Tenure of a certain passive in ness. We saw that university of chicago law professor is saying he will wait until all the reports come in. A perfect world, that is the way to go, but they have to keep the , you cannot let this become a big issue that is out there with some of the other big issues, whether it is benghazi or the irs. If this is a real scandal, you have to clean house in a way that this cannot come back to bite you at the polls and lose your majority in the senate in november. Thank you. For over 35 years cspan brings Public Affairs events from washington directly to you. Putting you in the room at congressional hearings, white house events, briefings, and conferences. Offering complete coverage of operation ofa right industry. Arrive at industry. Industry. Theresident obama addressed in anof Veterans Affairs interview. This is 20 minutes. I just met with secretary twoseki, and we focused on issues. The allegations of misconduct, and caring for veterans and their families. As commanderinchief i have the honor of standing with our men and women in uniform at every step of their service. From the moment they take their 0toh to win our two when they come home, to afghanistan, where they put their lives on the line for security. Our Wounded Warriors fight to recover from terrible injuries. The most searing moments of my presidency involved going to walter reed or other hospitals and meeting troops to of left a part of themselves on the battlefield. Their spirit and their determination to recover and often to serve again is always an inspiration. To these men and women and their families, they are the best that the country has to offer. They have done their duty and they ask nothing more then that this country does ours. We must uphold our sacred trust to all who have served. When i hear allegations of misconduct, any misconduct, whether it is allegations of long wait times or cooking the books, i will not stand for it. Not as commanderinchief and not as an american. None of us showed. If these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable and it is disgraceful will stop i will not tolerate it. Here is what i discussed this morning. First, anybody found that manipulated or falsified records at v. A. Facilities must be held accountable. The Inspector General launched an investigation. Some individuals have art even put on administrative leave. I know that people are angry and want swift reckoning. I sympathize with that. But we have to let the investigators do their job and get to the bottom of what happened. Our veterans deserve to know the facts. Their families deserve to know the facts. Once we know the facts, i assure you if theres misconduct it will be punished. Second, i want to know the full scope of this problem. Thats why i ordered secretary shinseki to investigate. Today he updated me on his review which is looking not just at the phoenix facility but also v. A. Facilities across the nation. And i expect preliminary results from that review next week. Third, ive directed rob nabors to conduct a broader review of the Veterans Health administration, the part of the v. A. That delivers health care to our veterans. And robs going to phoenix today. Keep in mind, though, even if we had not heard reports out of this phoenix facility or other facilities, we all know that it often takes too long for veterans to get the care that they need. Thats not a new development. Its been a problem for decades. And its been compounded by more than a decade of war. Thats why when i came into office i said we would systematically work to fix these problems and we have been working really hard to address them. My attitude is, for folks who have been fighting on the battlefield, they should not have to fight a bureaucracy at home to get the care that they have earned. So the presumption has always been weve got to do better. Robs review will be a comprehensive look at the Veterans Health administrations approach currently to access to care. I want to know whats working, i want to know what is not working, and i want specific recommendations on how v. A. Can up their game. I expect that full report from rob next month. Number four, i said that i expect everyone involved to work with congress, which has an born oversight role to play. I Welcome Congress as a partner in our efforts, not just to address the current controversies but to make sure we are doing right by our veterans across the board. I have served on the Veterans Affairs committee when i was in the senate, and it was one of the proudest piece of business that i did in the legislature. I know the folks over there care deeply about our veterans. It is important that our veterans dont become another political football. Especially when so many of them are receiving care right now. This is an area where democrats and republicans should always be working together. Which brings me to my final point. Even as we get to the bottom of what happened at phoenix and other facilities, all of us, whether here in washington or all across the country, have to stay focused on the larger mission, which is upholding our sacred trust to all of our veterans. Bringing the v. A. System into the 21st century, which is not an easy task. We have made progress over the last five years. We have made historic investments in our veterans. We boosted v. A. Funding to record levels. And we created consistency through advanced appropriations so that veterans organizations knew their money would be there regardless of political wrangling in washington. We made v. A. Benefits available to more than two million veterans who did not have it before, delivering disability pay to more vietnam vets exposed to agent orange, making it easier for veterans with posttraumatic stress and Mental Health issues and traumatic brain injury to get treatment. And improving care for womens veterans. Because of these steps and the influx of new veterans requiring services added in many cases to wait times, we launched an allout war on the disability claims backlog. And in just the past year alone we have slashed that backlog by half. Of course we are not going to let up because its still too high. We are going to keep at it until we eliminate the backlog once and for all. Meanwhile, we are also reducing homelessness among our veterans. We are helping veterans and their families, more than a million so far, pursue their education