Unsubscribe Podcast - The TRUTH About VA Fraud & How Doug Collins Is Improving Veteran Care | Unsubscribe Podcast Ep 270

Episode Date: June 28, 2026

KILLER APPLE DROP: https://drinkechelon.com/products/killer-apple Watch this episode ad-free and uncensored on Pepperbox! https://www.pepperbox.tv/joinunsubscribe Today we are joined by United States Secretary of Veteran Affairs Doug Collins, to discuss how he is improving the VA to help our military veterans. WATCH THE AFTERSHOW & BTS ON PATREON! https://www.patreon.com/UnsubscribePodcast 👕 Merch & Shoes https://bunkerbranding.com/pages/unsubscribe-podcast 🔋 Energy Drinks https://drinkechelon.com P.O BOX: Unsubscribe Podcast 17503 La Cantera Pkwy Ste 104 Box 624 San Antonio TX 78257 ------------------------------ THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS! DOSE Ready to give your liver the support it deserves? Head to https://dosedaily.co/UNSUB or enter UNSUB to get 35% off your first subscription. MANSCAPED Get The Beard Hedger® Plus for 15% OFF plus free shipping with code "UNSUB" at https://manscaped.com HEXCLAD Find your forever cookware at HexClad and get 10% off at https://hexclad.com/UNSUB! #hexcladpartner FABLETICS Shop now at https://fabletics.com/unsub to get 70-80% off everything when you sign up as a new VIP—take the style quiz and select "unsub" to unlock this limited-time offer. CASH APP Download Cash App Today: https://capl.onelink.me/vFut/5u7gm6rr #CashAppPod Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. Cash App Visa® Debit Flex Cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC, and The Bancorp Bank, N.A., pursuant to a license from Visa U.S.A. Inc. See terms and conditions for the Sutton prepaid card, Sutton debit flex card, and Bancorp debit flex card. Cash App Green features, Savings, Direct deposit, Round ups, Overdraft coverage and Discounts provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. ------------------------------ FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS! Unsubscribe Podcast https://www.instagram.com/unsubscribepodcast https://www.tiktok.com/@unsubscribepodcast https://x.com/unsubscribecast Eli Doubletap https://www.instagram.com/eli_doubletap/ https://x.com/Eli_Doubletap https://www.youtube.com/c/EliDoubletap Brandon Herrera https://www.youtube.com/@BrandonHerrera https://x.com/TheAKGuy https://www.instagram.com/realbrandonherrera Donut Operator https://www.youtube.com/@DonutOperator https://x.com/DonutOperator https://www.instagram.com/donutoperator The Fat Electrician https://www.youtube.com/@the_fat_electrician https://thefatelectrician.com/ https://www.instagram.com/the_fat_electrician https://www.tiktok.com/@the_fat_electrician ------------------------------ unsubscribe pod podcast episode ep unsub funny comedy military army comedian texas podcasts #podcast #comedy #funnypodcast Chapters: 0:00 Welcome To Unsub! 1:44 Doug’s Experience As A Chaplain 20:02 Combat Stories 24:30 The Increase Of Technology In Warzones 31:20 How Doug Got Involved With The VA 37:30 How Doug Is Improving The VA & Tackling Current Issues 1:11:10 VA Fraud & Negative Discourse 1:35:28 Zach Joins The Conversation 1:39:54 Psychedelic Veteran Treatments 1:59:14 The Duality Of Social Media Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're going to get unfiltered for me. I don't care. They just sent me a pager. As soon as I won the nomination, it was kind of crazy. Oh, Brandon's over here playing red-light green light with the security guards. Okay, the chaplain wants to say a prayer. Huh? Well, how bad is this area, actually? We're getting blessed. Oh, no. The one thing you've said that did not surprise me at all was that the government was great at checking prostates. Let me help the boys out. Come on.

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Thank you all for being amazing humans. Enjoy the episode. I just want to say thank you. Like from the bottom of my heart, thank you for everything. Three, two, one. Excellent. Excellent work. Sounded just like a can. Yeah.

I'm on looking for a side job, you know, making animatronics sliders. You can't make it here. You're making some drinking sounds. Kelly. Cody, you ready to start this podcast? Yes, sir. Hi, everyone. Welcome to the unscribed podcast.

I'm joined today by Eli Double Tapped Fat Electrician, the Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins, Brandon Herrera, myself, Donut Operator. Thank you so much for being here. What is up? everyone look who we got finally we got you on you have been requested multiple many many times so it is an honor to have you on and do you have any idea how hard it is to kidnap a cabinet member yeah i don't think we'll use those terms there might be some people come in here in a minute

there's there's not security guards looking at me right now he's just like they just moved a little closer. They were pineapples, pineapples. They were being really nice to me. They would. No, it's good. It's good to be here. I'm glad to be here. You know, enjoy getting the message out, talking about stuff. I mean, you know, again, just like y'all.

I'm, you know, an average person who just, you know, happens to have a big job. And, you know, background comes in. I just retired about a month ago from the Air Force. I was in Navy for a while before. And so, you know, this is just, you know, I'm glad to be here just to, you know, sort of shoot the crap with you guys. I didn't realize you did the, from Navy, Air Force.

Yeah, I had a blue coloring issue. Oh, this is going to be fun. Dark blue and airline blue. But I actually spent more time with the Marines, actually, when I was in the Navy side, in my initial training, I spent more time with the Marines. No, Chaplin. Oh, that's a lot of awesome.

Oh, did I just a video on a chaplain. Yeah. Have you watched any of his stuff if you're a big history buff? A little bit, yeah, I have. Good stuff. You know, chaplain stuff. Chavlins are interesting. If you really wanted to, I mean,

if you really wanted to dig into something, who's really interested as chaplains. And I know Pete right now is sort of going through a lot with the chaplain corps and getting back. And I think it's just a matter of letting chaplains be chaplains, you know, who they are. And I think that's it. They're in the military. We have every, you know, role and responsibilities of being in military.

But yet we have a, you know, a little different, you know, calling as well. We have the, you know, the endorsement side. And then we have the call. And then we have the military side. So a lot of great stories that come out of that. Yeah, I mean, reading about this guy. I mean, his nickname was a fighting chaplain. So, I mean, he was in all kinds of combat and crazy stuff going on.

But even then in like his memoirs, he talks about how important his role was as a chaplain just because he had even people that weren't religious coming to talk to him about personal issues back home. And a couple examples he gives was like he had guys, this was World War II. He had guys where his one of his soldiers' houses had burnt down and the insurance needed his signature and his wife's signature on the documentation. So like he was instrumental in helping the soldier get the paperwork done so his wife could have a house while he was getting ready to go. into combat in World War II. Yeah, it's amazing what chaplains end up doing. Because, again, you can come to us, especially like from an Air Force perspective,

you know, we have 100% confidentiality. I mean, you can come tell us anything, and we're bound. You own the conversation. And that's different, actually, than some of the other branches they have. It's a little, that confidential is a little bit different. It's still there, but it's a little different.

And ours is 100%. Why is that? I think it's just over time, how they described it and how the Army and Navy both devolved. I mean, Evol, probably is a better way to put it, not devolved, but that it is. So I think they can come to this, and again, think about this, all your old war movies, everything else, I mean, from Patton to Mashed, your God, you know, Chap.

Hey, I'm a, you know, and the interesting thing is you talk about fighting Chaplin kind of stuff is, you know, there's, I mean, I'm a southern bat, so that's my denominational background. I mean, SBC, NRA, I mean, shoot, I've shot guns since I was a tiny kid. But when I'm in that role, I'm a non-combatant. Now, that doesn't mean that, you know, when I was there that, you know, I was going to take things lying down. But at the same point in time, I had my assistant, I had to put it to swimming. But I think what you have to understand is not my role there.

My role is different. And what you talked about about having, you know, people come in and, you know, and people, again, just like it's all to do some of the craziest things. And I can remember, you know, the stories that, you know, I've had over the years of just, you know, moments of Christ. I used to tell the guys when I'd come in and see them, you know, especially like I used to, I was reservists for most of them. pretty much all my career. I was only active when I was deployed. But, you know, I would tell them, I said, look, if you're a reservist or a guard or anybody else, or even in the active you, you know, the day you have to walk out for TDII is the day the dog's going to run off,

the baby's going to get, you know, a fever, and your wife's going to, you know, have a problem with the credit card or the, something's going to happen. And, but then you have also the real issues of just struggling with life and, you know, coming back on how that. So just, chaplain is, to me, is great because I could go anywhere. I could talk to anybody, and they would come to me and I think that's the I think that's the sort of the role is I think it's prepared me for what I'm doing now a little bit even further what made you decide to go into that line of work with the military like a lot of young guys it's like infantry I want to shoot guns which is it's it's just awesome to see that because I've never heard that side I don't

have any friends or like oh I want to go chaplain out the gate yeah no for me it was it's coming off a calling in life and something I wanted to you know to be a part of the military my father late 60 was in the National Guard before he got out and was with the Georgia State patrol for almost 31 years almost. But there's something I always had wanted to do, I thought it was an advance part of a ministry, if you would, as a calling. So really the calling, the ministry came before the calling to really say I could use this

into the military setting. And so, you know, I had looked at earlier times of going in, you know, in just regular flight or others, you know, and just it wasn't the right fit. I believe in truly that God has a calling for your life. He'll let you see it. And so for me going into it, it just opened a ministry opportunity that said, this is something that needs to be filled. And so, you know, again, remembering a chaplain is direct appointed there with direct commission. So you can be a prior service, but you have to still get out.

You have to be a chaplain. You have to have a master's of divinity or equivalency. And you have to have outside endorser. So a different, like for me as a Southern Baptist Convention, it could be Episcopal, Lutheran, Catholic, whatever. you have to then be endorsed by that denomination. Now, both, interestingly enough, both the military and the endorser can stop your career. If the endorser pulls your endorsement because you don't follow through on your commitment to your faith under that guideline, then if you don't get another endorser, you're effectively out. They can actually pull you out.

What would that circumstance look like? It doesn't happen a great deal, but let's just say that you have a different. of opinion of theological belief. I mean, you're getting into, again, Southern Baptist believe, they'd have a doctrinal kind of belief, a foundational belief, Baptist faith, the message that says, okay, these are the things we believe. You know, I'm just going to think of a,

maybe an example that's probably the people would look at. If a Southern Baptist minister did a same-sex wedding, that would get your endorsement pulled because that's just not something. That, you know, other denominations can do it. That's the reason in the military that others can do it. but under our endorsement we can't do it just in that side. So that's an example of what it could be, but it could be other things as well.

Well, it's like super interesting because I know, as you're saying, I'm Southern Baptist. That's what you got to do. That's my tribe. That's what I chose. I'm,

look, I am from perspective of that, I am saved by faith through Jesus Christ. I'm a Christian. I choose, theoretically, to align with Southern Baptist. And I,

and that's where I feel most at home. And with chaplain, though, uh, on New York. side, did you have, because it's military is all different religions, do you have to speak, or how does that work if like another religion, seek Muslim come to you to ask for? Oh, we're there to facilitate.

That's what I, a good chaplain is a chaplain who can help anybody on base, whether they have faith or no faith. Now, I can't do their services. I'm not going to, in fact, there's been times when I had to provide, I, my, one of my job was is I had a Wiccan group on our base that wanted a room to be. that's not something that personally I believe in but I went out I found the room gave them the room said here go do it you know if they have issues with food they have issues with dietary restrictions and stuff they're having trouble which shouldn't be a trouble they come and I can interject a chaplain can interject with a chain of command and say oh no you this this is something you got to do and so

you know I don't have to agree with everybody it's just like politics life and marriage I don't have to agree with everything but I am there to facilitate and And this is where we get in trouble sometimes, is if there's a lot of times there's this idea outside the military, but even in the chaplain ranks is I'm there to convert or I'm there to do. Well, that's part of who I am. If you ask me, I'm going to tell you. But my big, my main job is to make sure that, you know, bottom line for a chaplain is to

make sure that the troops are ready for what they're supposed to be able. And that's to fight and win our nation's wars, bottom line. And so, you know, if they have other issues, they have issues that we deal with, we'll deal with those in counseling. But also I have the right as a chaplain to be true to my faith believe that I don't have to put myself into positions. And when I was in Congress, I had this a good deal where it's very, you know, the law is very clear.

You don't have to do this. And so like if there was a counseling situation in which or a situation when I was asked to, again, being something that is not compatible with my faith, I can say no. Now, what we've had is many times we've had some commanding officers and others say, well, I'll discipline you. Well, that's a no-no. You can't touch that. So anyway, it's a lot of different things out there that knows.

But a good chaplain is somebody who I say this, and some people get mad and look, just read my comments on my social media. Welcome to social media. Yeah, welcome to live. I don't care. You know, it's Doug Collins. Go see it. Get your little keyboard warrior going.

And you challenge you all do a fight. that's fine. I frankly don't, you know, I look, I'll get to that. I hopefully get to it later. We'll talk about how we were using social media for good, but it's a, but you know, the issue is, is you're to be there. If I'm doing a service, it's going to be bad to service. If you come to me and you ask me, you know, what is my belief in the afloafloaf.

I won't tell you what my belief in the afloaflap. I won't tell you how I believe you need to get there. Now, if you believe it, great. If you walk away, great. I mean, I'll pray for you. I'll struggle with you, but those are the kind of things. I think in the bigger picture, we're so, I'm out now. So we're so worried about offending people in our faiths.

And especially, and what we saw it was, and many times is the middle grade officer. What I'll say is the, you know, from late captain, major, lieutenant colonel, there's that, I don't want to do anything to mess my career up. And so they just stay away, anything in religion, ooh, we just stay away from. somebody says you know have a great god bless you have a great day oh that you can't do that yeah you can but again we we we get all wrapped around the accident i feel like that's a problem in government in general where there's no incentive to overperform but there's a lot of potential downside if you do the wrong thing so everybody's just scared of their own shadow they don't get anything done

because if they they go above and beyond and they're an excellent employee you don't get any special treatment you know there's no there's no reason to excel i can say that a little bit how we got to see it with the two fifth i mean we experienced in the past working with the military or the Army specifically, it is that fear to do something or to be, they just want to do the bare minimum or just not rock the boat. So anything scary, they're like, I'm not going to touch that. Well, number one, you know, and I'll just say that I know you have something. One of the things is, I want to say this for all my chaplains out there. I have, you know, I think the best chaplains are the ones that have the strongest belief system.

