Doug Collins is the 12th United States Secretary of Veterans Affairs, sworn in on February 5, 2025. A Republican with a track record of public service, Collins served as U.S. Representative for Georgia’s 9th district (2013–2021) and in the Georgia House (2007–2013). An Air Force Reserve chaplain since 2002, he deployed to Iraq in 2008 and was promoted to colonel in 2023. With a Master of Divinity and a Juris Doctor, Collins combines faith, law, and military experience in his mission to overhaul the VA by focusing on efficiency, transparency, and veteran care. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD https://AmericanFinancing.net/SRS | NMLS 182334, nmlsconsumeraccess.org https://trueclassic.com/SRS Upgrade your wardrobe and save on @trueclassic at trueclassic.com/SRS ! #trueclassicpod https://ZipRecruiter.com/SRS https://ExpressVPN.com/SRS https://hometitlelock.com/SRS Go to https://hometitlelock.com/srs and use promo code SRS to get a FREE title history report so you can find out if you’re already a victim AND 14 days of protection for FREE! And make sure to check out the Million Dollar TripleLock protection details when you get there! Exclusions apply. For details visit https://hometitlelock.com/warranty https://Hillsdale.edu/SRS https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/SRS | Download the app today and use code SRS Secretary Doug Collins Links: X - https://x.com/SecVetAffairs Call 1-800-MyVA411 (1-800-698-2411) – This is always the right number to reach VA and available 24/7/365. Are you a Veteran in crisis or concerned about one? Dial 988 and Press 1 to reach the Veteran Crisis Line – confidential and standing by 24/7/365. More information: http://www.veteranscrisisline.net/. Call 1-877-4AID-VET (1-877-424-3838) if you are a Veteran at risk of homelessness or a family member, friend, or advocate. Confidential and available 24/7/365. You may also chat online: National Call Center for Homeless Veterans - VA Homeless Programs Submit your question to https://ask.VA.gov/ if you prefer to digitally send VA sensitive or private information. Login to www.VA.gov or use the VA Health and Benefits Mobile App to directly message your health care provider. Schedule 1-on-1 virtual or in-person assistance with a VA Benefits Expert: https://va.my.site.com/VAVERA/ Find a VA facility near you: https://www.va.gov/find-locations/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Why is there distrust towards the VA?
Guys like me don't trust the VA. We just don't. You're not going to be getting your sex changed at the VA anymore. That's not what our services are for, and everything that we're taking money-wise away to that would take away from money that I could be spending on something else that are helping vets directly who are not even getting primary health care.
480,000 VA employees, and there are 450,000 active duty army. That's 30,000 more than the active army members. I hope you're taking this in, because I am the guy you're trying to reach. Secretary Collins, welcome to the show. Sean, glad to be here, bud. It's an honor to have you here. So, the new Secretary of the VA. Yep. Lots of stuff to work on.
It's a, what do you call it, a target-rich environment?
Yeah, I'll bet it is, probably even more than I know. But, so we got a bunch of stuff to talk about today, a whole lot of topics to cover, but I'm just, how did Secretary of the VA pop up on your radar?
Well, I think it comes about a lot of things. The president and I had known each other for a while. And when I was in Congress for eight years, especially those last few years, I was in leadership and I was the ranking member of the VA, not the VA committee, but the Judiciary Committee, which put me in close proximity to the president because we had to deal with the sham Russia stuff.
We had to deal with Mueller. We had to deal with impeachment. And so he and I got to know each other pretty well. And from my fighting during those days to keep the truth just out there about what we were seeing. And so we just had developed a closeness and we kept it up over the time when he was out. And when he started campaigning again, I would be out there and I'd show up.
And after a while, about a year or so ago, he said, look, I think you need to come with me. And he just said, you know, if you've ever been around him, he's just, I just want, you need to come with me. And this was a year out. And I said, Mr. President, I said, let's get you elected. We'll talk about whatever you want to.
And after that happened, we had some conversations and some other ideas that was thought about. But then... I had some ideas about this, and it came about, and I said, you know, this will be a good spot. It takes my career, takes my passions, and puts it in a position that is, as most well know, is a politically sensitive department because of Congress and everybody on the veteran thing.
I said, I think we can manage this because we're going to have to make some change that actually matters. And I said, we're going to have to work at it hard, and I think we can do that. So he agreed, brought me in. We discussed it for just a little while, and then I asked him when he said, he said, you want to do it? I said, yes, sir. I said, what do you want me to do, sir?
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Chapter 2: How did Doug Collins become Secretary of Veterans Affairs?
