Veterans Deserve More Than President Trump's Disruptive Executive Orders

Floor Speech

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Ms. McCLELLAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to draw attention to the detrimental impacts that President Trump's recent flurry of executive orders targeting our workforce are already having.

Despite being in office for less than 3 days, President Trump has already caused major disruptions to the Federal workforce in my district.

The first casualty is the healthcare provided to our veterans. The Richmond VA Medical Center in my district was forced to rescind employment offers to essential hospital staff. Other VA hospitals across the country have done the same, including rescinding employment offers to nurses at a time when we face a nursing shortage.

The new VA medical center set to open in Fredericksburg, Virginia, now has to contend with hiring freezes and the inability to staff up, jeopardizing their opening in February.

Medical school students have been told they can't go to the VA for clinical rotations because of the hiring freeze, impacting the training of a critical workforce provider.

Our veterans deserve much more than this. They put their lives on the line for our Nation and should be able to access the healthcare services they need, but this hiring freeze is putting that in jeopardy.

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