Weird story re: VA Secretary Shulkin. There aren't any other kinds, I know, but still:
There also seems to be a broader messaging disconnect that exemplifies how much the department's secretary and the White House-aligned officials working in it are not on the same page.
Last week, when the inspector general report on Shulkin's 2017 Europe trip became public, the secretary released a statement in which he defended himself, saying that he had "done nothing wrong." In that same statement, Shulkin called the report "neither accurate nor objective" and characterized it as "a direct assault on my spouse, my character and my unblemished record of service to the Veterans Affairs Administration."
Hours later, Shulkin's statement no longer appeared on the VA's website. The statement was replaced by a significantly shorter one from the VA's press secretary that said, "Accountability and transparency are important values at VA under President Trump, and we look forward to reviewing the report and its recommendations in more detail before determining an appropriate response."
Cashour declined to answer questions about why he replaced the secretary's statement with one of his own.
This is weird! But it gets weirder!
Inquires about Shulkin made to the VA's press office have been referred to the White House; Shulkin has been communicating with reporters not with the involvement of the press office, but instead through his personal cell phone.
Veteran Affairs isn't the State Department or anything, but it's still a Cabinet level position filled by a guy President Trump himself nominated barely a year ago. Why is he hanging him out to dry, and why is he doing it so obviously, and why on top of all that is he doing it immediately after he publicly and repeatedly defended a guy who literally punched his wife in the face before literally punching his next wife in the face? How does he not get what a bad look this is? Yeesh.
Hasta pronto, porque la vida no termina aqui...
America, stop pushing. I know what I'm doing.