But yet having to call them because they can't get the help they need. Only in Washington DC do we call that normal. Only in Washington DC do we call that okay. I call it failure. And I've called that out since the day that I got sworn in. that we're not going to allow anymore this discussion, that it's okay to have to call for what you should be getting already.
Now, if you don't want it, don't take it. Go other way. That's why we have choices. That's why we have other things to do. But when it gets into the stuff that you're talking about, this goes back to that culture argument that I was talking about to start with. It gets into the situation where we've just sort of done it this way. And the argument at the VA is, well, everybody complains.
Everybody does, rightfully so. Even if they're new employees, they get, well, the VA is awful. And there's been a lot of problems and probably a lot of stuff to back that up. I'm not going to disagree with you. But there's also a lot of times when you've got the ones who are trying to do it are getting bogged down in the people trying to get in a system that is broken. So it'd be like me.
I do a lot of counseling. I have it for years, of course, when I was pastoring and a chaplain and everything else. And if you, in a relationship, the relationship starts, let's say, with a man, a husband and wife, and a member, it doesn't matter if they're military or not, but if they have a relationship and they have an issue in which one does not trust the other,
And you come into that position, then they've now developed into a problem where they don't talk, they're fighting, they're maybe going to get divorced or breaking up, whatever. And then I walk into the room and I say, I want to help you, but the only thing that I can give you, the one thing you got to have to fix the relationship is the one thing that's broken.
To fix a relationship, you got to have trust. If you can't have trust, you're not going to fix a relationship. You can smooth it, you can paste it over, you can do whatever you want to do, but you got to have trust. In the VA, we're similar situation.
in a sense that people have for so long said, I have to do it by this prescribed method, by this prescribed way, or there's gonna be a congressional person say something, or do something, or I'm gonna get complained about, or we're gonna do this, or the union says we gotta keep your job, so you just keep doing whatever you're doing, we'll protect your job, and go forward.
So when it comes to new ideas, There's, you know, there's some good things that you would never hear about. But when it comes to ideas such as you're talking about with a new generation of warfighter, this new generation of warfighter doesn't come that they're starting to come to the VA. If they have issues of prosthetics, they have issues of, you know, they've lost limbs.
They've done stuff like that because there's some of that we do probably as well, if not better than most anywhere you're going to find. But when it comes to other areas like the traumatic brain injury, to like the issues of sleep deprivation, the issues of addictions, those things, we're stuck in a system that is not allowing.
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Chapter 3: What changes are being proposed for the VA?
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Chapter 4: How does the VA plan to address veteran health care issues?
Well, all of a sudden they threw a bill together, which had already been worked on, but they sort of threw out everything that had been worked on and threw this bill together that... It's part good, but also very rushed. I'll be kind today. Okay, it was rushed and then thrust upon the VA to say, here, do this.
Did you know part of that bill, I bet most people didn't know, do you know that that bill actually requires the VA to test every veteran? The test of were you near a burn pit, were you near toxic chemicals, were you near, they ask those basic questions that I'm supposed to ask every veteran I mean, there's over 18 million, 19 million veterans in this country.
Only nine million roughly have been touched in any way by the VA. How am I supposed to find the nine million if they don't want to be found? But that's the kind of thing that was put in the bill. And I actually asked one, I happened to be in a meeting the other day with someone who actually wrote that bill. And they, I mean, they were nice about it, but they didn't really have a good answer.
And there's no way for me to reach these people. So I say all that to say that's the conduit around PACT Act was that looking for the diseases. Right now, we have basically permissively allowed almost every condition under that that if you have, that it's going to be found under the PACT Act.
Um, and then how treatment goes from there will be just determined on, on what, like everything cancers of the head, which technically there is no such thing as cancers of the head. It's specifics in there, but that we have a terminology of cancers of the head. Okay.
I mean, we've turned that when, in the previous secretary, uh, added in, I think it was a previous secretary and I was confirmed, but the, these, uh, presumptive conditions were added for hypertension and, um, prostate and everything else. Like,
Okay, I get it, but we're just sort of at this point, just say if you've been near a burn pit or you can answer one of these questions, you're just going to get health care. which is in some ways burdening the system a little bit and the benefit side, the disability side of this.
But if that's what the intent of Congress to do is just basically give everybody disability checks for that, then that's what you're going to have to look at going forward. So for me, it's saying, okay, what are the real medical consequences of this? What can we do to treat this? This was also something I brought up that Bobby Kennedy and I actually talked about as well.
But we talked about it from a vaccine perspective, but also some others. It's just saying, how can we look at these conditions and begin to know that what we're seeing and the treatments are effective to what we have? And I think that's the question sometimes never asked. So for me, I'm having to live with PACT Act and say, how do we fix it?
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