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You and SEP. To get 35% off your first subscription. The worst it would be to have a, I think everybody's fine. I think everything's okay. I mean, that's great in some sense. But again, when you come to a chaplain, I've had so many that come from and they're having life experiences, they want to know, what can I look to?

What is a belief that you believe? If I'm just saying, hey, that's not what they want. You know, they may disagree with the MLO me. You know, I don't disagree. I think there's many ways to have it. And I said, okay, I'm just telling you what I believe. And so I think that's the one thing that I try to encourage, you know, chaplains in their role, and again, it's very clear.

It's when in counseling situations in the situations of doing a performing a service, those kind of, I have to stay within the bounds of who I am in my ecclesiastical endorsement. But I am a military officer. I still have to do PT tests. I still had to do all the regular, you know, C, you know, military education, PMEs. Now, that's a real waste of time, but that's a whole other issue. Like I said, I'm out.

I retired. Thank you. But, you know, I think those are the kind of things I think we look at and we move forward is to say, you know, you've got to be who you are. And chaplains, the ones that are really good, the ones that you remember are the ones that get out there with you, They get out of the office.

They go out there. I remember my time in Iraq. I used to, I was a nighttime flatline chapel. So I just went everywhere. I had a little truck, buddy, I just went everywhere. And I'd go into the guard. I'd go out, well, I'd go out side place I wasn't supposed to go. And because my troops were there.

But I'd go out there and, you know, I'd see them. And I'd go into the talks. I'd go into the places. And they were glad to see, well, chaplain's coming in. They were glad somebody, somebody just talked to. And they knew it wasn't going anywhere. Those are the best jump scares ever when you're in the military. I know you've had it.

We're like, you're like goofing off late at night doing something you're probably not supposed to be doing. And then, hey, what's up, guys? And you turn and you just see officer rank. They're like, oh, God, I'm in trouble. Oh, it's the chaplain. Okay. Hey, what's up?

How's it going? You're like, I'm not in trouble. It's fine. Yeah. One of the funniest stories I ever had, I was out one night. And you get to know the same groups. I mean, I think with the same, you know, orphans that were just left out. nobody wanted us in the daylight.

So me and this whole group was out there at Belaide is where I was stationed. Beautiful beast. Oh, it was. Very nice when they rained down stuff on you every day. Hey, here it comes. After the first week, you just quit worrying about it. You know, if they hit me, they hit me. You know, and I was out there one night on one of the backside gates.

And you just had no. It's a really cool story. I mean, here's a, you know, about a 19-year-old kid. He's out on the gate. He's by himself. And I'm, I pull. up at like a 1 a.m. 2 a.m. kind of thing. I'm just, and I'm in the back. The great thing about chaplains is we had rippets in the back. We had typical of that, so it keep you going.

And so I just pulled up and I waited. I'm like, okay. Nobody came out. Nobody came seen me. I waited for a little longer. I mean, this began to be like three or four or five minutes. I'm sitting there. I'm like, okay, did everybody go home and they forget me? I mean, what's happening here? And about this time, I hear him stumbling out of the guard shack. It was a little faith. And he said, oh, sir, I'm sorry. I didn't see you there. I was done.

And so I said, hang on, hang on. I said, you're fine. I said, but just let me ask you. What were you doing? I said, because if your commander had came by, I'm Doug. I'm helping you here. But if you're CEO came or your first shirt or somebody came by, what were you doing? And this is where, you know, you always have that turn.

It's like, oh, I just caught sleeping or whatever. He said, well, and this is, this is what, this is why I believe the our fighting men and women are the best in the world. He came out and he said, well, he said, sir, and this was in 08 when I was there, 2009. He said last year before I joined, he said, it was during the, if you remember the Great Recession and everything, 0-607, he said, he was from New England.

He said, my dad was a contract, he said to the billver, and we didn't have any money. And he said, and when I joined, he said, last Christmas, we didn't have anything. He said, my sisters, and we just didn't have any money. And he said, I joined in, and I'll never forget the next words out of his mouth. He said, and this is an A1C.

He said, I'm making big money now. I get choked up a little bit about it, just thinking about this. And he said, I was back there and I was taking out how much, I was betting my pay. And he said, I was doing my hazardous duty pay. And he said, I was writing it all down. He said, how much did I, he said, I put a little aside for myself, as if he was apologizing for it.

And he said, this is how much I'm going to send home to mom and this is my dad. And he said, but I had to make sure that I had enough. to get my sister a computer. I sat there in the middle of the night and I said if half our country, just half put that much time into thinking about where they were and what they're not in the middle of a desert,

in the middle of a war, you know, we'd be a lot better off. And I said, well, but, you know, I was, I tried to play good chaplain and said, no, good job, you know, and I said, hey, bud, I'll see you again tomorrow. Y'all be good, just get out, just make sure you're watching out next time.

I drove off in tears. I bet. I mean, it was just, you know, I've shared that story when I was running for Congress. I shared it all along. And it goes to me, if a kid in the, and I just say this out loud, if a kid in the desert can take a piece of paper in his own check and make a budget, by God, the government can't do.

And, you know, we got to get better at that. So anyway, that was, that is just one of the few, the chaplain stories that sort of relates on how we related to people and how we wasn't getting them in trouble, but I do have one for the Marine side. Oh, boy. Oh, this one. I mean, if you don't want to talk about you, if you'll shut up.

Yeah. I don't want to know where this is going. Yeah, this is going good. I'm at Pendleton, and we're going around, and the chaplain I was with, this has been when I was still a chaplain can, I was still getting settled in. And we went backside of Pendleton. I don't know where it was, and he was going to show me one of the units. Well, we opened, there was basically like a trailer back.

It was where they had the, and it was where one of the gunny was and some others. We opened the door, the other chaplain opened the door, and in the middle, of here was this guy, this young private was on the floor do more punch out. And blamie, he's going out. He is getting reamed. I mean, just, I mean, I don't know what the kid did, but

he undoubtedly deserved it. And he had three of them just yelling, you know, you know, and they looked up and they saw me. And they saw the other chaplain. I think it was Gunny came in. He said, sir, let's go outside and talk for just a minute. He said, sorry you had to see that, but

the young Marine just needs some encouragement in his life. But if you want to stop back by later, we'll be happy to talk. Corrective answer. So 30 years later, I hope this young private grew up to be Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, I don't know. But I know for that day he was learning a lesson. Let's put it that way. You were talking about getting Sheldon, like, Balad and things like that. Me and Eli were having a conversation just yesterday,

and he told me a very interesting life hack for being deployed in a combat zone. So if you're deployed and you're only allowed to rotate onto actual bases, like once every 20 to 25 days and you live out in sector, during that time you have like one day to check internet. So we'd get on base, so we would be waiting in line to get on the computer. Mortars would be coming in. So it would be like, booboo,

everyone starts running. We just go and sit down on the computer because we had the sign in mind. It's like, oh, thank God. Oh, my, yeah. We die anyways. I took a picture of the map, and I had it somewhere. You know, they put all the pinpoints where it hits every day. We'd average, I mean, someday we might get one, other days we get six.

You know, they just hit and they just randomly throw them up there. I remember the last night I was in country. And I finally got it. It had been a week. They've been delaying my flight, delay my flight, and I'm ready to go home. And so that night I'd go back to finish packing. I was on the flight the next morning. Of course, the alarm goes off.

and one hits and it hit about a hundred yards toward the flight line of where we were at and it was pretty good side and it just shook you know where all that

and I said keep packing next thing in it and about the next thing about a minute or two later boom shook it again and we were behind those concrete you know 13 foot concrete

concrete barriers and it was still shaking it and it was on the other side I said keep packing so I just kept back and I said if they get me now they give me now but you learned live with it a little bit. I'm just picturing young Eli, you know, mortars are coming down.

He's just on the computer like, what happened with Janet Jackson at the Super Bowl? Yeah. Like, MySpace music. Okay, that one's way. Looking up new camera specs for what's coming out in the next six months. Oh, my God. The jump scare I had, as you were saying, when you turn you, like, ah, officer. Oh, it's a chapter. Thank God. Ours is, hey, you guys are moving to a new AO, rules and game, rules of engagements changing slightly. Pretty bad area. Okay, everyone were like, whoa, who, let's do this thing. Okay, the chaplain wants to say a prayer. Huh?

Well, how bad is this area, actually? Why is he here? It says once you don't see, I'm being like, uh-oh, uh-oh. We're getting blessed. Oh, no. Here, let me throw water. Here we go. When I was in guard, because I was in the headquarters place where we drilled.

So it was like the medics, the scout sniper platoon, who I was attached to, and then, like, the radio guys and the chaplain also drilled there. the chaplain all the time. And our chaplain was six four, probably three 25, 350, but he would like, actively competed in strong man. And I think he used to do like not WWE, but that style of wrestling also. Yeah. Dude was hilarious. He would be walking up and just like pick up the mortar base plate in front of privates just showing off. Like he needs some helps on and just grab it and just like one hand it and walk off. Like he was so cool. When your chaplain's the fucking mountain. Bro, like legitimately.

He was huge. He was so cool, tell. What supplements are you taking Jesus Christ? He thumps me up every day. Yeah, you get those stories and I think that's the, you know, the interesting thing that makes, you know, life in the military. It's what, you know, veterans is what everything. It's those things you remember. And it's the good and the bad.

I mean, you, you know, look, I can sit here and go through stories of, you know, I've never understood. And from my perspective, you know, I've never understood why. people wait to their loved one is in the war zone to tell them if they don't love them, they're divorcing them, or something's wrong at the house. Or decide to write them a whole letter about how, well, they found a friend last night who became better than a friend, and they write them a whole letter about that. And then that person ends up. I remember one very distinctly had, I'm just trying to get off at 7 in the morning,

and I'm trying to go to a hooch and just go to sleep. And I get this frantic call from one of the units and say, hey chap, you got to get over here. I got one. It's just bad off. I said, okay, what's the problem? I said, y'all just got here, what's wrong? And I went over and this guy had made that one phone call home, so to speak, or a phone call back home, and found out his wife at the time said, I don't love you anymore. I couldn't tell you before you left.

I don't love you anymore. I'm getting divorced and won't be here when you get back. This kid's, I mean, this kid's devastated. I mean, I worked with him for a while. We ended on, honestly, had to send him back. Because you just, they don't understand what they do at it. But I have a question, sort of, you brought up the, you know, the hack. My question is, I'm not sure we're.

better off now with the electronic communications that we have in war zones is a good thing. It's an obsequent nightmare. Definitely Pandora's box. Like it got open, you're never going to put it back in. But I think there was definitely an advantage to like World War II era of like, I'm going to fight the war. I'll be back when I get back. Keep it under control. Like, you know.

What is it? I'm going to come home. Come home or I'm going to come on in a box. And that's basically it. And they, but how many things. I mean, even in my life, I mean, I remember toward the end of my deployment I had, we had a root, we had a leak from a refrigerator, ice machine that gotten under, they've been there.

And it just basically taken out, you know, half of our house. And my wife is at home. And I'm trying to, and I see this and I can't do anything about it. And it's like, okay, is that a good thing for me to know or would have been better for me to get two weeks later in a letter? Definitely. better without. Yeah, but it's a struggle.

But then there's the other side of it where you, and we saw it a lot, especially in the early days when like, because this is all brand new. Like there's never been a major conflict really fought where people had cell phones and Starlink. And then so we saw it in the beginning of the Ukraine war where you'd have a soldier or like soldiers that they, you know, were catfishing on Tinder to try to figure out their location. You had guys that were taking selfies like, oh yeah, we're all huddled up in this high school gym like this is where we're staying for the night. And then in three hours that gym didn't exist.

because it got intercepted. Like those sort of leaks, that's not a thing you had to worry about 20 years ago. Also, people don't understand, like, how dangerous it can be to just have, like, there's a, I follow a bunch of watch pages and stuff on Instagram, and one of these watch pages, I think it's watches of espionage. They do, like, cool history videos about them and stuff. But I think they're the ones that actually, like, on their Instagram and social media, call out big politicians and military leaders that are wearing Apple watches and stuff like that.

Like, you need to wear a real watch, like, you can get tracked. by that that's emitting electronic signals like there's all kinds of horrible things that can happen by you wearing what amounts to a tracking device on you 24-7 with your biometric data and it's like there was that one guy recently he was on an aircraft carrier and he had his running app on his watch and all you see is circles being ran in the middle of the ocean like this because he was just doing sprints around the aircraft carrier they were able to figure out where this certain carrier was oh yeah we don't think about it i mean it's and here's the thing that I always like to tell people, you know, being in government and military as well,

if you've seen it on TV, there's far better out there. And I think everybody forgets that. You mean, just think about it. It's not, I'm not giving away world secrets here. I'm just, you read Tom Clancy, okay, you know, the old books. It's just, you know, but we think, we, we don't think we may try it. We don't, we, we still have this idea that, you know, oh, it's okay. And we get, we've gotten so used to technology that we're, we're almost too comfortable with it, in the sense, especially when it comes to offset when it comes to, you know, the things that we're doing with folks and you see it all the time when you have like a group of 12 or a platoon like the bigger it's yeah one person you might know how to like hide your metadata or VPN any of that

stuff but now does each individual soldier know that right and I can assure you that is not the case a lot of the times they're going to mess up no they are agree although it can be used against our enemies we found that out talking to a capi yes the um the north koreans that got sent in Ukraine that discovered for the first time in their lives there were illicit pictures on the internet and that wound up occupying all of their time they had to take the phones away they had to take their phones away can you describe these illicit well I know they also ran out of Kleenex we'll put that way I know had a problem Houston we have a problem yeah I can say that Pyongyang we have a problem yeah something had a problem and I think you know again you

You get in to stuff that you don't realize. What was it the, what was it a year or so ago? The Israel phone. Oh, the pages. The pages, yeah. The pages are like, golly. That was multi-year process to get that to happen into just insanity watching that unfold and security footage.

