EXCLUSIVE: Trump wanted to take a ‘wrecking ball’ to veterans’ care and cut 25% from the $250 billion in annual funding before his aides told him it was politically ‘lethal’, former aide claims in new book

A new book by a former senior Trump administration official describes how the former president wanted to “empty” the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, but was talked out of it because of the political implications of such a move.

According to Trump whistleblower Miles Taylor’s “Blowback,” Trump had an idea to privatize the entire VA, long plagued by bureaucratic bloat, and cut its $250 billion budget massively.

“Trump was talking veterans, veterans, veterans,” a former VA leader told Taylor. “But in the end he thinks they’re lazy malingers.”

Taylor, who left the Republican Party in 2022, served as chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump from 2017 to 2019.

He wrote an “anonymous” op-ed for the New York Times in 2018 titled “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” In October 2020, he revealed that he was the anonymous author.

Taylor’s new book, obtained by DailyMail.com and expected to be released on Tuesday, July 18, aims to provide insight into what he thinks a second Trump administration would look like – based on interviews with former Trump officials and insiders from the United States. the government.

The Trump team had harsh words for Taylor and his new snitch.

Miles Taylor is a sack of shit. His book either belongs in the discount bin of the fiction section or should be recycled as toilet paper,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told DailyMail.com.

Former Veterans’ Affairs operatives under Trump also confirmed to DailyMail.com that the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (VA) was run in the shadows by the “Mar-a-Lago three” – a group of Trump’s wealthy old friends who were never proposed for Senate-confirmed roles.

The book details Trump’s efforts to “manipulate the department’s budget and programs for political ends” — and the efforts of former VA leaders to prevent that from happening.

What Trump’s people wanted to do. . . was “turning it on its head,” said Tom Bowman, Trump’s former assistant secretary of the VA.

Bowman detailed Trump’s plan to privatize veterans’ care — a sweeping overhaul that former VA leaders say could have deadly consequences.

“To put it in fine print, if the VA’s existing integrated medical system were turned upside down… veterans would die by the thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands. That is why all reforms must be made consciously,” said Jim Byrne, another assistant secretary under Trump.

Trump delivers remarks to US troops, with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani behind him, during an unannounced visit to Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, November 28, 2019

Taylor’s book will be released to the public on Tuesday

Taylor, who left the Republican Party in 2022, served as chief of staff of the Department of Homeland Security under Trump from 2017 to 2019

The book details how Trump was tempted to cut the agency’s budget by as much as 25 percent — or $60 billion.

“That’s real money for a president, and the White House wanted to spend it elsewhere,” said a former VA official.

When interviewing candidates for the department’s top positions, Trump asked them how they could cut health care expenditures for the nation’s 19 million veterans.

“The veterans’ social safety net is extremely complex,” explains Byrne.

‘If you suddenly privatize all veterans’ care, it will have deadly consequences. First, despite the valiant efforts of the [VA’s healthcare officials], millions of veterans would fall through the cracks during the transition to the private sector, which usually cannot cope with the increase, and veterans will not receive the care they need. Second, it would disrupt the entire health care system of the United States, where much of our nation’s medical training and research is conducted in VA medical centers. If you break that system, it’s not just a concern. It’s going to be a big problem for national security.”

Taylor writes that most of the VA officials he spoke to recognized that the department’s “unmanageable bureaucracy needed to be slimmed down.” They were simply afraid of the “wrecking ball” approach favored by Trump.

VA officials who opposed Trump’s plans were accused of not being “loyal enough.”

To carry out his shake-up, Trump commissioned adviser Darin Selnick to watch over the VA.

“One former official described the aide’s alleged micromanagement of the VA as a shadow war to carry out Trump’s plans by defrauding department leaders and pressuring junior appointees,” the book says.

Ultimately, however, plans to rock the VA were thwarted by political considerations — and filed for a second term.

Taylor writes that department officials “played” on fears the White House had about the political backlash from upending veterans’ care ahead of an election.

They warned the White House about alienating the veteran community, saying big changes would hurt the president electorally, leading to Trump changing his tune. He waited to ‘strip’ the VA until he could win re-election,” the book reads.

Former VA officials predicted that in a second Trump White House, the VA would be disassembled “without any resistance from the VA leadership team” because “the Darin Selnicks would be in charge,” as one former official put it.

The ‘Mar-a-Lago three’ – Marvel Entertainment CEO Ike Perlmutter, primary care specialist Dr. Bruce Moskowitz and attorney Marc Sherman – three of Trump’s long-time personal connections – had no official role at the VA, but had excessive influence over the Agency.

In 2021, the department found that the trio of executives had “unusually pervasive access” to senior VA leaders during the Trump administration.

“Jared Kushner was also very involved,” a senior VA official told DailyMail.com.

‘Officially it was good, we try to be innovative. But really, before you know it, you’re seeing these people you’ve only heard news from now showing up, either in person at high-level meetings, actually on the phone, or demanding phone calls with senior VA folks who would never have been involved what I would almost say is everyday decision-making about a contract.’

A former senior VA official told DailyMail.com that the unofficial hands pulling the strings were “pushing regular corruption that we were stopping.”

In one instance, he described how Moskowitz and Selnick intervened in the decision-making process for an electronic health record contract. They insisted that part of the contract go to Moskowitz’s son’s software company – which offered software that “didn’t really work and anyway would never be used.”

A report published in The Atlantic in 2020 claimed that Trump called Americans who died in war “losers” and “suckers.”

‘Why would I go to that cemetery? It’s full of losers,” Trump reportedly said when he canceled a 2018 visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery — reportedly fearing his hair would get wet.

In a separate conversation, Trump reportedly referred to the 1,800 Americans who died at the Battle of Bellau Wood in World War I as “suckers.”