Veterans Groups Urge Donald Trump to Keep Current VA Secretary

Several national veterans advocacy organizations are urging Donald Trump to reappoint Veterans Affairs Secretary Bob McDonald, while, separately, the six most prominent groups sent a letter Tuesday seeking a face-to-face meeting with the president-elect to discuss the future of veterans programs.

The VA post is one of last cabinet positions still open in the incoming administration, and veterans groups are watching anxiously for signs of Mr. Trump’s policies on veterans affairs, concerned about the prospect of proposals mentioned on the campaign trail that they say may mark the beginning of a process to privatize veterans’ medical care.

Mr. Trump, who frequently criticized the department on the campaign trail, hasn’t signaled who he is considering for the job. Veterans groups met last week with transition officials in a closed-door session in which representatives from two groups voiced support for keeping Mr. McDonald in his position, citing his reform efforts and the need for continuity, according to representatives from those groups.

Mr. McDonald said in an interview Tuesday that he hasn’t spoken to the Trump team about the matter but hinted he likely would be willing to remain at the department if asked.

“I chose to put duty above other things in the beginning,” Mr. McDonald said of initially accepting the job as secretary in 2014, at the height of a wait-time controversy that led to the resignation of his predecessor, Eric Shinseki.

“We would expect to do our duty,” Mr. McDonald said of a possible Trump appointment, adding he hasn’t spoken to his family about the matter.

Mr. Trump hasn’t asked any of President Barack Obama’s cabinet secretaries to remain on in his administration. Transition officials didn’t respond to a request to comment on the letter. The transition team hasn’t responded to multiple requests over the past month requesting comment on veterans issues.

While some veterans groups have said they want to keep Mr. McDonald at the helm, others have said any guesses at leadership at this time just distracts from the issues at hand, such as VA health-care matters.

“We’re looking forward to working with this administration,” saidVerna Jones, executive director of the American Legion, who said her group has had good interactions with the Trump transition team so far and declined to talk about leadership at the department. “Anything else would just be speculative on our part,” she said.

More than a dozen other veterans groups are preparing a joint letter for the president-elect recommending that Mr. McDonald remain in the post, according to multiple groups signing on to the letter. It likely will be sent to Mr. Trump this week, they said.

In a question-and-answer event at Center for a New American Security on Tuesday, Mr. McDonald talked about the work he has done at the VA since taking the helm, focusing on tasks such as streamlining business processes and slashing bureaucracies. He even pulled a Harvard Business School report from underneath his chair to make a point.

“I think that there’s more simplification that needs to happen,” Mr. McDonald, a Republican and former chief executive of Procter & Gamble, told the crowd, speaking in terms that might appeal to a GOP administration. “An organization should always be seeking to simplify.”

Write to Ben Kesling at benjamin.kesling@wsj.com

Also see:

Robert McDonald: Cleaning up the VA