Yeah. It's like, unrelated, they just sent me a pager. As soon as I won the nomination, it was kind of crazy. I knew I'd get him to break. up! I'll hit you with my frying pan! Yes, that's right, we are now sponsored by Hexclad. We were actually super stoked for this because I've let them cook, so they gave me a walk.

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Hexclad H-E-X-C-L-A-D. dot com forward slash unsub un-sub just in case Brandon's over here playing red light green light with the security guards yeah you're going here comes Cito

here we go thanks guys been fun the first thing I said when they walked in because obviously you know there's there's a decent security detail for you know You're a somewhat important man. My dog doesn't think so. First thing I said was,

oh, you're the guys that are here to shoot me if I get too twitchy. Yeah. Well, it's a sad state of life that you have, the cabinet secretaries are on either party, on anybody right now if you go into public life, the, the anonymity and sometimes non-animity of social media and the issues that are surrounding it,

I mean, when you get, you know, when you just, general, because I'm not going to be specific about anything, but you just see in general the threats to public figures. You see the threats to everything. It's just, it's ridiculous. I mean, were you there at the 250 for the UFC? Yes. Yeah, so that that was the one thing that just came out like a couple days ago about the, the terror threat there, the bombing threat and everything like that. Like, it's, it's just scary times. It is. And, you know, some people,

sometimes you get it where you see, you hear so much about it, you sort of dismiss it. But it's regular. I mean, there are threats against, you know, politician, cabinet members, others. I'm just saying in general, it's a real thing. And, you know, so it's not the, you know, the, I think it's just coming to a society where we've got to get back to a world in which we can, we can agree to disagree or, you know, or agree and then say, okay, maybe there's a better way. And I think that's the part, that's, you know, the issue for Congress and this issue for others as we were talking a little bit before we got on.

I mean, I think that's the problem we've developed now, and it's really, it's frustrating because most Americans don't get it. Most Americans just want to get up in the morning, go to work, feed the kids, do what they want to do, go do with their, you know, hobbies, whatever, you know, and go back home at night and nobody mess with me. And that's what most people care about. And then the rest of the world, you know, tries to influence on what else they care about. So, interesting, man.

What was the true? choice for you to go into the VA after the military. You're like, okay, this is what I want to do. This is how I want to help the veterans. That's good. Well, I was out for a few years. I had, uh, uh, of, you know, elected life and I had been in. And so I had kept up with the president. The president and I had gotten to know each other, uh, pretty well during his first term because I was the, I was in Congress for eight years, but I had rose pretty quickly. And I was ranked, ended up being ranking member of the Judiciary Committee. So I had to do that put me at the spotlight of all the first impeachments and, and all that stuff with Jerry Nadler

and Adam Schiff and all that, you know, bull crap that we had to deal with. And for those who don't know, the Judiciary Committee, like, that's where all the dog fights happened. Oh, yeah. That's a fun one. That's the one you see on the news a lot. That one in oversight. And I started my career on both oversight, judiciary and foreign affairs.

So I had lived through Benghazi. I lived through all these, you know, with Clinton and everything else. So by the time. You chose specifically to throw elbows for a living with those committee picks. Uh, yeah. I come in to say, look, we're going to discuss things. Yeah. So from my background, I'm an attorney as well.

Oh, okay. I didn't know that. Yeah, I'm one of those chaplains that have a law degree. You being a chaplain in doing that makes it so much fun here. Yeah, I said, yeah, I have grace in law. Depends on the day, I throw grace in law. So, but no, but it was, you know, so again, you know, working the committees and knowing that. So we knew each other.

We had to go through, you know, different issues. And if anybody ever meets, if you ever get to a chance to meet the president, you know, even in a public setting, but if you ever got to meet him behind, without, you know, in his office, in the Oval or anywhere, he is one of the most down-to-earth people you ever want to meet. But he's also smart of the whip, contrary to what the press want to make out of him. He knows he is very well-versed. He talks about a lot of issues.

He'll bring up stuff. So, anyway, we got to know each other. We kept up, and when he was out, I was out. I kept in touch with him when he ran again. Of course, I helped. And it was one of those things where about a little bit before, He said, look, he said, we win this. He said, because there's a lot of discussion about me going back into politics in Georgia.

And he said, look, we're going on this. I need you, and I'm going to bring you in D.C. I said, Mr. President, let's get you elected. We'll talk about it then. And even like two days before the election, he said, how, you know, because he's about him making. Doug got that. I said, Mr. President, we'll get this done, talk. And then after that, a week later, you know, we got, he was elected.

We're down in a week and a half later. We're down in Marla, well, I was actually down for another event with another group. And we banned talking. He called me over and said, you know, hey, this would be a good fit. I said, yeah, I think it would be a good fit. There was some other ideas, but he said to the VA. And he made it real simple. When I went to him and I said, I said, what do you want me to do?

I said, how do you want to see this? He said, just take care of veterans. And that's really all he's ever told me is just take care of veterans. Are you one of those media strategy people clicking through slides, scrolling spreadsheets? Yes? Good. This is for you. Because on Spotify, there's an audience that's different.

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Spotify advertising. You're among fans. And so he follows. He knows what's going on. He knows he watches approvals. He watches what we're doing. And when I see him, he'll talk about things and ask me about stuff. But I think the big thing for him was to just make sure that we did what we're supposed to do.

And so that's sort of how I got back into it. And at first, you know, I thought about it. Well, this is this a fit? But then I got to thinking about it. Life experience. I'm a member. I'm the first member of Congress since the, it became a cabinet position to actually be the secretary, which I think is a big advantage for me.

I understand the hill. Whether they understand me or not, different story. But I understand them. And I understand they have to be Congress people. Okay. You'll get that. Okay, you got to be who you are. And I tell our staff all the time, I'll let them be who they are.

Whether I agree with them or disagree with them, you know, they've got stuff that they have to do to win elections, do that kind of if I've been there. So I think that gives me an advantage there. Number two, I've been in the military. I was, in fact, up until May, I was in the reserve. So I've served. I went overseas. I know the problems. I mean, I live right by the burn pit and blood.

You know, I get all of those kind of things out there. We don't cheer for burn pits, Eli. We suck that area. I thought I was back in North Georgia where we used to burn trash and that's what we did. Real quick. What part of Georgia? North Georgia, Lake Lanier.

Oh, okay. I grew up in Rome. I was born in Rome. Yeah. There's no good way to get to Rome from Gainesville or anywhere else. All roads do you not lead there as it turns out. Not in this terminology, but yeah, I did have Barry and shorter and some, it's very pretty over in Rome.

But yeah, I live on the Lake Linger. I grew up and my dad was at. the State Patrol post there. Oh, awesome. So, yeah. So I still live in Gainesville. So that's home for me. So, you know, had that and, you know, been in.

And then also, you know, with the experience of being a lawyer, you know, is taken care of. And so it's understanding. So I just think it came together in a good fit. And my bride who graciously moved to D.C. to be with me. If she hadn't, we probably wouldn't have done that because I spent a lot, I've spent a lot of life traveling. She travels most time with me. But, you know, we decided.

this is our next phase of life. And I go into it, you know, nothing really, you know, from my perspective, you know, I will say, I'm going to do what's right for veterans. And I'm going to tell the truth. I'm going to honestly tell the truth. And if that puts you at odds, whether it be press or Congress or anybody else, I'm going to say, no, what you're saying is wrong. And I'll fight back.

And also I come to it with a little bit different perspective. I had a very large social media presence before I came back into this job. I was on TV most every week, several doing, doing a lot of stuff and social media. And so we have the ability to fight back for our veterans. And so when members say something that's not true, I call them out. And I also tell them that when we're wrong, we're going to fix it.

And so I think that's what made me say this is a good fit for this time in my life. Because I mean, I'm not looking for the next step. I'm not looking for anything. I just got, you know, this time to say, hey, what can we do to fix an agency that is actually a very good agency. It has very good intentions, very good hearts, It's a large agency. But over the years, has been allowed to be beat down and told that they were bad for so long that they just, they don't, they, it's like, you know, I'm not going to reach my hand out because it's going to get slapped.

You know, it's like working for a commander who, you know, doesn't want anybody else to get credit. And if you try to do something, it's, you know, you get popped back down. It's very similar. Even if in they're wrong, I mean, there's just, is the way it's handled. For sure. One of the issues that's come up, I think, you know, during this administration under the VA that I think was, it was miscommunicated or at least the media, you know, something can be. communicated however you want, but the media can twist it however they want. No. I think you've had a front row seat to that, as have I.

But one of the things that happened early on was a lot of the firings at the VA in the very beginning. And I think a lot of people were concerned out the gate that that was going to negatively impact veterans' health care and veterans getting the care that they need. What would your response be to that? You know, the great part about it is we fired nobody. That shows you how bad the media twisted. We ended up, we didn't fire anybody. But we had no risks.

We had an issue of probationary that, you know, we still thought was probably the probationaries were brought back on. But we didn't end up firing anybody. Now, last year, we had 30,000 of our employees. Now, it sounds like a lot, but remember, I have 460,000 employees. We had 30,000 take early retirement. And, again, most cabinet agencies don't have that many people. I mean, we're just very large. It didn't affect anything.

In fact, I'm going to obsolete say this. I said several things that most people. don't realize. When I got there, I had no idea how many people was in the department. I asked my HR and A guy who actually started the same day I did after I got sworn him. I said, how many employees do we have? It came up in a conversation. It took him a week and a half later to get back because we didn't know. I wish I was making this up. I'm not. They didn't know. I mean, we could guesstimate, but we didn't have. I was going to say, they couldn't even like ballpark here. I mean, we could ballpark. I mean, we could ballpark.

market within, you know, 20, 30,000. They had to put in a claim. Yeah, we'll put in a claim. So, you know, that was, hey, can I find you, please? If you're not here, raise your hand. I don't wait for a response by mail exclusively. We still do that. The Minuteman wrote it to me.

We're going in. So, so that was part of our problem. And then for ages, we, the other thing is for all the military, you know, listening and sitting here at the table, I had no manning documents. so I could tell you how many people I had, but I had no manning document. So I couldn't tell you where they were. I could tell you I had these many people. I could guesstimate that I have like, you know, this many in a hospital,

but I didn't have them actually assigned to say, how many do we need? You know, how many do we need in this department? How many do we need in that department? We didn't have that until December. Well, talk about another issue. Then the one of the New York Times, Washington Post, they all just line up to, you know, hit pieces on it. said because what we did is we cleaned up our manning document.

We had unfilled positions. So we went to all of our people and said, okay, how many of these do you need? How many you do not need? And we ended up with about 26,000 that were just at this point we didn't need. So we just took them off the manning document, which is what you do in any organization, any business. Well, of course, the headline was VA slashes 26,000 positions.

No, we took them off the manning document. And we still, and I had to explain this to Congress. And some of the report, I said, look, if just say there was a doctor that retired in December. We determined that we had four podiatrists, we didn't need five. You know, he was the fifth. Well, you don't hire no one.

Okay. But if we all of a sudden had a, you know, influx of bad feet, we'd go hire another podiatrist. It wasn't that you couldn't hire them. It was just that we didn't need them on the books at this point. We could move those FTEs somewhere else. It's almost like different wars have different chronic injuries

that require different treatments from different medical people. Definitely. And as time goes on, the needs change. wild concept i know it is it is disturbing to figure that out um i everyone why why do you hate veterans

i guess i don't know that's terrible sorry i just just blame you for everything else i mean my little i'm right here with you man we're in the same frame i'll do it with you it's fine i'll bring my loz and i'll bring my loz and fishes from the chaplain perspective here no

but i mean and again i'm not Look, everybody, you know, for the most part, everybody wants, you know, to take care of veterans. Okay. And I say that with honesty. I just think some don't know how. They think that, and this is the whole situation with employees and everything else, is they think that more money, more people equal better, you know, everything. Well, it's just not, it just wasn't true. Because here, I'll show you a quick run through a couple of quick things.

Everything that I've just talked about, 30,000 went through early retirement. We got a banning document now. to where we could actually get, you know, people in the right places. Instead of all hiring quarterbacks, we actually found a center. You know, hey, we might actually need one. You know, again, shocking concept. But the thing that we had to get to grips on is finding the best ways for us to do that. So it made sense in how we took care of veterans.

And so I did all of that changing. So everybody was throwing up their hands panicking and said, oh, my God, we're killing the VA. Doug Collins is a slasher. Doug's doing this. You know, whatever. We had 260,000 backlogged claims when I first stepped in in February last year. That meant that they were over 125 days to get processed. The actual date of completion at that point was 137 days.

So we were well over the backlog number. And we had over a million claims in general, just pending claims. As I'm sitting here today, roughly a year and three or four months later, We're at a little over 70,000 backlog claims. We're at 77 days to complete, and over a million has dropped down to 500,000. Now, we did that all of what I just told you. Our health, our wait times at our hospitals have gone down,

but let me say before anything else, we're the only hospital system in the world that measures wait times. So you hear veterans out there saying, it took me 15 days to get into an appointment. Yes, it may have, but I'm going to challenge you. Go to university or go to a hospital or go to any public and private. They don't measure it.

I still don't have private insurance. So, I mean, if I had to get an appointment, my wife had to get an appointment, it took her three months to get a physical. They don't measure it. But we do because Congress, a few years ago when we had the scandal, people not getting colonoscopy's that kind of stuff. We had to figure out a solution. Well, Congress uses big blank sheets of paper and large color cranes to figure it out because that's the only way we can understand it. And we said, well, if they don't get in within 20-something days, they have to try this, then we can get them into community care. And then that'll solve the problem.

So our wait times have come down. We haven't gotten better in those areas. I mean, we're opening over 35 VA facilities clinics, hospitals over the past year. We've opened up 2 million plus hours, probably coming up on 2.5 million now new hours for veterans to come to clinics and to hospitals later in the evenings or on Saturdays so that we can take care of younger veterans. You know, we open up community care. Community care and in this area where you're at is very important because you have a very high growth area of veterans. So community care is something that we use a great deal. And it's VA care is VA care, no matter if it's a private doctor or a VA doctor.

