Trump admin plans to cut 80,000 employees from VA

The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning an “aggressive” reorganization that includes cutting 80,000 jobs from the sprawling agency that provides health care for retired military members, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press. The VA’s chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top level officials at the agency that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000. That would require terminating tens of thousands of employees after the VA expanded during the Biden administration, as well as to cover veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.