MeidasTouch host Ben Meiselas reports on disabled veterans who worked for the federal government and were fired by Donald Trump who are speaking out about his cruel and unusual treatment of them. Hiya: Go to https://hiyahealth.com/MEIDAS and get your kids the full-body nourishment they need to grow into healthy adults. Visit https://meidasplus.com for more! Remember to subscribe to ALL the MeidasTouch Network Podcasts: MeidasTouch: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/meidastouch-podcast Legal AF: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/legal-af MissTrial: https://meidasnews.com/tag/miss-trial The PoliticsGirl Podcast: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-politicsgirl-podcast The Influence Continuum: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-influence-continuum-with-dr-steven-hassan Mea Culpa with Michael Cohen: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/mea-culpa-with-michael-cohen The Weekend Show: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/the-weekend-show Burn the Boats: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/burn-the-boats Majority 54: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/majority-54 Political Beatdown: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/political-beatdown On Democracy with FP Wellman: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/on-democracy-with-fpwellman Uncovered: https://www.meidastouch.com/tag/maga-uncovered Coalition of the Sane: https://meidasnews.com/tag/coalition-of-the-sane Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What is the main topic of this episode?
Donald Trump has been firing thousands of federal workers every day. Tens of thousands of workers have been fired. And now these workers are speaking out in public. A lot of them are disabled veterans. Veterans make up about 30-40% of our federal workforce.
Chapter 2: How are disabled veterans affected by federal layoffs?
After sacrificing on the battlefield and across the country for our military, oftentimes our veterans get work within the federal government to serve for their lifetime. Donald Trump is tearing their lives apart, firing them and treating them like absolute trash. They're now speaking out about it. Let me share some of these stories with you.
And as you'll see at the end of the video, some individuals were even Trump supporters and didn't think this was going to happen. But let's just show you at first some disabled veterans who have lost their jobs. For example, here's a disabled veteran who lost his job with the Salt Lake Veteran Affairs Department. This is from Fox 13 News in Utah. Play this clip.
Chapter 3: What stories do veterans share about losing their jobs?
Some federal workers may tell you a job with the government takes on a higher meaning.
Chapter 4: Who is Greg House and what was his experience?
We joined it because we want to serve our nation's veterans, to serve our schools, our park goers, you know, everywhere that the federal government touches.
For Navy veteran Greg House, he wanted to continue helping others who have spent time in the military.
I get almost all of my care at the VA hospital. That is a huge part of my identity, and I want to serve them.
So he jumped at the chance to join the Veterans Affairs team in Salt Lake City last year, and all indicators told him he was thriving in the role.
because I had only received top marks on my most recent performance evaluation.
But on February 13th, House discovered that the VA cut 1,000 probationary employees. The next day, he saw an email.
My employment with the VA had been terminated due to my performance, which... didn't make much sense to me.
House says it feels like a betrayal because from his time served in the Navy to his years here at the VA, his entire adult life has been dedicated to this country.
And it hurts to see that, you know, my story is not unique and that all of these thousands and thousands of probationary employees are having something that they've worked so hard for be... just taken away.
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Chapter 5: How does Chelsea Milburn describe her job loss?
I've already said I served my country for 11 years, nine of them on active duty. I deployed twice. I spent so much time away from my family. Oh, no. I was gone when my mom passed away. And I missed that to serve my country. And I was excited to continue serving in this capacity. And they
not only tore that out from under my feet, but couldn't even just grant me a layoff and instead place the blame on me that it was my performance. And I've gotten nothing but positive reviews on that. So I feel very much like the message is that my service isn't valued. They don't care about how this impacts me or people like me. And to me, it's inhumane.
It feels like they're ignoring our personhood and not respecting us as human beings or as Americans.
Yeah, that one brought a tear to my eye. Here is another veteran fired by the Trump administration. Here's what she had to say about what happened to her. Play this clip.
Yes, I was the program support assistant at the Cedar Rapids Vet Center. We were mental health, or they are a mental health and behavioral health center. We have a director and counselors, and then I support them. The system error I did up until Friday, February 14th. I was met at the door by my director. She let me know that I was done. I had no idea. It hit me out of the blue.