So we've made it easier to get into community care. And we didn't do it on our own. The Doleck said that we could use best medical insurance. Well, we used best medical interests. We took away the second doctor. So if you had a pack doctor, they had to go before they sent you somewhere, they would have to go say, well, doc, do you agree with my assessment? And it takes another two weeks and they had to get it scheduled.

Well, now the doctor can just send you to the orthopedic in town. And we take into caregivers interest as well. So it's not just the veteran and the caregiver. So we've done all of these things in the midst of all this supposed disaster. That's right. Your friends can't get out of lending you money now. Thanks to Cash App. I requested more.

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Cash app, direct deposits, roundups, overdraft coverages, and discounts provided by Cash App, a Block Inc. Brann. Visit cash.com slash legal slash podcast for full disclosures. Of an agency that was just right sizing itself. So that's what I have. And that's what you nailed it earlier when you said that people have this idea that more employees and more money means better care, better service. That is one of my biggest gripes with, I mean, politics in general, just the way the

government's run with Congress and tell me if I'm off base on this, but I feel like I got my finger on the pulse on it decently, that instead of solving real problems or finding out practical solutions, all they want is a win on a mailer, which means that they can say, oh, I passed a new law. It didn't matter if there's already a law in place. It didn't matter if, you know, that law actually fixed anything. Or I allocated more money. Yeah. And a lot of people and, you know, I think my, my former opponent was one of them where he just was touting the amount of money that, well, I allocated $18 million to this project. It's like, okay, well, half of them never got built. And if they did, like it, you know, it didn't solve the problem that you were trying to go for, but they can claim it as a win because, well, I spent more of your money. If that's not how we're going to solve problems. If we want to buy a Pokemon card, does it matter if it's a $16 million collectible Pokemon card or a five cent Pokemon card? If it's just a Pokemon. card. You know what I mean? Like you're just wasting more money for the sake of wasting money

to say it's, oh, this one's shinier. And I think the results are no different. We saw that a little bit. I'm not sure that I ever got a Pokemon car. Do you want one? We can give you. If someone gets a Pokemon card.

Jain they would not let me have a Pokemon card. Get to dismount a Pokemon card. Is that one of those things where you say, I don't even know what they're doing. Pokemon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Now you know, that I'm the ancient one in the room. Well, no, it just mean like, I don't know, like the throwing more money at the problem. It's administrative bloat. You can look at it in even colleges. Like the amount of college administrators has gone up 1,200% since 1970. As the quality of college graduates graduating from college right now, 1,200% smarter than they were in 1970.

I would argue it's going on the other direction. And that's the Department of Education period. I mean, since we had the Department of Education, quality of education has gone down and cost of education's gone up. So real bang up job there, Jimmy Carter. Well, Elon caught 80% of Twitter and then three years had it turned back around where it's like, oh, look, we didn't need all that. It was all bloat. And now we are back to the exact same worth. Yeah.

And look, there's some areas that need. And one thing I want to very clear, because, I mean, there's people who like to, you know, get on social media and yelling the phone and tell me how bad I am. And I just want to tell them, you know, number one, that this is, you know, whether you like it, not like it or anything else, I just need you to you to know that quality care, that somebody is going to have. that somebody is going to have a bad day at the VA. Yeah. It's going to happen. We're going to try and fix it. We're going to try and make it better.

You know, you didn't get what you needed or something. But again, put us in the same sphere as the integrated health care system that we are with every other integrated health care system. You know, they talk. I get hammered all the time. Well, you're not hiring enough doctors. Well, neither is your local hospital because we can't find them. And by the way, they can pay far more than I can pay. Literally, I have ologist problem, I call it.

My ologist problem is I'm captain. at the president's salary. Well, an anesthesiologist or a cardiac oncology or anybody like that, I'm paying it 400 or something. They could easily walk down the street and get one for 800,000 to a million. Okay. I'm dealing with what I'm dealing with. And that's a problem that I brought up a lot, too, is because it's just we have certain budgets, right? And like, you don't necessarily have to advocate for a bigger budget, but better allocation of the money that you have. Not you, but like, really it's a Congress thing where like I just get pissed off when we, have these big projects where it's like, okay, we need to help veterans and things like that.

Okay, let's allocate $50 million to building this new park with a fountain in front of the VA. It's like, well, or hear me out, you could have spent that money to actually hire like good quality ologists, you know, psychologists, health care, you know, that sort of thing. It's like we're spending our money in really weird ways. It's a very nice fountain. It's really cool. But I don't think it's, I think if you'd asked any veteran on the street, whether they'd like to have a fountain or whether they'd like to like to have been seen by a psychologist that or their same psychologist without having to change

doctors once they have a trusted one like the priorities are just entirely out of whack well and i think that we've actually looked at that we're spending more of our construction money non-reoccurring maintenance funds i mean we had elevators not working we we spent millions of dollars last year on just getting elevators back working um like they should in our hospitals um we have our average age of our facilities are 70 years old 60 to 70 years old there's not another hospital in texas system that is or private that has that old of facilities. They remodel them about every 20, 25 years at worst. So I'm having to deal with, you know, pipes that have been in for 50 years.

I'm having to do a sewer. I mean, I got several hospitals I've actually been to where they're doing construction. They're dealing in the old cast iron pipes that you don't use anywhere anymore. And most of them are, you know, they're either clogged or I can't go through a week at all without a pipe busting in one of my hospitals or one of my clinics, shutting it down for a while. So we've tried to reinvest. That just happened here in San Antonio,

and Aldi, I'm sure it did. I just had one in another state as well. And again, it goes back to the, that we did all the stuff and didn't focus on preventive maintenance. It's just like, you know, your gun. If you don't keep your gun up, it's not going to shoot when you want it to.

It's not going to shoot how you want it to. So I think this is the kind of things we're trying to work on is just to be common sense. A lot of things we've done is just sort of change the common sense mindset. If it helps a veteran, we're going to do it. If it doesn't help a veteran, we're not going to do it. And that takes it away from the mentality that the VA earned, and I'm going to say earned, that we were more concerned about our bureaucracy and our self than we were about the veteran in care.

And that came naturally. I do not blame our employees. I think we have the best in the world. But they were trained, sort of to say, do what you can do. Congress is going to say this or press is going to say this. Just keep your head down. and so that meant moving the system along without changing it. I've sort of reversed that model and said, no, we're not going to do things like that.

You're going to get people in. We hire it. We still, you know, everybody says, you're not hiring it to be a. We hire over a thousand, roughly 1,000 people a week. I mean, we have, we have still, we have more people than any agency. If Pete couldn't combine the service branches, I'm the largest in the cabinet. We're bigger than active duty army. People don't realize the scale of the V.

VA. And so, and that's why we did in this reorganization. We're doing it called Rise. It was taking the upper, the middle and upper managements and just recreating it because we look nothing like what we should look like. And so now we're going to actually be able to do policy, business line and our hospital operations in three separate areas that line with policy. So that frankly, you know, you always heard that saying, if you've been to one VA, you've been to one VA, you've been to all of, well, no, if you've been to one VA, you've been to one VA. Because we were not, we thought we were all startups. 170 hospitals just thought they could do whatever they wanted to do. I said, no, if you got VA on the side of the building, you're getting publicly funded, then we're going to be

the same. So I had a veteran one day who was the, had lost a leg, lost some other, and he came up to him and he said, I need to know something. He said, I was just in Salt Lake and I got a treatment out there for part of what I was dealing with. He said, then I had to move to Virginia at Hampton Rose. And he said, the doctor in Hampton Rose said, the VA doesn't do that treatment. And I said, excuse me? He said, no, he said, they said the V.A. I said, you know, again, that's the kind of stuff you're facing. But it was allowed to fester like this for years because either oversight,

undersight, however you want to call it, was we were more concerned about the individual problem instead of the, how does it fit into the bigger mole? And look, I fully admit I was guilty of that in Congress because you only see it from your perspective. And so, but we're back to the part now that where Mission Act is being actually implemented. That's the community care aspect. That's a direct care aspect. It's putting our veterans getting where they need the help.

We fully implement the previous administration has shut that down. And now the funny part about this is community care is working like it should. Most of my vet, it's sort of how I had a member of Congress the other day. They said, oh, all my veterans, statistics show that all of my veterans want to go to the VA. No, it really don't. But, I mean, if you measured your staff, that might be true. But most of them at least want a choice. and what they have.

And every time I go to speak at a VFW, I speak at everybody else, I have to get no questions on for the most direct care except they, you know, want better parking, other ones that's other side. I said, hey,

I'm having trouble getting in the community care. We've now have separated the budgets. And I want everybody to know this. We've separated the budget so we can actually look at how much direct care is costing us, how much community care is actually costing us. We still spend double in direct care. Our hospitals, over 100 billion,

we'd still about 50 billion in community care. In my last hearings, and you need to go back and watch this, If anybody's really concerned about this, go back and look at the last hearings. I had several questions from members, and pretty much mainly Democratic members, who said, this was their quote, we're concerned about the growth of community care and saying direct care is not growing like community care is growing. Well, part of it was a part of it. So it's just a funding issue.

They said, we're concerned about that. Now, I won't translate that for you. What they're actually saying is we prefer government, we prefer the V. to handle all the daughters, all the people, and everybody in, we don't want to go out in the community. So, in essence, what they're really saying is when they tell you, you hear this out there, we're concerned about the growth of community care. What they're saying is, we would like to cut your benefits. Let's just be very blunt about that.

Because if they cut my community care budget back, then you're going to go back to the system. And they said, well, just hire all the doctors and nurses. Okay, member of Congress, I'll let you come down for a week and you solve this problem. It ain't going to happen. There was something that you'd said earlier where he said it was, it was partially, you're like, partially my responsibility as a member of Congress before that you didn't catch it, that sort of thing. But I also noticed, well, because you weren't on the Committee for Veterans Affairs. And now that I, that kind of pivoting to my next thing is now that you have to work directly, I imagine quite a lot with the Committee on Veterans Affairs.

What kind of oversight do they have and how do you guys work together on that? I mean, they're there for a purpose and oversight. I think the committees, I would love to say that we could, you know, look at long term pictures together. other, like the stuff that we've implemented, there's some great things that they could, you know, put into law that would supplement what we've done, just confirmed it so it wouldn't get changed to the next administration kind of thing. I think the biggest get in, this is not the VA committee because Chairman Boss is a dear friend of mine and Jerry Moran is a good guy over the other side, and I get along, I know most of the

members. I think the big thing that we need to come on is focusing on our bigger issues of how we focus on veteran care long term. and a lot of times, unfortunately, we get, and I say this from our perspective, I'm not trying to throw off on the Congress or anything because I think they're trying to work as best they can too. But it goes back something you said a little bit ago was,

is how can we message something? Well, from my law school days, you're taught that bad facts make bad law. Okay? Well, singular facts or bad facts make bad legislation. So if you're trying to legislate a problem, if it's not a complete problem all the system,

then you may be messing things up for other things. And I learned this in Congress and everybody has to. So we try to work very closely with them as best we can. I'm always honest with them about issues

and if they ask us, we'll tell them going forward. But I think those are the key things. And remember, we're the only retail branch of government for the most part. Think about it. I'm the only one

that depends on a customer coming in. Lisa Ellen doesn't have to have a customer. Brooke, over the ag, doesn't have to have a customer. If a veteran doesn't show up to the VA, I don't have a job. Can I go back to what you said about the hospitals not being all the same?

Like, that's just, that's crazy. From what I got from what you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, but you're basically saying like VA hospitals, we're just operating 100% independently with like no standard operating procedures of like this is what a VA hospital does. Yeah, no, not 100% all time, but they would, they would adapt or they would do what, again, everybody wanted to be sort of individualizing.

I'll give you a great example of it. Our health records management system is, I mean, we have the equivalency of Morse code, okay, and if you want to just put it from technological standpoint. Our systems that we have in the vast majority of our hospitals right now have been around for 30 plus years. It costs me $700 million just to keep them alive, not improve them, but just keep it alive, okay? So we, about 10 years ago, Congress said, let's put a billion dollars, you know, billions of dollars in this, let's fix it. Well, it didn't go off. Well, DHA was the same way.

Defense Health said the same thing. They put it on pause for a year. They basically said they kicked everybody in the rear end and said, oh, we're going to standardize, get this done. They got it done. VA took a year off and then just came back. And the previous secretary and the previous administration just said, we can't do anything. And then late in the game, he said, oh, we're going to do four next year maybe. Well, they just quit.

We're about $15 billion into this and we just quit. We put six sites in Washington State. That's how much it costs us for six. sites. But here was our problem. I can use the example of your cans here. Most of these cans are not alike. This one liked red. This one like yellow. This one like black. This one likes white. This is what we did. We allowed the hospitals to say, and the doctors to say, I like it to do this. And can you make mine drop down to the left hand corner instead of the right hand corner? So we had six hospitals that basically had customized, you know, pentos that said, I like my radio this or I like this.

Some people like bigger cans. Some people like smaller cans. Exactly. So, you know, and we let them do it. So we developed six that didn't work. And CERner at the time, the company that we used, didn't have, they hadn't kicked the bugs out. So there was some problems. So when we came back in last year, that's another issue I had.

I had my confirmation here. It's one of the biggest discussion. I said, look, I'm going to sit down and I'm going to figure out what the problem is here because we've spent billions of dollars. We've got nothing to throw for it. And our hospitals, it affects community care, affects our direct care. We can't share with doctors. It's just terrible. my second week on the job

I pulled our people in who do our electronic health records and I said okay tell me what the problems are and I said how do we make it better oh it's terrible Cerners the Oracle Oracle now has it Oracle they don't listen and we can't do this

and this is terrible and so I listened it for about 30 minutes and I said okay well that's encouraging so the next week I brought an Oracle and Oracle can we can fix it and we can do it and we'll do this but but the VA has got do that up so it's just back and forth i said okay thanks so i'm out the next week this is no joke next week i called them all into my big conference room i had our folks on one side or work on the other

side and it started off with this meeting that went something like this oh it's so good to see you again yeah we you know the partnership oh thank you so much we're to i said this is bull crap today's video is in the partnership with manscape the men's grooming brand who is trusted by 13 million men worldwide. Father's day is around the corner. And you know what that means. The same problem we all run into. Which razor will my dad use to shave his balls best?

