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PBS News Hour - Segments

What Trump's second term could mean for military members and veterans

PBS News Hour - Segments

PBS NewsHour

News, Daily News

4.11K Ratings

🗓️ 10 November 2024

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The full extent of President-elect Donald Trump's plans for the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs is not entirely clear, but he's likely to reverse some of the Biden administration's policies while reinstating others from his first term. Ali Rogin speaks with Leo Shane III, deputy editor of Military Times, to learn more. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Transcript

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0:00.0

On Veterans Day tomorrow, the nation will honor those who've served in America's armed forces.

0:05.7

Tonight, Ali Rogan looks at what a second Trump administration could have in store for them and for current service members.

0:12.9

The full extent of President-elect Trump's plans for the Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs is not entirely clear,

0:19.0

but he's likely to reverse some of the

0:21.1

Biden administration's policies while reinstating others from his first term.

0:25.6

Leo Shane III is deputy editor of Military Times and has been covering it all.

0:29.5

Leo, thank you so much for being here.

0:30.9

Thank you for the invite.

0:31.8

So remind us, what were President Trump's priorities as it relates to Veterans Affairs during

0:36.2

his first term?

0:36.9

Yeah, he had two really big ideas that he pushed there.

0:40.0

The first one was the idea of expanding choice, expanding options for veterans and where they could go for medical care.

0:46.3

This is the community care program where veterans can go to private sector doctors and get medical appointments,

0:51.3

get things taken care of.

0:52.8

The other one was the idea of accountability, and this gets into the Trump-your-fired speech is there.

0:58.4

He felt that there were too many VA employees who were underperforming, passed some laws that made it easier for them to be fired.

1:04.4

Since then, those laws have been challenged in court.

1:06.6

They've been challenged by the unions.

1:07.8

They haven't largely been successful.

1:09.4

When he comes back in, if he's looking at broader federal employee programs of where he can

1:14.6

hold people or find ways to make them accountable, we may see a resurgence of that again as well.

1:19.5

On the issue of health care, do you anticipate that he's going to work to expand access to those

...

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