Trump Cuts At VA ‘Incredibly Disrespectful’ To Veterans: Vet

Fired employees of the Department of Veterans Affairs say it could be years before we see the full impacts of the Trump administration's cutbacks.

The Trump administration’s cuts to the Department of Veterans Affairs have devastated the workers who lost their jobs and raised fears that the quality of veterans’ health care will decline in the years to come.

Two rounds of layoffs at the VA in February left more than 2,000 workers without jobs – part of a broader mass firing across government agencies led by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE. Most of those workers were “probationary” employees who had less than a year or two of tenure and lacked stronger job protections.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration is considering much deeper cuts at the VA in the weeks to come.

A leaked memo, first reported by Government Executive, calls for the agency to work with DOGE in eliminating some 83,000 additional jobs, part of a massive “reduction in force” that would return the VA to its funding level six years ago. The agency employed around 470,000 workers as of December.

The firings at the VA don’t just impact veterans’ services — they also hit their employment prospects, since veterans make up an outsize share of the VA workforce. Nearly 30% of the agency’s workers served in the military, compared with around 6% in the broader civilian labor force.