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Here's my deal. VA, Oracle said this about you just the other day in my office. And VA, by the way, Oracle, VA said this. about you, within five minutes they were yelling at each other. I said, thank God I got it something going. Because for the first point, they finally broke through the bureaucratic nicety bull crap. Fighting chaplain. Yeah.

Locking up, put headgear on each one of them. Go at it. So then I said, okay, I said, now that we got this out of the way, y'all go lock yourself in a room for several days and come back with an answer. So they went and locked themselves in a room. We standardized on 90% of what their system is. We took 10% because we have special needs that others don't. out and said, we'll do 10%.

We took that. I put Dr. Lawrence, who's my deputy secretary, he's in charge of it. St. Shortly, he's been on it in March or April this year. We opened four new sites in Michigan. We just opened sites in Ohio, getting ready for Indiana, Alaska. We will open more this year than was opened in the last eight to ten years under the previous administration. And by the way, it's working flawlessly.

It just took getting together, putting people's heads together, and telling from our side, we're not going to be special anymore. We're going to get stuff done. And great part of the story about this. Ann Arbor, Michigan was one of the ones that did. Ann Arbor was a classic research hospital. It's got a lot of complexity. And again, you just know it.

Monday was great. Tuesday is great. Wednesday night, a dead gun tornado hit Ann Arbor, Michigan. Cut out power, cut out everything. System came right back up. Two days later, they did open heart surgery. No, does. I give all credit to Dr. Lawrence, all of our teens,

but it took that kind of. kind of, I thought normal. I mean, that's the way normal people get stuff done. You bring the people to the table, get it done, hash it out, you know, and kiss and make up and go on. But we never done that. The VA just decided, well, this is terrible. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do this. Get over yourself. I mean, that seems to be the problem because, I mean, so many of these issues, like real practical problems, they're so bipartisan. I can think of, you know, half dozen of my district. But I did hear at least, and you would be the guy to ask about this. I did hear that the Committee for Veterans Affairs is probably one of the most bipartisan. bipartisan committees. Like, people actually work together? Yes and no. I was going to say you laughed at it, so I'm certainly to feel like that's not the case. Well, it's what we say, but it's not actually what happens. And I don't mean that badly. Sure. I expect, look, you're going to get unfiltered for me. I don't care.

We prefer it. Democrats are going to be Democrats, Republicans will be Republicans. We've got different ideas about how to solve things. Democrats believe that the VA should be a basically a government health care. And look, I disagree with that. I respect it, but I disagree with it. I don't respect it. But Republicans, you know, have a different view on it. And I say that just in honestly because, you know, look, I can be as politically as it won't. You want to fire up a crowd. I can do that.

But, I mean, I get that they were elected by people who undoubtedly put it, cast their votes for them. And that's what they're doing. So, yes, there is some bipartisanship in to say, we want to help veterans. How you help veterans is the bigger problem. And so sometimes when they do come together, it does make it a little bit harder, you know, to find a viable solution. So that's why you see a lot of times bigger bills that have a lot of different parts to them. Look, I think it's a great committee. It's also a tie turnover committee as well.

A lot of members go through that committee. Because it's like it's sea level, right? So it's like kind of like starting. Well, it's a very important committee, but it's much more granular than some of the other committees. I'll just say it that way. So I respect our committee members on VA, both the House and the Senate. There's some great members. I know most of them, you know, beforehand on both sides.

They really try. It's just, you know, again, sometimes it's just hard. We're in a very difficult part in our country right now legislating anything, period. I mean, you couldn't legislate pure water. I mean, it's just that part. So I think, you know, yes, it's bipartisan to an extent, but it's just not that everybody comes to the same table. And if you don't believe it, just watch the hearings and you'll see it. So there's different opinions.

That doesn't mean they're wrong. It just means they're different opinions. I'm more amazed. that how was your reaction coming from the military of not seeing a standard SOP for the veteran? That is wild. That's what I was bringing up, like what I was kind of getting at because like even when I was a medic in the army, we had standard guys stuff down to like our aid bags. Every medic in my battalion had more or less the same aid bag. And we had a diagram of like in this part of the aid bag in this pouch, there's these medical supplies, these airway breathing circulation.

So anybody could pick up anybody's aid bag and functionally use it. Now, we have basic, you know, SOP, we have basic stuff that you see in any hospital. The problem was coming into it that we would, you know, there'd be some treatment that was, you know, done here that wasn't done in some other places. We maybe had a vendor or something. One of the things that is amazing to me were 170 plus hospitals and we don't standardize equipment. So we have different dialysis machine. We have different IV infusers. we have which is going to be in which while the way we're changing because the new

health record stuff we got to all it just costs us too much to add on a part to it so so these are the kind of things it just takes time and you know again in dealing with it there's a lot of here's where here's where the lot of the problem came in we would have and it's one of the reasons for the rise that we had is that we're putting policy now under one shot before it would go up and let's just say we had an idea of, I'll just make up something funny, you know, wear a red shoe on right foot and green shoe on left foot. And we sent it up to committee. Well, it was sent up to say, is this okay?

Well, it went to like six different committees of which nobody talked to each other. If they did talk to each other, they only shared bits and pieces of information. And then one committee says, you know, that's a great idea. Then another committee over here met two months later and said, you know, I think they should switch. They had green should be on right and right should be on great. And then they never communicated. Then they had three other committees that were never even operational, nobody even cared.

And the poor executive director at the hospital was sitting there saying, we sent this up a year ago and nobody's answered our question. That's how it happened. Or here's what would happen is they sent something up and it said for this hospital needed to be able to, you know, do surgeries earlier. I'm not saying it not. They said, okay, we didn't do this. But it wasn't, if it was a good idea for that hospital, was it good for the entire system?

I mean, we've got hospitals that have charts that a veteran can look in or the family members can say, okay, they're in pre-op. They're in operation. Now they're in recovery, which you see in almost every major hospital in the country. We've got a lot of our hospitals don't have that. See, that's what I'm saying is sort of the fringe stuff that we were just not putting our effort, I think,

into the consolidation effort that give us the most buying power, but also the most, you know, realistic high expectations for veterans. It wasn't that our employees were bad people. They were given a system that inherently was broken at its core. And that's why we've changed it and while we're working toward it. And right now, the executive directors, the hospitals are really happy about what they're in. They're still adjusting to the new, you know, sets.

And, you know, we're put back in, you know, that they just can't go out hire willy-nilly, that they have to hire for to an FTE account. They have to hire to, you know, a thing. But if they need a doctor, they can go hire. I hadn't even thought about the cost of not having everything not. I was just thinking about, like, having staff switched to a different hospital and not knowing how to work that dialysis machine. or whatever. I hadn't even considered the

negotiating power of coming to the table to buy new dialysis machines and being like, look, I'm buying for the biggest hospital network in the, or yeah, whatever. Like I need parts for, you're buying way more of the same part from the same company. You obviously get a discount on everything that way too. I didn't even think about that.

And you also don't want to get me started. And it's just too complicated. The purchasing and contracting in federal government is a real issue. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows. Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business.

The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. Bye. Going back to, you talked about the private sector and you're competing with them with doctors, nurses, pay. So what is now the incentive to work for the VA versus? I think one, I think it's one, you get a, there's a great incentives. One is, it's a great, most all our facilities have, you know, top-notch facilities where our facilities are good in that regard. But it also gives us stability of patient.

You begin to, you know, there's a commonality among a lot of, a veteran. veteran needs, veteran issues. So if you're there, if you're really wanting to do research, we're one of the premier research groups in the country. We have more trials, more research going on than anything than any of the other hospital systems that are out there. We're excellent at things that other hospitals aren't. And if it's just what you're into, polytrauma. We do polytrauma better than anybody. We do prosthetics, frankly, better than anybody. And we just implement a new program will get prosthetics faster out to the people. We do prostate. We do urology, better than anybody in the world because it's all we basically get.

I mean, we do it. San Antonio does a great deal here in this way. So there's things that we do very well. There's a stability to the work. There's a stability to having a base that you can really treat and see them as they grow. And also seeing them from a different perspective. You're all here. How many, you know, imagine going, and I say this because I still do it,

and I'm having to, you know, looking forward to explaining to my civilian doctor about a burn pit. Okay. or toxic exposure. They don't ask those questions. That's not part of who they are. And so I think those are the kind of things that we have to, you know, that we get on and go on. So that's a reason to work in the VA. You're saying a lot of things that surprised me during this.

The one thing you've said that did not surprise me at all was that the government was great at checking prostates. So one thing I was not shocked at. Uncle Sam. Not even a little bit. it started and it started and kept a month I'm going to say it's good at that

I got a job at 14 they've been up my ass ever since yeah there was a you know there's something in life you just don't want to remember so you know hey

there's a blessing a blessing and a curse that goes long but you know like overall I think you know that's the big thing is and also there's another thing out there

that I only hit on a little bit. And you need to hear about it. I hear this a lot sometimes in the social media. I'll hear it in some other discussion about veterans getting, you know, a veteran served X amount of years and now all of a sudden they're, you know, they didn't go off a ship or they didn't do this. You know, they try to make it down. They say, well, now they're, you know, 80% or they're 100%.

They didn't do anything. I went to war four times, deployed 62 times. And then this word is used. that that person is a fraud. That's wrong. Okay? And let me tell you why. Now, if they intentionally

had doctored records or anything else, then it is. But what we do in disability is a lot of statutory, here's our boundaries, here's our guidelines, here are the regulations set forth through Congress

and through the process we have. If you served, you meet the issues that happen, that is not fraud. Now, you may not like it that somebody gets this or not, but that's not an issue. And I say this to say this, a lot of people,

I get a lot of veterans now who, because of this environment, you sort of talked about, that it's easy sort of to give veterans. It's just easy to throw money. And it is that there's some veterans out there that are good friends of mine and others that they bluntly told me offline.

They said they're tired of veterans being seen as victims. And we're not victims. You know, we're there. We want to be treated with respect and dignity to somebody who raised their right hand and went and did something and nobody else wanted to do. But at the other time, don't give me this, or we're just giving the poor little veteran something.

You ain't given anything. We've earned it. So I think this is something I want everybody out there to know. I'm fighting for veterans first, period. The veterans got to be the center of what we do. But it's not always as simple as sitting out there and saying, well, I'd have done it this way. No crap.

I'd have probably done something different too if I didn't have the information. With that, because this is like a big talking point online with some other influencers that have brought this up. I think there's a big misunderstanding with VA disability ratings. And I think the word disability confuses a lot of people because VA disability is not disability in the civilian sector. And the way that I try to explain it to people, and you can correct me if I'm wrong or if this is a bad example, but the way I try to explain it is like a veteran that gets a VA

disability rating, it's not saying that that person is literally 80% disabled and can't work or have a job ever again, because that's a big criticism of this guy's collecting. Somehow, there's some issues there. Right, yeah. But they're saying like, oh,

this person has a disability rating, but they're still working a construction job. Clearly, they're being fraudulent or whatever. But it's not disability, I think is a bad word to apply to it. It is. In the sense of how you do it.

Yeah. Well, from my understanding, it's basically like the VA disability rating system is, it's primarily there because you get hurt in service. You come in as an intact person. you get injured in some capacity. You now have a lower standard of life for the rest of your life,

whether that's messed up knees, bad hearing, bad eyesight, whatever it is. PTSD, like you have a lower standard of living. And as a service member, you have no recourse to sue the federal government, who was your employer like you would in any civilian job ever. If I was at work at a civilian job and I, they required me to work out every morning at six o'clock in the morning and doing those workouts, I fell and broke my ankle. I could sue that employer and get a ton of money.

That's not an option for a service member. And the stopgap or the mediation that happened was the VA disability system of, okay, well, you can't sue us. We understand that we did injure you and you're going to get this pay for the rest of your life in exchange. It's kind of my understanding. To make it a little more simple, basically what it says is we're going to do the best we can with the resources we have, which is money, to, make you whole from where you were before you came in as best we can't. Now, nobody can do that completely. You can't make your...

But the disability ratings and the compensation is attached to that, and the benefits that occur from that are to get you back to where you were before you started. And that's sort of the whole issue that gets around. And look, I am not immune to the discussions and everything about disabilities and, you know, why can't we get our forms done? And why did I get turned down? And, you know, if I say this right word, I'll get this much more and everything else. It is a system in which, you know, there is a lot of, you know, frankly, subjectivity to it.

There's a lot of stuff that you make it, you know, difficult, I guess, to explain to people. But you're exactly right. 100% disabled doesn't mean you can't get off a bed. Okay. A lot of people say, well, if you're 100% disabled, you should be, you know, in bed and not going where it. And that's not what this is for. terrible for you if you did that. Yeah.

The doctor is going to be like, that's what should happen. Yeah, exactly. And I think there are some cases where it seems a little bit more egregious, but I think that that's a very small chunk that people are using to say, see, this is all fraudulent. It's like, well, and I'm not saying they're doing it disingenuously because I think a lot

of them genuinely don't know how the system works. Well, you have a lot of people out there wanting to help you now, too. Well, what is it, the scariest words in the English language? I'll get yelled out for that one. I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.

Gotta get jacked. But I got to be comfortable at the same time. Oh, they're so pathetic. Oh, that's sad. That's where today's sponsor comes in. Fablatic. The fine people at Fabletics treat me like a VIP. What does that mean?

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And on top of that, in the summer, look at these. And they make shorts. Not only do they have athletic wear, they have just nice clothes to wear in general. So you can go on your walk, go hang out with the lady. Or dude, they make just good, everyday clothes. Like the shorts I'm wearing. Fabletics asks, what piece of clothes do you wear the most? I can tell you Fabletics. It's the freaking take tops because again, Tony doesn't have air conditioning

in the box. Yeah. Fabletics.com slash unsub to save 70 to 80% off everything as a VIP. Take a quick style quiz and be sure to select unsub when prompted to unlock this offer. Again, that's fabletic.com slash unsub to save 70 to 80% off everything as a new VIP. Yeah, and unfortunately on this part, it ain't the government who's yelling it. So, you know, again, you can go, that's one of the reasons why I've taken the 18-page disability form, and we're hopefully going to get it down to four pages. We're trying to make this as simple as possible. And it's sort of a, if you meet the criteria, if you meet this, you're not, we're trying

to take some of the subjectivity out of it as well and make it more objective. But I mean, there's always going to be subjectivity in a rating. There's always going to be subjectivity in, you know, what does doctor see and what does the not doctor not see? So again, I just want it, you know, again, though, when you're constantly being told, you're not getting what you've earned,

you're not getting what you deserve, then it presents this back of the, and again, and some happen not, because they didn't know how to fill out to forms. They didn't get it. They may be eligible for stuff. That's fine. I got no problem.

