Memo says mass layoffs at Veterans’ Affairs will begin early as June

Memo says mass layoffs at Veterans’ Affairs will begin early as June


A person walks past the Department of Veterans Affairs headquarters a block from the White House on March 06, 2025 in Washington, DC. 

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images News | Getty Images

The Department of Veterans Affairs will begin mass layoffs at the politically sensitive agency as early as June, according to a memo reviewed by Reuters.

The memo, which is dated March 6, directs the department’s human resources team to begin reviewing the agency’s operations with an eye toward firing civil servants. It said it expects the review to be done by June, after which “VA will initiate Department-wide RIF actions,” using an acronym for “reduction in force.”

In a response to a request for comment, the VA sent Reuters a link to VA Secretary Doug Collins’ recent opinion piece in The Hill in which he defended the cuts as “thorough and thoughtful.”

Veterans groups, Democrats, and some Republicans have already voiced concern over the planned reductions at the department, which is seeking to cut more than 80,000 workers from the agency.

The scale of the layoffs at the VA is greater than proposed cuts at other agencies and will hit a department that looks after a group that typically garners wide bipartisan support in the U.S., its military veterans.

Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said last week that the job cuts marked an escalation of a “full-scale, no-holds-barred assault on veterans” by President Donald Trump that would put veterans’ health benefits in “grave danger.”

Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who said he learned of the cuts from the media, called it “political malpractice” not to consult Congress about the measures.

The cuts are part of Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s efforts to dramatically slash the size of the federal government.



Source

Trump taps CFPB director nominee Jonathan McKernan for Treasury post
Politics

Trump taps CFPB director nominee Jonathan McKernan for Treasury post

Jonathan McKernan testifies during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 27, 2025. Annabelle Gordon | Reuters President Donald Trump plans to nominate Jonathan McKernan to be undersecretary of domestic finance at the Treasury Department, months after the president tapped McKernan to lead the […]

Read More
Trump administration ‘looking at’ suspending habeas corpus, Stephen Miller says
Politics

Trump administration ‘looking at’ suspending habeas corpus, Stephen Miller says

White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller speaks to the media outside the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 9, 2025. Kent Nishimura | Reuters White House deputy chief of staff for policy Stephen Miller said Friday that the Trump administration is “actively looking at” suspending the writ of habeas corpus, […]

Read More
Newark mayor arrested for alleged trespass at New Jersey ICE detention facility
Politics

Newark mayor arrested for alleged trespass at New Jersey ICE detention facility

Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark speaks to the press near ICE agents at a demonstration outside an immigrant detention centre in Elizabeth, New Jersey May 7, 2025. Timothy A. Clary | AFP | Getty Images Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested Friday for allegedly trespassing inside a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in […]

Read More