under the post9 11 g. I. Bill. 678 we are stepping up our efforts to help our newest veterans get the skills and training to find jobs when they come home. Along with michelle and joe and Jill Biden Joining forces we have helped thousands of veterans find a job. More veterans are finding work and veterans unemployment, although still way too high, is coming down. The point is caring for our veterans is not an issue that popped up in recent weeks. Some of the problems with respect to how veterans are able to access the benefits that they have earned, thats not a new issue. Thats an issue i was working on when i was running for the United States senate. Taking care of our veterans and their families has been one of the causes of my presidency, and it is something that all of us have to be involved with and had to be paying attention. To we ended the war in iraq, and as our war in afghanistan ends and as our newest veterans are coming home, the demands on the v. A. Are going to grow. So we are going to have to redouble our efforts to get it right as a nation. And we have to be honest that there are and will continue to be areas where weve got to do a lot better. So today i want every veteran to know we are going to fix whatever is wrong and so long as i have the privilege of serving as commander in chief im going to keep on fighting to deliver the care and the benefits and the opportunities that your families deserve. Now and for decades to come. That is a commitment to which i feel a sacred duty to maintain. So with that im going to take two questions, im going to take jim first. Thank you, mr. President. As you say, this is a cause of your presidency, you ran on this issue, you mentioned. Not as commander in chief but also not as an american. None of us should. So, if these allegations prove to be true, it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful, and i will not tolerate it, period. Heres what i discussed with secretary shinseki this morning. First, anybody found to have manipulated or falsified records at v. A. Facilities has to be held accountable. The Inspector General at the v. A. Has launched investigations into the phoenix v. A. And other facilities. Some individuals have already been put on administrative leave. I know that people are angry and want swift reckoning. I sympathize with that. But we have to let the investigators do their job and get to the bottom of what happened. Our veterans deserve to know the facts. Their families deserve to know the facts. Once we know the facts, i assure you if theres misconduct it will be punished. Second, i want to know the full scope of this problem. Thats why i ordered secretary shinseki to investigate. Why was it allowed to get to 24 stage to this stage where you actually had potentially 40 veterans who died while waiting for treatment . Thats an extreme circumstance. We have to find out first of all what exactly happened. I dont want to get ahead of the i. G. Report or the other investigations that are being done. I think it is important to recognize that the wait times generally what the i. G. Indicated so far at least is the wait times were for folks who may have had chronic conditions, were seeking their next appointment, but may have already received service. It was not necessarily a situation where they were calling for emergency services. And the i. G. Indicated that he did not see a link between the wait and them actually dying. That does not excuse the fact that the wait times in general are too long in some facilities. So what we have to do is find out what exactly happened. We have to find out how can we realistically cut some of these wait times. There has been a large influx of new veterans coming in. We have a population of veterans that is also aging as part of the baby boom population. And weve got to make sure that the scheduling system, the access to the system that all those things are in sync. There are parts of the v. A. Health care system that have performed well. And what we have seen is, for example, satisfaction rates in many facilities and with respect to many providers has been high. But what we are seeing is that in terms of how folks get scheduled, how they get in the system, there are still too many problems. Im going to get a complete property. It is not, as a consequence, people not caring about the problem, but there are 85 million a appointments scheduled among veterans during the course of a year. Thats a lot of appointments. And that means that weve got to have a system that is built in order to be able to take those folks in in a smooth fashion, that they know what to expect, that they its reliable and it means the v. A. Has to set standards it meets f it cant do it right now it has to set realistic goals how they improve the system overall. The responsibility for things always rests ultimately with me as the president and commander in chief. Rick shinseki has been a great soldier. He himself is a disabled veteran. And nobody cares more about our veterans than Rick Shinseki. If you ask me how do i think Rick Shinseki has performed overall . I would say that on homelessness, on 9 11 g. I. Bill, on working with us to reduce the backlog across the board he has put his heart and soul into this thing and taken it very seriously. I said to rick and said it to him today, i want to see what the results of these reports are, and there is going to be accountability. And im going to expect even before the reports are done that we are seeing significant improvement in terms of how the admissions process takes place in all of our v. A. Health care facilities. So i know he cares about it deeply. And he has been a great Public Servant and a great warrior on behalf of the United States of america. We are going to work with him to solve the problem. But i am going to make sure that there is accountability throughout the system after i get the full report. Steve from reuters. Thank you, sir. Has secretary shinseki offered to resign . If hasegawa hes not to blame who is . Were you caught by surprise by these allegations . Rick shinseki i think serves this country because he cares deeply about veterans and he cares deeply about the mission. And i know that ricks attitude is if he does not think he can do a good job on this, and if he thinks hes let our veterans down, then im sure that he is not going to be interested in continuing to serve. At this stage