I got enough money for them to come. But it puts the doubt and the people, even other veterans and especially the outside that this is something that is not uniform that we're there's ways around it there's stuff that you got to deal with so I look I just want to be a straight shooter about it and we're doing everything we can to make it easier we're showing you here's the guidelines here's what you have to meet here's the medical records here's what you got to have it's why we're working very hard with DOW to get the records quicker so that we can make these decisions quicker but at a certain point in time I just you know again and I'm bringing up a

touchy subject, but there's a lot of, you know, encouragement both sides of this. And I just want to say at the end of the day, VA wants to give the veteran everything that they've earned legally under the law, and that's what we're going to do. And we're going to make it as simple as we possibly can. I'll tell you one of the big concerns I've had recently, and I've shared this with a lot of folks. And I mean it with love. This is, you know, this is Chaplain Doug speaking. This is, this is me. I get that there are issues. I make no bones about that the VA is not perfect. No, we're not even close. Neither is any other hospital in this country.

We're going to make mistakes. There are people not going to get in to get their appointment. There's going to people that get denied a benefit. They're going to be, you know, we're going to be there. But if that's all the veteran out there hears, then they're going to be turned away from the very place that can help them. And 60%, I'm going to get real serious here for a minute. 60% of death by 70% of veterans in this country have.

not been touched with the VA. They've had no contact with the VA. 60% of veterans who take their own life had no contact with the VA. Why do you think that is? Because I think some of them don't either they didn't want to go, they were scared to go, or they had heard how bad the VA was. I'll say I'd never, I never had any interaction with the VA until me and Zach became good friends because he's a huge VA advocate. And he's like, no, you need to just go like get, do the meeting. Just do your physical.

Do the physical, get the VA rating. He's like, even if you get zero percent, whatever, just be in contact with them. So they know who you are. And if you do need something in the future, like they have something on you. You're not starting the process for nothing. So I did it. And it was actually shockingly easy, like way easier than I thought. And they gave me an appointment that was, I don't know, a couple weeks out.

But they got a hold of me. They text me and called me with reminders. They asked me if I needed help getting there or I had any like, like if I needed wheelchair access or anything specifically like they were I was I was impressed with how easy and it was to actually do just to ask a clarifying question when you say 60% of those who took their own life had no contact with the VA is that on the issue of depression or is just in general they have never had a conversation so you know you hear this number and and again I'm criticized and I say and so hear me clearly I'll speak slowly for the audience some people use 17 some people use 22 some people use 30 or 4 I do think it's higher. I think it's in the 30s or 40 range. I've been accused before. They're underestimating how many people are, you know, veterans are dying.

No, I'm not. Okay, let's just get this over with. One is too many for me. I mean, this is my heart. I see it every day in reports that I get. So no matter what number you use is too many. But also, there's a lot out there that are underreported because in certain rural areas and other places,

we know that they're not reported right. That's why 17 to 40 is a range. Our problem is this, though. is, and I've heard this from folks, I hear it from veterans, I've heard it from younger veterans, you know, who are in that need, that I ain't going to the VA,

it's awful. Okay, then where are you going? I don't have health insurance. So where are you going? Or, or I'm okay, and I'll just handle it on my own. Guys, you can't, there's some things in life you can't handle on your own.

You're in the military. You can't go out there and fight the battles by yourself. That's why you got battle buddies. That's why you got platoon, That's why you got everybody else. What makes you think you can handle health and life in things like that alone? We weren't made to be alone, gang.

We're made to be a big other. And the VA gives you an opportunity to do that. You know, go get your physical, go get whatever. You know, you don't have to go back. We're not going to force you. This isn't going to go and sing every Tuesday at the front desk, you know, just, but just get it there. Because if you need help, if one day you wake up and you're not feeling good and you don't think life is worth it anymore, and you can call 988 and you talk to somebody or you go.

You go to one of our clinics or one of our hospitals and somebody will talk to you. Believe me, there are more people want you alive than you think don't want you alive. VA does a really good job about reaching up for anything suicide-related. That is one, man, this is back in 2009, 2010, when I was doing my initial, I guess, case file. But it was that same thing of, hey, one of the questions, it was just like, life, how you feel. And I just, I was like, eh, eh. but they started responding because I think that was that 2010 was that uptick we started seeing so it's like hey we got to we got to reach out to these guys and make sure but that 60% makes sense because that majority don't say a thing like all my friends that have done it I've never I'm not out of like the 29 I like my battalion not a single one reached out to any of us so we have no idea yeah that's a lot of you know a lot of thing I say here we all have them we have those little groups that we have in a good friend of mine who's a metal honor recipient as a group and

and I'll leave him private. Okay. We can cut it. But no, anyway, they just have a group. They text. It was all the gang that he was with. And one of they say, yeah. He's our homie. Clayton and I don't think

Clayland is sharing this in a sense of that saying. But one of the things he actually said was is that if one of them doesn't respond that within a couple of, you know, just in a little bit two or three people are going get with them. And I think that's so important. So like I said, I don't mind you criticizing the VA.

It's a hobby for some. I get it. But don't think that everything that comes out of your mouth is helpful. Point out the problems. I'll fix what we can fix. I'll do what we can do to get a system. But remember, somebody may listen to you. They may look up to you.

They may actually watch your Instagram videos. They may actually watch your stuff. Or they may hear you gripping down at the convenience store. but what about you may not need that help but what about them you know don't say and but please don't ever say the VA's perfect don't ever say it's going to be great say you know hey it's a struggle but they cared about me because that's all I care about guys I don't care how we get there I want to do it as economically as we can or do it as efficiently as we can and I want to stay within the law and I think that's the best thing that I can say is that we're going to go forward and do that

And that's why one, we were, our prevention was always, we were sort of hitting the choir. The old Baptist preacher, I mean, said, we're just preaching to the choir. And so that's why we change that. That's why I go on these podcasts all the time. It's why I go out and we're now actually putting our vet center buses at different places. We're going to, you know, USC fights. We're going to rodeos. We're going to concert.

That's where the veterans are. Why would I be putting a billboard outside of a VAMC? Who gives a crap? I mean, they're just coming out of the hospital. Wow. Really? I can get help with the VA. I just walked out of there. Who came up with that marketing strategy? I have no clue on, but I'm sure they like their 10% cut they got. You know.

So, you know. I did actually have a question. While we were on the topic, though, of veterans. I think recently we've seen a pretty sharp uptick in veterans taking their own lives on the campuses of the VA themselves. And we just had two in the last. I think two years at Audie Murphy here. And, you know, I've spoken to the fathers of one of the guys. And, you know, it's just, it's a heartbreaking situation. But I've been told, so it's two part. One, why do you think that is?

And the second part of it, I was told, I was told that the VA had stopped reporting. Or I'm not sure if they ever made a report or they stopped reporting the amount of times that that happens per year. Do you know if there's any validity to that? I mean, you know, we hadn't stopped reporting. And I get the report every day. If I see it happens, I even get reports off campus as well. Because I haven't seen them, but that's just what I'm hearing from. Yeah, no, it happens more than it should.

It's still the vast minority of cases, I think 25 to 30, 35 a year in that range that happened on property. I wouldn't say there's a single reason. Some I've heard different reasons and some that they didn't want to buy. of their family. They knew that they would be taken care of. They, you know, they were upset or whatever it may be. Let me do, again, I can't go emphasize anymore, though. If you, if you, if you drive back on our campus, walk through the front doors, people will love you. You don't have to do that. Life is not, that, that light that you think is going out is not a light that's going out.

That's a light that is still there. If you're still standing, you're still able. Go through the front door. Yell to the top of your lungs. Do whatever you want to do. But somebody will be there to help you. Don't go to the parking lot. Don't go there and end something. There are people who love you and take care of you, whether you know it or not. And, you know, so there's that reasons that happen. I think one of the things that we're working on in some of the areas, different areas, and I'll take us and expand out on it a little bit, is we're working right now, you know, dealing with informed consent. We're dealing with a lot of things that are going to help, you know, try to get, you know, more word out, you know, about how, you know, what medicines you're taking, what and you're not taking,

how you don't just stop medicines, you know, things like that. There's a lot out there that we need to deal with. So, you know, for me, it's a problem. It's something that I live with. Homelessness is another issue that we have to deal with. But we're, me, and still making good progress with it. But the one, this one again, is, it's a disturbing trend. And there's a, when you dig into this a lot,

and this maybe helps some of the out there, that we have found statistics and statistics, you can sort of show you everything. The shorter the time of service, the greater the risk for death by death. Interesting. The shorter, so the two to six year. And here's you an interesting statistic. It could have been two to six years in the 70s, and if you're taking your life when you're 70, it's still applicable.

It's not just the short term. So I have my own thoughts about that. I think it is going from civilian, transformed into military, and then I have. before you have a chance to figure out how to do it. That's why, you know, look, we still have, as of, in death of, you know, 25-year folks and 30-year folks. We still do. But think about it.

If you made it 25 years, I learned to get around the system. I would find something that would keep me going. You know, and some of it may lose that, and that causes it. But, yeah, we're still seeing a lot of that younger part. So for me, it's a priority. We've changed up our entire suicide prevention program. The people who are most of the lead, I know the leadership that was there is not there anymore. our ad programs, our buys are focused more on, you know, the fact that there is help, those

kind of things. So look, I just, I want to sort of end this sort of kind of conversation in this. So look, I don't care if you disagree with everything I do. If you don't like my hair, you don't like any decisions I make, you think everything in the VA is terrible. Just realize that there should be outlets for that, but also realize that when people hear that, there's some people who actually need help. And if they hear what you're doing, and they hear that it's all bad. then they truly shrink their field of vision to where they don't think they can get help. And the VA is an actual, you know, very viable help for veterans. And we help on that more.

I would just like just in general, us as with the audience, you speaking here, like, what would you say we could do to help? I think just continue to say, look, you know, it's about like, how many of it, is anybody at this table said the military is perfect? All the time. I love it. Yeah. That's why I got out after three years. I love it so much. He was there. The wonderful smell of getting up in the morning.

No, I mean, there's all this kind of stuff is getting to it. But I think here's the thing, though, you know, the bad and the good come together. The nation has decided years ago that if you served, we're going to give you something for that. Not because you are giving it, because you earned it. We're saying you earn this and we're going to do it. So look, I don't want to, I don't expect. cheerleaders. I don't expect people say, oh, Doug is the greatest thing in the world or our But just say honestly, the VA's there. It's not going to, for some, it's going to be the

greatest experience you ever had. For some, you're going to have some issues just like you would in the real world. VA is only veterans. So I think the biggest thing is, is talk about, you know, look, take your time, you know, get to know what your benefits are, even if you're not like you said earlier. If you don't get a rating, just go get it there. And I think that encourages the policy side that you're wandering into, that congressional legislative side, that kind of stuff. That's a different conversation. We can fight about this, but we can't ever fight about the commitment of our system to actually help those. And in some ways, if we hurt ourselves in that over the years, yeah, we have. The Vietnam veteran changed the VA completely

because they came back and didn't get the treatment they need. I believe the GWAT veteran is changing it again. And I'm one of those. So I think we're changing it because now we're are not joiners. We don't join the VSOs as much. I mean, younger people, you go to any, you know,

Legion, VFW, great folks, I'm a member, but you go there. I mean, the ages is a lot different. And so it's something we got to realize. We're doing the same thing.

That's why community care is so important. That's why our direct care is so important. That's why we have to, you know, blend the two to make sure we're taking care of our veterans anyway we can. And something you brought up earlier, I'm really glad you brought it up, was the,

the medication side of it and saying, you know, people stopping medications because there's been a direct correlation to people, you know, the, well, direct correlation with people getting off of like psychotrop or I'm sorry. Yeah, psychotropos or anti-depressants. Getting off of those medications or having like acute withdrawals from it and then taking their own life. And that's something that I've heard again and again from a lot of people in these groups is

they're worried about the haphazard medication of veterans, but also the over-medication. And we're addressing that. The polypharmacy issue. I mean, like I said, I just sort of stay tuned. We're working this through. We've got a policy that's going to come out pretty soon. We've already sent it out with some of our VSO colleagues. We're just saying, hey, give us input, make sure we're on the right track here.

Tim Shehee actually had a bill about this. Tim's been on the podcast before. Tim's good. But he sort of gets this. But again, the big thing is, and I'm going to just say you out there, if your medicine makes you feel like, go back to your doctor. Don't quit taking it. And then we get you on something else. Or take you off all together and try another treatment.

this non-medicine, non-pharmaceutical. Okay. So I think those are the kind of things that we're working on right now, and I think you're really going to be pleased to see that when it, hopefully here in just in the next literally few weeks, we're going to be able to start that process that's going to give more informed consent about what's going on, but also emphasize the back end of it as well.

It says, look, if you start this, you know, just don't stop it. And, you know, so we're looking at that. And it was my concern. is how we actually do it and how we go forward with it, is making sure that we're not, you know, doing harm. I tell you, I had some, I had some, when we first started this, we had some pushback from the hill, we had some pushback from staff on the hill, we had some push back from some of the doctors and stuff.

Well, if you do this, then they may not take the medication. I said, okay, well, that's a fine argument except for the fact we have to do inform consent on opioids. Don't see them turning down opioids for pain. Some did, some don't. But you know what I'm saying? But it didn't cause a grand decrease in that. So, but also there's other ways to actually do it.

