As President Donald Trump ramps up his war with Iran, Max Rose, a former Democratic congressman and U.S. Army platoon leader, has called out the administration over its treatment of veterans.
Despite the president’s promise to “take care of our brave men and women in uniform,” the Department of Veterans Affairs under his leadership has cut nearly 28,000 employees, or about 6% of its staff, including thousands of nurses, psychologists and social workers.
Veterans aren’t just losing access to vital health care and other services; they’re also losing their jobs. The number of veterans working in the federal government fell by nearly 10% last year, largely due to Department of Government Efficiency cuts.
On Sunday’s “The Weekend: Primetime,” Rose, who represented New York’s 11th Congressional District from 2019 to 2021, told MS NOW that those numbers prove the president and his administration were “lying” when they said they cared about veterans.
“What this was all about, in the end, was just politics,” he said. “That is what veterans are to MAGA: basically, someone you’re going to lie to for a couple of weeks before an election — ‘Oh, thank you for your service!’ — then you just screw them over.”
Rose said institutions like the VA are vital for veterans and explained that they are “not just places where you go to get a normal medical procedure,” but “sanctuaries for veterans, where at every single step of the way they understand the unique experiences and hardships that veterans have gone through.”
“This isn’t just like a policy to me,” he continued, “I’ve been that patient. I’ve walked into a VA and I’ve felt like this immediate kind of — it’s almost like a safe space where you know that people understand what you’ve been through.”
Instead of cutting veterans’ care or privatizing it, as some Republicans have suggested, Rose said there needs to be a “real and robust” investment in it.
“These should be institutions that have better customer service than anywhere else,” he told MS NOW.
The former platoon leader said the situation for America’s veterans has become even more critical in recent weeks, due to the rising tensions in the Middle East. Seven service members have already died in the conflict.
“Look at what’s happening with this war in Iran right now,” Rose said, adding that during its “irresponsible march to war,” the administration “didn’t think about what could go wrong.” “They didn’t think about how all our bases could get bombed. They didn’t think about how our munitions could possibly run out,” he told MS NOW. Rose warned that because of the administration’s lack of preparation, American veterans and the institutions that support them would be “dealing with the consequences for decades to come.” “In the year 2055, veterans will walk into VA hospitals, and they will be complaining of headaches,” he said. “They will be complaining of back pain and shoulder pain and knee pain and, God forbid, things even worse that are a consequence of the conflicts we have seen over the last two weeks.” You can watch Rose’s full interview in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
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