The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning an āaggressiveā reorganization that includes cutting 80,000 jobs from the sprawling agency that provides healthcare for retired military members, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.
The VAās chief of staff, Christopher Syrek, told top level officials at the agency that it had an objective to cut enough employees to return to 2019 staffing levels of just under 400,000.
That would require terminating tens of thousands of employees after the VA expanded during the Biden administration, as well as to cover veterans impacted by burn pits under the 2022 PACT Act.

The memo instructs top-level staff to prepare for an agency-wide reorganization in August to āresize and tailor the workforce to the mission and revised structure.ā
It also calls for agency officials to work with the White Houseās Department of Government Efficiency to āmove out aggressively, while taking a pragmatic and disciplined approachā to the Trump administrationās goals.
Veterans have already beenĀ speaking out againstĀ the cuts at the VA, which so far had included a few thousand employees and hundreds of contracts. More than 25% of the VAās workforce are veterans themselves.
In Congress, Democrats have decried the cuts at the VA and other agencies, while Republicans have so far watched with caution the Trump administrationās changes.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the top Democrat on the Senate committee that oversees veteranās affairs, said in a statement that the Trump administration āhas launched an all-out assaultā against progress the VA has made in expanding its services as the number of covered veterans grows and includes those impacted by toxic burn pits.
āTheir plan prioritizes private sector profits over veteransā care, balancing the budget on the backs of those who served. Itās a shameful betrayal, and veterans will pay the price for their unforgivable corruption, incompetence, and immorality,ā Blumenthal said in a statement.
Government Executive first reported on the internal memo.