So I think that's the one, you know, if for somebody do, if they legitimately say, I don't want to be a medication, okay, then what can we do to help you? You know, what treatments out there are there to help you as we go? That's like a pre-e have to be preemptive. It is figuring out how to address that before they get out because that's a problem too. Everything that mindset be manly, don't do anything. Don't go to the A station, but that carries over when you get out. So going to seek help is a problem. And I think that's where it's a, you have to start shifting that mindset.

when they're in basic training. Yeah, and you have to admit it's okay. You know, it's okay to not be okay. You know, the great deal with jelly roll songs, it's okay to not be okay. I wish I was okay every day. I'm not. I've carried, as all of us at this table,

I carry baggage. I just carry it differently than others, but you don't know what it's like when I'm by myself. This is a good way to live. Rest in peace, half of jelly roll. Yeah. He generally came down. He's definitely came down.

He lost half of it. It's not okay. Is that a weight loss joke or divorce joke? Well, well, it was pretty timely now that I think about it. Well, Brandon, let's just go right into the People magazine segment of the show. I wasn't going there. I mean, here I am. Going away.

Doug's attacking jelly roll. I love jelly roll. He's a good guy. Keep singing, you know. If I can get into the phone of friend segment, we're lucky here to have, I think, one of, in my opinion, one of the best veteran advocates in the entire country. We've got a veteran with a sign here. I love Zach.

That's great. I believe that you've met him before. I have. I've actually held a sign with him. Oh, did you? Oh, actually, no, I forgot about that. Yeah. I held a sign.

Well, I actually had a... I said, hi, I'm sorry. Yeah. One thing I wanted to ask was with you being the spotlight on you and it's everything's like, hey, what is an opinion? You're like, or an action you took. I was like, this is going to really go well or it's going to be a popular thing. and then immediately

you've seen a level of pushback you're like, whoa, what the hell? Just come out and say it. Do you think pineapple belongs on pizza or not? Oh, hell, I don't know. On the record. See? No, my watch does.

I don't know. Dude, Panapeno-upon. Exquisite meal. We just had this last. Yesterday we had this argument. So I think what Eli was asking, if you ever caught shit for something

you knew was a good idea? No, never. Really? No. He spent the last two hours saying he wants to apply common sense to the government. What kind of question is that? No, I'm going to be one. And this got a lot of publicity earlier this year.

We were, there was a IFR. It was called an IFR because it was a rule. And it was dealing with a court case that came out, which we were following, by the way, that dealt with how do you deal with medication or deal with that? No sinister behind the scene's motives. We're saying, well, how can we do this? Because they were part of the ruling actually said that, the our disability folks so like four of the four of you were all disability that you had to

basically assume what might be if x wasn't happening if it matter so it was all of a sudden so that would say one thing you can say one thing you say one thing so i would have veterans who went to each of you who would get different completely so and it was trying to fix that the court said and it was i mean we were working through it it was difficult um and we said let's just this is what we you know, can look at. This is why there's a new VA. That's why there's a new VA secretary here. That's why I'm sitting here.

Within 24 hours, it went badly. Okay, the perception was just all of it. And I'm not saying it was good or bad. I'm just saying this is what we were trying. It was a nightmare. It was. My DMs were on fire. They're like, Doug's taking stuff from veterans.

It's like, whoa. No, no, no. Even I don't call him Doug like that. Easy. Yeah, so it wasn't. So look, I noticed it 24 hours. So less than really about a little over 24 hours, I said, no, I said, we're stopping this. Because right now, it failed the first 10.

of what I say is, is helping a veteran. Misinformation does not help veterans. Everybody out there, misinformation does not help anybody. Okay, and if you don't know, shut up. I'll just have to be honest here. If you don't know something, shut up. And so we figured it out. We said, no, we stopped it.

Within 72 hours by the next, by the beginning of it, we just drew the whole reg altogether. And we're not bringing it back. We're not doing anything else. So I use that as an example of saying, hey, this was something that was legitimately looked at. It wasn't good. under the OVA, they may have just still went on and just that.

I said no, because we're not, we're not able to tell what was it, you know, the people wasn't convinced of what it was. It wasn't going to make that big of it. It wasn't going to affect anybody anyway. We were already doing it the way that the veteran wanted it, but this was just going to try and help some, you know, get some objectivity to it. But it didn't work. So we just said stop.

So that's your answer. Yes, I stop it all the time. I have to applaud two things. One, that was the immediate response. of like, well, we're changing it. Because I don't think that's ever happened in the VA where they've listened to veterans and been like, okay, you're right, we're going to do something else.

The other thing, which gives me a ton of hope, is the administration's stance on psychedelics. Yes. And the changes that are coming from out of that. I mean, it's well documented. You know, I went to Mexico through the Vets program. I did I've again in DMT, and it's without question the single greatest thing that's ever happened.

You do like the Grateful Dead now, though. Yeah, I mean, there are some downsides. That's why he's here, actually. He did DMT and the elves told him that he should grab a piece of cardboard and write some write a message on it. Now he's here. They're on to something. Legitimately, it's nice to see kind of that stigma going away about treatment that way.

It is. Okay, we started this whole thing a while back about me being a chaplain. Okay, this is the funniest. I still think this will go down in my Wikipedia bio at some point when I kicked the bucket. And it said, first Southern Baptist is to sit in the cabinet office and tell the president, psychedelics are a possibility, you know. Also, you know, pretty cool. I mean, this is coming from a Southern Baptist who, you know, hey, we get high on sweet tea.

We're really good here. We don't dance, but we got sweet tea. We're good, you know, water. Also, you can still have a Wikipedia page and still be alive. We don't want to lose you, brother. They'll add it to them. Believe me, I got some we want it. But I think going into that, the president took that.

And the one thing that, the only thing I'll say that we're wanting to is I'll always make it measure. I mean, we've increased our MDMA. We're actually doing our veteran-only MDMA treatment right now, which has been very good. We've had others as well. We already do ketamine. We already do psilocybin. But we're preparing. It's a party over there.

Yeah, it is. We've got a lot of things going on. And it's helping. And I think that's the big thing for me. It's helping. And some it doesn't, and we just have to admit that. It's not 100% effective by any means. But it's very effective for most people is what we're seeing.

So we just got to get more insight. So we're setting ourselves up. Bobby Kennedy and Bobby and I are going to sign the memorandum of understanding, which was required by the EO early next month. So that's, you know, saying we're already, you know, trading dot, you know, getting our data together. And we're preparing for MDMA and psilocybin to possibly be more widely available, even outside the VA, which, which, remember, FDA doesn't just do us.

They do, they do everybody. So if it does go that way, we're going to be in a position to actually increase our load at the VA. Now, one of the things I will say is, MDMA. in particular is 120 clinical hours per veteran. That's a lot. Yeah. This is not walk up to the door, get some, you know, get some medicine, get high and go home. That's not the way it is. This isn't 2011. Yeah. No, this is, like the treatment that I saw up in Bronx, you have a person, there's, you know, hours before, then there's the treatment itself, the day of eight to 10 hours

in a room with two psychiatrists, and then you have the follow-up treatments as well. And then if you have to have another one, which most people do, then there's an added on. So anyway, that's a lot of man hours for doctors in this possibility to get. So I think the most important part about it is that you do have that sort of doctor oversight. You know, it's taken very seriously. It's not because this is something that veterans are already doing where the only difference is now they're having, they're being seen by a professional. They're actually getting real medical care while they're doing it and they're not just going to fucking burning man. Yeah. Well, and I will hit last thing because, And I told this to the administration,

I told them that we were dealing with, told Oz and told everybody, I said, look, I said, you're going to put this out. You're going to mention one thing, and this is all going to be about one thing that's going to be Ibrahimine. I said, it's the only thing people are going to talk about. Yeah. And I said, and I was right, shockingly.

But, you know, they, listen. So here's where we're at. Abagane is still not legal in the States. It's still not can be used until we get through the FDA, which is looking to put it on an accelerated trial. Okay. Okay. What does that look like?

By the end of the year, we're hoping to see this out. It's where we're looking at. That's the hope. You know, because, but the FDA has to put in the parameters for how we use it. Yeah. It's not us. TheA's not deciding this. They will decide how we do this.

CMS, of course, have a part of this as well. But they're deciding how we can use it. We're inputting. I have a gentleman in my office right now that is the direct liaison to them. We deal with this. If I picked a phone up right now, he knows exactly what I'm calling about. He comes to keep me updated to make sure we're doing. doing everything we can to be ready.

We're also now actually looking at hopefully being able to connect with some of those overseas clinics to get better data so that we can help because we don't have the data. That's the one thing we don't have. In any trials, you've got to have data to know what your decision making is are. We know that IBA gain treatments have changed. We know that they've added some things like magnesium, some other things like that. We know that there's been some that have had issues on other side that we're knowing. But we just need the data.

That's all it is. We're not saying good, bad, or indifferent. we just need the data. So as soon as we get that happened, it'll put us in a position, you know, to move forward. And I fully intend on having it move forward. And I've already instructed our research and development folks, our research group to say, you know,

whatever we're spending in this area, we have the money to do it. I said, let's change some of our research topics to make sure that we have the money available for this. You know, some of the things you have to understand is we don't have, like for MDMA, some others, we've got sources that are basically, basically paid for because most of it is still you know you can't just use it

regularly we don't have a costing of this yeah and this is another issue so you know you have to have a federally approved source for this yeah yeah so that's this is some of the things that have to be done so I began the same way MDMA is the same way you know it's not like I can pick up and call one of the distributors like hey send me you know 10 doses of MDMA they said we'll go down you know you don't have a blog yeah I mean I can't go He's a cop. He finds it all the time. They send me up to K Street. It's right there.

I don't know. Let me go get that today. Dug on K Street. It's for veterans. My detail. My detail. Let me be rolling. Yeah. Come on.

Let me help the boys out. Come on. My detail would happily take me home. So that's about it. There they go. But, you know, I think, you know, so again, a lot of this is coming about, I just say, you know, be patient. And also, and I will just say this with.

And that your prime example is, I've got plenty of friends that I know that it's worked greatly. And that's why we're promoting it. That's what we're saying. But also, I just ask you about be patient. And I think that, and I know that that's hard, you know, but again, until it would be malpractice for anybody over here to start something that we don't have the data. That's why FDA is going through this right now. And they are pushing it. Bobby is a proponent just like me.

Bobby and I talk about it. He sees me all the time. Bobby's in your court right now, not mine. But he's with it. We get it done. And we've overcome a lot. I don't just be honest. There's overcome a lot of folks who don't want to go down this path.

The medical community is one. There's a lot of others. So we're, you know, we want to take it slow because the worst thing we could do, the absolute worst thing you can do, is roll something out that's not ready. Yeah.

And so that's my hope at this point is to get at that point. Bobby's one of my favorite members of the cabinet. And I get a lot of shit for that because they're like, oh, you know, he's said anti-gun things in the past. I'm like, cool. He's in charge of health care. He's not in charge of the gun stuff. So, like, I really don't give a shit what his opinion on that is. A, he's cool as hell.

And B, you know, I think he's doing like really, really good stuff with what he's doing. Like, just as far as. He's doing great. I mean, Bobby was a good guy. I've gotten to know him. It's pretty cool. The Make America Healthy again was just like that. That has been an awesome movement to see.

Just to recap that part. The big takeaway is please be patient because Pastor Doug's trying to get you the good stuff. is that what I'm what I'm catching in that's Remo. The high quality stuff. I'm trying to put

high quality ethically sourced. We're going to get organic DMT. Can you Doug Billboard roll with me? The pupils are different

size. I'll do it with you. I'll do DMT with the meat. Rolling with Doug. I'll assure you that whatever comes out that we follow

will be safe for our veterans it's going to help the veterans and we're going to do it right. I mean, you've got a ton of good advocates. You've got the former governor from Texas. You've got the Latrell brothers. Morgan's an actual brain sciences and neuroscientist. So like it was crazy because like for me it's been a thing that was like it was very hidden. Like I couldn't I couldn't actually like tell people I was going to Mexico at the time.

Like it was very like non-mainstream because it sounds crazy. But to now see it just a few years later it's it's giving me. And can you talk about your experience there? For a lot of people that don't follow the stuff that aren't cool, how like the Lames? Wow, you're the cool, kid. What did it do for you, I guess, in your experience? So from my understanding, pause, slide your shirt this way?

Okay, sliding here, four, four, four, a little more. I can tell a note, like rotate it like this. Rotate chair? No, other way. And then kick that, all right, you're out of frame. I can already tell without looking at that camera. He's a marine. It's, you know, directions.

I don't know what a frame is. Kick more. you're out of that camera frame. No, you need to go this way. Your whole body needs to go this way. Sorry, sorry. I'm good? Quarter face, Marine. I got you.

You just got to sit in his lap. Well, got it. I didn't know was that kind of party. I think there's a strict policy against that. I didn't have to look at that camera. I was like, he is completely out of frame. He's about to talk. No girl.

Sorry. No, so the way it works is it was done with medical providers. I went through the organization called vets. Jared Taylor actually helped set that up, me and a bunch of other veterans. And they had like a 30-day protocol where we get our diet good and then we couldn't eat meat and everything. And then we would meet. Couldn't eat meat?

Well, week out. It's supposed to help with like the effectiveness of the medicine. And so we had a doctor. We had nurses. We had EKGs, everything. And they even did a whole bunch of medical tests before. But we would do Ibegain, which is supposed to be like a detox medicine. It's to help you basically.

work through all the stuff and it's it's been shown to be almost 100% successful in opioid cessation because it attacks the addiction center parts of your brain and just cleans it out and so you would do that they go in they weigh you and then they give you the medicine it's encapsulated and then the next 24 hours are pretty normally I'm not going to lie to you I mean you go swimming in the deep into the pool can I stop you there because this is something that I've heard from others yeah they don't take that into account they've not heard that part yeah And they think it's... Oh, no.

Yeah. They think it's... I mean, I've had... I'm honestly, I've had veterans coming on... Well, it's just you get high. You need to talk to somebody. It's a very pain... Nnarly is probably a good word for that.

