Former Sen. Scott Brown is still in the mix for becoming the next secretary of veterans affairs under President-elect Trump, he said on Fox news Friday.
Brown said the embattled agency needs to be shaken up and he wants to be the pick to come in and have the presidential authority to get people in the agency working.
“Regardless of who it is, the work is just overwhelming,” Brown said on Trump’s future selection. “Veterans are dying, there’s mismanagement. There’s a lot of great work being done in the VA but a lot of people are just checking a box.”
“You need to get someone in there with the presidential authority to fire people,” he added.
Brown was the Republican senator from Massachusetts following the death of Ted Kennedy from 2010, until he was defeated by Sen. Elizabeth Warren in 2012.
Brown later moved to New Hampshire to run as a senator in that state. He was the Republican nominee but was defeated by Sen. Jeanne Sheehan.
Brown said the VA is a top priority for Trump, even though Trump hasn’t named his nominee for the post yet.
“He is giving it his total attention in terms of bringing in someone who’s 100 percent totally right for the job,” Brown said.
The reason he would be that person is because he has experience in the military, serving for 35 years in the Army National Guard, in the Senate and in the media. He said his top priorities, if nominated, would be stopping the rising tide of veteran suicides, ensuring quicker access to medical care and getting better value for taxpayer dollars.
“It’s going to be at least a couple of years to get this right and there’s going to be a lot of sleepless nights,” he said.