I didn't even know I was on a list that would possibly be considered. But it appears that any one of us could be on that list. I was allowed online the entire day to be able to sort my business. And I still haven't been able to offload or offboard completely. So because we are in limbo. I don't know Logan's experience, but mine is that I'm still in somewhere kind of in between.
And since I work for the Veterans Health Administration, there is no one now to meet our clients at the door. There's no one to confirm schedules. There's no one to help and assist with our counselors. And anytime you take the support away, it may seem minor. I was a GS6. I was on the lowest levels of the GS scale.
may seem minor but the next time you walk into a doctor's office and there's no one to meet you at the front desk you have no idea what's going on in the background you have no idea if you have a schedule or an appointment still and no one's there to balance the budget to order things to make sure the doctors and nurses or counselors have the support that they need and in turn clients that come in to assure their anonymity
to ensure that they get their needs met. And when we talk about veterans, we're talking about 1% of the population of the United States. I'm one of them. So when Doug Collins, the secretary of the VA, said he would watch out for me, he would watch out for veterans and protect us if he was nominated as the secretary.
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Chapter 6: What is Andrew Lennox's perspective on the layoffs?
The treatment is by the Trump administration, by Elon Musk, against people who have sacrificed their lives for the United States of America. It's so horrific. Here is a veteran by the name of Andrew Lennox. He's speaking out after his job at Veterans Affairs was terminated in the Doge Purge. Let's play it.
I want to understand something because the grounds for termination in your case and so many others is basically a question of whether your continued employment was in the, quote, public interest. What is your reaction to that?
So, yeah, that's the exact language that was on the termination notification. It's my, my reaction at first, it was surprise, you know, disbelief. And I mean, this morning as I packed up my office, it's anger, you know, because it's, you know, my, I was terminated for my performance. I haven't even had a performance review.
Nobody consulted any, you know, any supervisors or the director of our hospital before making these terminations.
So tell me about your job and why you wanted to work at the VA.
Yeah. So I spent 10 years in the Marine Corps. I loved it. Greatest job I ever had. And I made the decision to transition into the civilian world. And for a little bit, I worked in civilian jobs. I was at a pharmaceutical company for a little bit and they sent me to a military friendly employers conference. And I ended up sharing a table with some veterans affairs social workers.
There's a Marine Corps vet and he was telling me about the work he does. And like, looking at that group of people and the organizations that get back to, you know, veterans, I made the decision. That is what I want to do. I want to continue serving my country. And I thought there'd be no better way than helping, you know, veterans, you know, my family, the people, you know, that
gave me so much, I'd like to get back. And my role there is an administrative officer for a primary care department of the hospital. So it's a lot of behind the scenes stuff.
It's kind of eliminating the red tape and friction that just comes into healthcare as far as like scheduling doctors, the patients, making sure wait times are short, scheduling vacation, pay, ordering equipment, all these things that We try and take the administrative burden off of the doctors and the nurses and the care providers to get veterans treated as quickly and effectively as possible.
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Chapter 7: Who is Nelson Feliz and what is his story?
So I started back in Florida doing MSA work. Now I was working in a hospital doing background investigation for the VA, VHA, and fingerprinting folks that were newly hired.
I gotcha. Yeah, important work. I'm sure you enjoyed doing it, doing it for 10 years. I know you wrote a letter appealing your termination. Tell us about it. How did you find out you were being let go, and what reason were you given?
Well, I didn't find out because my normal work hours were that during the week. So Friday I was off. So they were calling me, but I had my phone on vibrate. It was Valentine's Day and, you know, little family time. And then I got a phone call from one of my coworkers and told me, hey, you need to look at your email and see what's up. So then I found out that at 7 p.m.
they sent me a letter saying that I was terminated. And that just...
Oh, yeah. Shocking. I'm sure to see that. Did they say it was for performance or did they give you any type of reason or did they just say you're out?
They just took it random. And everybody that they send this letter to said it was performance. But there's a form called zero seven five zero that will show that that was incorrect. Plus, I had tenure.
Yeah. You know, and a lot of veterans. They end up working at, it shouldn't surprise you, the Veterans Department and Veterans Affairs, which is just getting absolutely gutted. There could be about 50, 60, 70,000 veterans who are going to be losing their job based on what the Trump administration is doing, each with a story like the one I just shared with you.
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