I just can't imagine going on that roller coaster without having a warning. I'll put it this way. My friend Derek, who is a single leg amputee, looked at me and we took the medicine and then took his leg off and he goes, we're not going to need this anymore. So, like, it was gnarly. Because you're supposed to, like, work. through your trauma. There's a documentary on Netflix called In Waves and War. Each guy outlines it. It's a pretty accurate description of what happens. And so you do that. And then the next

day, you do DMT, which is described as the God molecule, which then kind of helps to put things back into place into your life and everything else. But then I've heard other people follow it up with what a 5MEO. Yeah, 5MEO DMTs. Oh, I didn't show you how much I know. I'm not a cool kid, I guess. No, you're fine. You're trying to save our country. No, but so for like what it for me is it helped to sever like all of the memories of the things that I had not processed or worked through and then actually to kind of show me a path forward. It makes you process them, right? Yeah, it makes you like it literally, it straps you in to like, you can't get away from it.

Like for me, I kept seeing a photo of my family and it was like fuzzy and unclear, but as it got closer to me, I would then go through different moments of my life that were good, bad, and indifferent. And then when I came out the other side, I then had something completely different about me. What he just described was the way a, one of my psychiatrists in the VA actually described in the MDMA treatment. And it was interesting the way that this doctor described this is a doctor not Doug. This is a doctor who said this, that it was like opening a page in their person's mind or in their psychic that it turned to the page that they needed to deal with. And what was interesting was is there was a discussion that they had in a clinical setting that this person,

had an issue that and they wasn't sure it was going to work. So the first one turned to a page they sort of wasn't expecting in how they did it. And the treatment went well. They came back for the second one and got to the actual underlying issue. But they couldn't get to that underlying issue unless they had dealt with that first page. And I mean, this is the doctor describing this, not me. They were saying it was like that the medicine, the drug actually helped turn the page of this person to deal with something.

And that was pretty powerful to me. Because also before when I first said, she said, I thought this was a load of crap. And then she started testing it. And she said, now I see that this was actually something that worked. Zach can confirm this. Like, it's amazing watching our friends, even with addiction problems. And then they do this one time. And then they are, nope, we're good.

We don't do that anymore. I'm like, that's fucking wild. Well, the other thing, too, is we have to be, you know, as we talk about this, There's another thing too. Some work better for different things. Okay, some are better for addiction. Some are better for traumatic situations. Some are better for, you know, different things.

So it's not like that, you know, Ibegain is the cure for every one of these. It's not like that MDMA cures for every one of these. And then the other thing is, and this is something that, in all fairness, that I've been studying and looking at because I think the perspective has to be there. And I've asked this a lot of, and I keep getting a different answer. So I'm just to be, you know, I'm sort of gotten on to this bone and sort of gnawed on it, is a lot of the testing for like psilocybin, MDMA in particular, they're going into this and they're still on their antidepressant. They're still on their anxiety medicine.

And I'm saying, okay, did you not take them off? And then they say, well, no, because we were scared. And I said, well, then are they still on it after they left? And most of them said, well, yeah. I said, okay. Then help me understand. what the treatment purpose was. You know, was the treatment purpose to get them whole, healthy without medication,

or was this just to get them to a better place and still have the medication? And so I'm looking at it, and I've asked this question of FDA, and I've asked it others. I said, is there ways that we can test? And I'm not talking about Abigail, this is because it's a different issue. We're not done to here. MDMA and psilocybin in particular, I said, can we actually do this without them being on the antidepressant? and see how it works? Or is it the antidepressant plus this that keeps them going?

It'd be a great. I mean, that's a great test. I've asked that question. And it's sort of funny because, like I said, most of them just come in and the doctors and stuff, look at me like, well, you're just the secretary. You don't know crap. And I said, well, no, I don't.

I'm pretty ignorant. But I can ask pretty good questions. And that's my question. And I've not got a great answer on that. And so it's going to be something. This is why, again, what was it? Who was the kind of? It's staples or who had the easy button?

staples. Everybody wants to have a freaking easy button. There is no freaking easy button. No for nothing. I run into so many people, whether it be in politics or in the agency running out right now, they think life is a bumper sticker. Bumper stickers get you, they only do one thing. They get you sticky and they're perfectly wrong. Quit it. Life is not

supposed to be. Quit doing surface answers in this life. Ask questions. Use the brain God gave you. don't just just don't accept what everybody says. If I did, you know, it's like, my kids would over the ice cream and cookies. You know, it's like, really? Nick, you have something?

Nothing. No, jokes I'm not going to make. Nothing. I don't know. I think you should let it fly. Oh, he's trying to. He's holding back. Nick broke himself.

Anything I did help, brother. You know. At least text it to the class. I'll tell you later. That's awesome. But no, that's just my thing. It's really exciting to see that. And I've been genuinely impressed by like the feedback loop, I would say, of like the VA does something. They hear the feedback and they're like, okay, like, I don't expect everyone to listen to every veteran. But I do like, they're like, we're going to try something different. And, you know, the administration's doing those things as well. I've determined that in this, you know, since I had such a broad statement from the president on what to do, take care of veterans. Doug, take care of veterans. Okay, I'll take care veterans. I think it gave me a wide playing field to do.

And so there's not a program at the VA that I will not question. There's not a item that we do that I will not question. I have run a great deal of stuff through our hiring processes. I mean, I have zero tolerance for we've always done it that way before, what I call this, you know, this, I walk into hospitals and my first question is, is what are we doing that stupid? and we typically fix those. And because what they'll tell you,

you know, you just honestly, you walk into a unit, you walk into a company. What are you all, what's the problem this unit? What are y'all doing this stupid? Well,

we got a first artist, an idiot. Well, okay, then there's your problem. But what are they doing? But would you ask questions? I don't just assume that, okay, that's the problem.

I'll find out, okay, if this is a problem, what do we do to fix it? You know, don't come to me with problems. Come to me with, okay, how do I fix it? And so for me,

it's been one of those processes that we go through, whether it be new treatments, whether it be, you know, how we do it. I'm not taking anything at face value. And I'm changing things that I can change without, you know, having to go through a voting Congress. I'm changing things or policy, changing things to regulation and make sure that we can do that. That's making a lot of people uncomfortable because here's the unspoken, dirty little truth. There's a lot of people in this world that are very happy with a broken VA.

They're very happy with a broken VA because they can whine, bitch and moan, about how bad the VA is and how I can fix it instead of actually fixing it. I just take a different opinion. I say if there's a problem, fix it. If there's not a problem, I'm going to tell you there's not a problem, and here's why. And here's how we can do better. But customer service, whatever it is, there is a culture that is developed around the VA in Congress and in the press and in the veteran community that the VA is broken and they like it that way.

Because if they didn't have anything to gripe about, what would they do? do. How about actually going out and taking care of veterans? Okay. So I don't mind stepping on toes because I just want to get, I have only one desire and has to help a veteran. I gain nothing from this. I'm not gaining rich by being the VA secretary. I'm getting rich in the fact that I think God did call me to this place to do this time at this point in my life. And from a, you know, the perspective for such a time is this. This is the time. I have a president who will back me up. I have a organization that we put people in and asked the right question. I've got good friends on the outside saying, hey, yeah, let's see what we can do. And I'm not going to accept the status quo.

The status quo is not acceptable at the VA. We're going to make sure we're going to be the best largest integrated health care system in the country. We're going to do our disability claims the best we can. We're going to bury people with dignity. We're going to do what we have. And that's the only standard I have is a veteran getting help. And so for me, this makes it pretty easy. And some people don't like that. And if you don't believe me, just read the comments. But all I entail you to do is when somebody complains about it, are they fixing it? Are they just complaining about it? Beautifully, Seth.

Preach, Reverend. Yeah. Amen. Zach, you got to wave to the camera, Zach. Wave to the camera. Bye. Bye, Zach. Going to the comments,

one of the last questions is, what is one of your favorite experiences on social media, followed by your least favorite experience on social media to this date? My favorite experience is a, it will get, it's one that happened. When we came into the VA, there was a lot of things that did change because of just the profile that we had and the social media presence we had, I could tweet something out and, you know, or put it on Instagram and literally thousands of people see it. I mean, just because I had a following to start with.

But what was really interesting was, so we began happening and there's a culture out there that believes that they can, they're actually talking to you. So one of you tweet, they're actually talking to you. It's just that thought. I was in my staff meeting one morning, and we had started a program because we kept getting this. And I talked to our staff, and I said, hey, we need to answer these questions. I said, because I'm getting these. So occasionally, I'll look at the comments, and if I see something on there, I'll, and Morgan and several others, they're used to it.

I'll hit the forward button, and I'll send it to them. I say, hey, get this person some help. Why are they asking about this? And so, and I have a whole, so we just started this group. So now I have a full group in the VA in our VEO that actually go through all the comments on my social media accounts. So they go through them and they look for people who look for stuff that they can do with. This was now, it's going well. And we refer about 30, 40 cases for actual help every week just through my social media.

We're doing more constitutional services and sometimes some of the congressmen are. So what we did was is one morning I'm sitting there in the meeting. I have my back turn to the group. It's a long table and I'm watching the slides and I just pop through them. And it's like an old military briefing. I just popped through them. And Linda Davis, who does our VEO, our veteran experience, she said, she gave a report. And I said, Linda, thank you.

She does all the surveys and all this kind of stuff. And I said, thanks, Linda. She said, Ms. Secretary before I, sir, before I stop, she said, I got to tell you something. And I said, okay. And she said, last night, someone sent you a goodbye letter. And I turned around. And she said, but before you say anything, they're okay. And they said, we saw it.

We talked to them. We got them help. I don't care about social media, two hoots. But if it helps save one person, it's worth every bit of it. And the, so for me, that's my best experience. You had that one moment. So he reached out. They reached out.

He reached out. And he was just sending me his goodbye letter, and he was going to be on. And then we reached out. And then we reached out. Thank you. You built that team and you just did that and you saved one person. It was exciting. If I'm only at the VA for one reason, it was that it, I'm done.

I'm good. And so the worst, I'll be honest. And I'm going to encourage this because I'm going to tell you what the worst is and all of the little keyboard warriors are going to get at it. It's when they question my commitment to veterans. It's when they say that Doug doesn't care about a veteran, that Doug doesn't, that Doug is just in it for himself or Doug's getting rid. or Doug's doing this.

One, you don't know me. You don't know my heart. Hey, I got a tough skin. I'll fight you any day of the week. But I have a heart as well. And these veterans that I see every day, when I walk up to them, I touch them, I see them, I talk to them, I see our employees.

Say what you want to do about me. If that's what gets you off, that your jollies in life, go at it. But, you know, that's the part that bothers me. I don't care if you have an honest disagreement with me to say, you know, I've got some out there that are, you know, they say, well, I think we ought to spend more money. Okay, that's a valid argument,

Okay, I just don't think so. Or you cut to me, but don't go at it in perspective of saying that there's animus in my heart toward the job that I do. It never has been, never will be. And, you know, all I want to do is, is, I told somebody this, they say, this crazy question. I love reporters questions. I've been in an office about a month and a half, two months, and this reporter sat down. And they asked the question. They said, well, when you're, when you leave the VA, what do you want to be remembered for?

I thought to myself, I said, I barely know where the bathroom is, you know, at this point. But I said, I thought about it for a second and I said, I said, all I want to say is that he made a difference. That's all I care about. Just make a difference. It's awesome to hear, brother. Like, yeah, it shows that you actually truly care about veterans, each story, positive negative, but you want to make change. And you're making change, I think, in the right direction. And it's hard because you are like the spotlight is on you.

And people are going to look at it. Messages will get twisted. But at the end of the day, you, from this table, the guys can probably agree. You truly do care about the veteran at the end. I'm not convinced. We need more tears. Oh, why? No, we genuinely appreciate you, man.

Like, thank you. Thank you for everything. I appreciate it. Dude, anything you want to say to the veteran community. to either help them or do you want to yell at them? No, I can go. I love them. Use what you got. Use what you earn. Because remember, whatever you say affects, you know, ripples through eternity.

And when we're not doing our job, we're not altogether in this, and it affects the ones that are coming behind us. And I think that's the generation we need to remember is it there's got to be another generation comes on that raises their right hand and is willing to go into the battle. And we got to be that not only to them, but also. you know, to do the best we can. And also just, you know, take advantage of what you have. But then the last thing I'll say, and I try to end, you know, a lot of my conversations with this is,

it's sort of what we hit on earlier. You've all got battle buddies. You've all got people out there. You raise your hand one time and you said, you know, if you reenlisted, you got there, you said it many times. But you said that you swore an oath to all the country, but you also said you'd leave nobody behind. That did not stop the day you got a deed to do, you, 14. In fact, if anything, it encourages it. So I will just say all the veterans out there, you know, if you want to help each other, remember, nobody gets left behind in service or out of service.

And so, you know, go out there and help, find some veterans, help the world understand what we went through. Less than 2% of this country know exactly what that means. So we're the only ones that can carry that. And by the way, Congress has gotten a little bit better recently. But compared to where it was 60 years ago, to where it is now, we basically have no veterans in Congress. And it's just really the numbers are really, really low compared to where they used to be. So all I'll just say is go out there. Don't forget your battle buddies.

Don't forget your folks around you. We made it through one time we can make it through again. It didn't stop when you got your DD-214. Do you guys have anything else? Do you want to ask Mr. Doug? Oh, no. I think you did a really good job of clearing up a lot of stuff. And I just appreciate your time, brother.

You didn't have to be here, so it means a lot. I'm glad to be here. Where do the people find you at, Mr. Doug? Oh, typically on the road. I got all my, you know, y'all hope y'all put it up. You know, they can go to our social media accounts. I try to be honest with, you know, and with what we're doing and how we're doing it. And so they go to their social media accounts.

They'll see me. If they see me out, come see me. I mean, you know, like I said, I travel the country a good bit. But, you know, just follow us up that way and be good to go. Yeah. Well, Doug truly, thank you for your time. Thank you for your team's time. Awesome to sit down and talk to somebody that is trying to,

make a change in a position you are. So thank you, brother, truly, truly. Also, thanks to security for not jumping in at any point. He's eyeball on your dog. To be honest. He's waiting for green light. I kind of deserved it this time, so that's fine. All good. You want to close this out, Mr. Cody? Absolutely. Thank you guys for joining the unsubscribe podcast today.

I was joined by Eli Double Tap, the Fat Electrician, Secretary of the VA, Doug Collins, Brandon Herrera, myself, Donut Operator. Thank you so much for being here. We love you. Okay, bye!