er is. shinseki s resignation is not enough to fix the organization that is bloated. his resignation is not going to solve this problem. what will solve this problem is aggressive digging and figuring out what happened and what within wrong and how to unwind it and get out of this mess. that s what we have to be focused on. it is not going to make a material difference. one report from the office of the inspector general found systemic problems about the wait times. as many as 1700 veterans were off of the wait list for appointments. officials in the va are reaching out to the men and women individually. molly is live in washington tonight. secretary shinseki is out.
it took ten days actually the finding of several reports, more than 100 outraged lawmakers from both parties and countless attacks from the republican outside groups, but today, the president said the misconduct at the v.a. had finally boiled over. secretary shinseki is out. last week, i said if we found misconduct, it would be punished, and i meant it. a few minutes ago, secretary shinseki offered me his own resignation. with considerable regret, i accepted. he has worked hard to investigate and identify the problems with access to care. but as he told me this morning, the v.a. needs new leadership to address it. he does not want to be a distraction because his priority is to fix the problem and make sure our vets are getting the care they need. that was rick s judgment on behalf of his fellow veterans, and i agree. we don t have time for distractions. we need to fix the problem. the president does not look happy there.
secretary shinseki said he started the process of firing top management and apologized to fell row veterans for the problems of the agency. within a few hours, he would be gone from his job. which mean it is will be up to someone else to try to fix decades of mismanagement that plagued veterans care in this country. problems that bush administration wasn t able to fix. you get the idea. this is a long-term problem. want to welcome this morning s panel sam stein, mike paska, host of hang up and listen at slate joy williams. and i just found out before the show that sam is a former student of mike s. this may or may not violate the ethics code. i owe him everything. you can have my pastry.
forward because secretary shinseki is no longer there. the buck stops with the president. it is very important. reporter: some republicans want to see and hear more from the president on what he intends to do to fix the v.a. system. this is all about symbolism, not substance. nothing substantive was done yesterday. it was the symbolic walking of the plank to shinseki walks off. reporter: sloan gibson is the new acting secretary until the president names a replacement. gibson is former banker and head of the uso. gibson is a graduate of west point and a former army officer and veterans groups say he has a big task ahead of him. coupled with the investigations going on at 42 different v.a. medical centers now systemwide. the beginning now is to address those issues at each individual location. reporter: president obama said he has, quote, confidence
as sudden and as swift as it looked to the rest of us. good morning, jim. christi and victor in a day of high drama eric shinseki was gone in 60 minutes with democrats calling for his he stepped down on his own. president obama, there was no time to wait. secretary shinseki offered me his own resignation with considerable regret, i accepted. according to white house officials, the resignation of veterans affair secretary eric shinseki was over in one hour. first he met in the oval office with the president, chief of staff dennis mcdonough and the top u.s. aide overseeing and then the president and shinseki went for a walk on the south lawn for a private conversation. minutes later president obama said shinseki concluded he was too much of a distraction. so, my assessment was, unfortunately, but it was right.