rick is committed to solving the problem. And working with us to do it. And i am going to do everything in my power using the resources of the white house to help that process of getting to the bottom of what happened and fixing it. But im also going to be waiting to see what the results of all this review process yields. I dont yet know how systemic this is. I dont yet know are there a lot of other facilities that have been cooked in the books . Or is this just an episodic problem . We know that essentially wait times have been a problem for decades in all kinds of circumstances with respect to the v. A. Getting benefits, getting health care, etc. Some facilities do better than others. A couple years ago the Veterans Affairs set a goal of 14 days for wait times. Whats not yet clear to me is whether enough tools were given to make sure those goals were actually met. I wont know until the full report is put forward as to whether there was enough management followup to ensure that those folks on the frontlines who are doing scheduling had the capacity to meet those goals, if they were being evaluated for meeting goals that were unrealistic and couldnt meet because either there werent enough doctors or the systems werent in place or what have you. We need to find out who is responsible for setting up those guidelines. There are going to be a lot of questions that we have to answer. In the meantime, what i said to rick today, is lets not wait for the report retrospectively to reach out immediately to veterans who are currently waiting for appointments to make sure that they are Getting Better service. Thats something that we can initiate right now. We dont have to wait to find out if there was misconduct to dig in and make sure that we are upping our game in all of our various facilities. I do think it is important not just with respect to Rick Shinseki but with respect to the v. A. Generally, to say that every single day there are people working in the v. A. Who do outstanding work and put everything theyve got into making sure that our veterans get the care, benefits, and services that they need. And so i do want to close by sending a message out there that there are millions of veterans who are getting really good service from the v. A. Who are getting really good treatment from the v. A. I know because i get letters from veterans sometimes asking me to write letters of commendation or praise to a doctor or a nurse or a facility that couldnt have given them better treatment. So this is a big system with a lot of really good people in it who care about our veterans deeply. We have seen the improvements on a whole range of issues like homelessness, like starting to clear the backlog up, like making sure folks who previously werent even eligible for disability because it was a Mental Health issue or because it was an agent orange issue are finally able to get those services. I dont want us to lose sight of the fact there are a lot of folks in the v. A. Doing a really good job and working really hard at it. That does not, on the other hand, excuse the possibility that, number one, we werent just we were not doing a good enough job in terms of providing access to folks who need an appointment for chronic conditions. Number two, it never excuses the possibility that somebody was trying to manipulate the data in order to look better or make their facility look better. It is critical to make sure that we have good information in order to make good decisions. I want people on the frontline if theres a problem to tell me or tell Rick Shinseki or tell whoevers their superior this is a problem. Dont cover up a problem. Do not pretend the problem doesnt exist. If you cant get wait times down to 14 days right now, i want you to let folks up the chain know so we can solve the problem. Do we need more doctors . Do we need a new system in order to make sure that scheduling and coordination is more effective and more smooth . Is there more followup . And thats the thing that right now most disturbs me about the report. The possibility that folks intentionally withheld information that would have helped us fix a problem. Theres not a problem out there thats not fixable. It cant always be fixed as quickly as everybody would like, but typically we can chip away at these problems. The we have seen this with the backlog. We have seen it with veterans homelessness. We have seen it with the post 9 11 g. I. Bill. Initially there were problems with it, they got fixed, and now its operating fairly smoothly. Problems can be fixed, but folks have to let the people that did the reporting to know that there is a problem in order for us to fix it. Listen, if somebodys mismanaged or engaged in misconduct, not only do i not want them getting bonuses, i want them punished. Thats what we are going to hopefully find out from the i. G. Report as well as the audits taking place. All right. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] in a bipartisan vote the allowing thea bill department to fire or demote Senior Executives if they needed to. Mr. Speaker i gild myself such time as i might consume. The gentleman is recognized. Bers, we have bee uncovered and continue and uncovered thus uncovering gross continues thet lengthy backlogs of disability claims. Care for veterans and for preventable deaths. Despite repeated promises of accountability and change, the committee has received nothing but disturbing silence from the white house and only one excuse from another from the department of Veterans Affairs. Mr. Speaker, we have all seen the heartbreaking news or spoken personally to family after family thats been coming forward sharing their stories of how v. A. Has failed to fulfill their promise to our veterans. The time is past due for us as a house of representatives to take action. The troubling stories that have come out of phoenix, arizona, where whistle blowers allege that has many as 40 veterans died while waiting for care, and alleged secret waiting lists are unconscionable if proven true. We would not be doing our sworn duty if we sat idly by and allow these preventable deaths of those who made sacrifices for this great country to become the status quo at the v. A. Unfortunately, mr. Speaker, these incidents do not seem to be isolated. They are under the watch of not just one senior v. A. Manager. Similar stories of mismanagement and negligence have arisen in