00:53seen their times in jail. And some that have succeeded have found service and a
00:59reason to live and fight because they went and worked for a mission-oriented
01:02job, working for the federal government. And for someone like Elon Musk and a
01:08bunch of 20-year-old brats who have zero understanding of what sacrifice for
01:13country means, to just go and tell these men and women one more time that the
01:19country is throwing you aside. We don't need you. Don't worry about, you know,
01:24collecting another paycheck. Don't worry about having health insurance at the end
01:27of the year. Don't worry about how you're going to pay rent. You've sacrificed your
01:32mind, your body, your youth for this country. You came and worked for this
01:35country. And because this dude wants billions and billions of dollars, we're
01:40going to cut these men and women off. And it doesn't have to be that way. We can
01:46find efficiencies while still making sure we're saving the lives of veterans.
01:50We can find savings while at the same time making sure veterans have fulfilling
01:56and rich careers in serving their country. And we don't have to be assholes
02:00about it and firing them overnight just so we could find savings that it's not
02:04going to end up back in the VA. And for someone to say, oh this is going to save
02:08a hundred million dollars, what is it, 180 million dollars? That's not going to be a
02:12savings. Because it's going to cost even more. Because it's going to take longer to fix
02:18the problems. The longer a man or woman, a veteran, goes without PTSD treatment
02:25because they can't find the therapist, means it's going to take longer for them
02:28to get the help they need. That they're going to actually be able to go back
02:32and be functional and be a good member of society and work. The longer someone
02:36has to put off a surgery because you can't find the nurses or the doctors, it
02:41means that that surgery is going to be more complicated, potentially more
02:46dangerous, and at the end more expensive. And it doesn't have to be this way. One
02:52of the worst feelings you have, when I got back from the war, me and my guys, we
02:58we were reservists and they just, our end date was done and they stopped paying us.
03:04No one offered us jobs. You know, some of us were homeless. And the worst feeling
03:10that we had was that everything we had just sacrificed for the government, you
03:15know, for the country, you know, in some of the hardest combat of the war, they
03:20just threw us aside. Because we weren't convenient anymore. We couldn't fit
03:26the bottom line of the DOD. They couldn't find one more month to house us on base.
03:29They couldn't give us one more paycheck. It was the worst feeling that you could
03:33ever have as a veteran. And we're doing that right now to thousands of veterans,
03:39both at the VA, people that are going to the services, and veterans that have been
03:43working across this country, dedicating their time away from family, and
03:48dedicating just their whole soul and life to this country. And we have just
03:53said, we don't want you anymore. You are no longer convenient for us. Go away.
03:58That's what Donald Trump is doing. That's what the United Nations is doing. And they're only
04:02doing it so they could give their buddies a tax cut. That is shameful. It's a sin
04:08against this country that we're allowing that to happen. Please support this bill.