Trump Is Turning the Screws on Vets So the Rich Can Get Richer

veterans more than him. He continued to do so while delivering a Veterans Day address from Arlington National Cemetery on Tuesday, claiming his first administration fired “thousands” of government employees — “sick people” and “thieves” — who didn’t take care of veterans, only to see them rehired by Joe Biden.

“We got rid of them,” the president said of his new administration. Trump also praised Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought, the Project 2025 architect who is overseeing the administration’s cost-cutting spree. “What a good job he’s doing, cutting, cutting, cutting,” Trump said.

The speech came as the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) was struggling through the longest government shutdown in modern history — during which the Republican Party has wasted no time advancing Project 2025 and planning to cut 80,000 of the “sick people,” as Trump calls them, who are somehow defrauding the system. The cuts come as the department is already hemorrhaging medical professionals, and as the Trump administration has imposed strict hiring limits that prevent replacing those who leave.

Along with gutting federal agencies like the VA, Project 2025 calls for narrowing the list of medical conditions eligible for disability compensation, automating claims decisions, and tying future payments to “work incentives.” Its authors frame these proposals as modernization, but the effect would be to de-rate veterans — to downgrade or deny legitimate claims under the guise of efficiency. Veterans with pending applications could lose eligibility altogether, while those already receiving compensation could see their ratings reduced by algorithm. 

This is all by design, and Trump and his administration are building a case against our veterans with lies. Fraud within the system is exceedingly rare. According to the VA inspector general, few VA fraud cases involve veterans themselves, and most of those are isolated, small-dollar offenses.

Editor’s picks

The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far

The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time

The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time

100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

So, what is this really about? It’s simple. It’s the same thing the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was about, the same thing Trump’s so-called Big Beautiful Bill was about. It’s about dismantling the U.S. government and diverting trillions of dollars away from veterans, the poor, the uninsured, and other less fortunate Americans — all to enrich a handful of well-connected, Trump-aligned billionaires.

One Trump-aligned billionaire is Jeff Bezos, whose Washington Post recently published an investigation attacking veterans’ benefits and questioning whether veterans deserve them. The Post treats the rare VA fraud outliers as proof the entire structure needs to be torn down, ignoring that the modern VA disability system has expanded precisely because our understanding of service-related injuries — especially toxic-exposure illnesses and post-traumatic stress — has improved.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration, particularly VA Secretary Doug Collins, is added Deputy White House Press Secretary Anna Kelly.

In reality, the Trump administration, led by the president himself, is using veterans as scapegoats to funnel even more money upwards to billionaires — and, coming soon, trillionaires — who leech off government subsidies while pushing the false narrative that other Americans, including veterans, are fraudulently taking advantage of government programs. They should all be ashamed. History will not forget this betrayal — and neither will the veterans of this nation.