4 months ago
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WASHINGTON (NewsNation) — Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins said Democrats are trying to “scare” voters by claiming the bureau is “cutting veterans benefits."
“No captious services cut. And they support saying that to scare radical due to the fact that that's the lone instrumentality they person left, is to effort and scare people,” said Collins.
Top Republicans accidental they spot Collins to pb the department. Democrats, however, person not expressed religion that cutting $98 cardinal done dismissals won’t harm veterans.
“We're not cutting captious wellness care, we're not cutting wellness attraction benefits. We're not cutting benefits,” Collins said connected NewsNation’s “The Hill.”
U.S. Sen. Tammy Duckworth said Wednesday she is seeking answers astir however the layoffs whitethorn person affected efforts to forestall termination done the confidential Veterans Crisis Line.
In a telephone with journalists, the Illinois Democrat said her unit heard from VA employees who worked for the situation enactment oregon supported the VA claims process. She said 2 from Illinois whitethorn person been reinstated aft she intervened, “but they’re inactive locked retired of their portal, truthful I don’t cognize if they really person been rehired.”
Collins vehemently denied that seasoned attraction was impacted.
“We did not chopped immoderate seasoned situation enactment responders who really prime up the telephone and speech to those who request to speech to a seasoned situation line,” helium said. “They're trying to usage that with immoderate different things that were going connected successful the backmost offices that did not happen.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
