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The Independent UK
The Independent UK
National
Stephen Groves

Trump administration plans to cut 80,000 employees from Veterans Affairs, according to internal memo

Trump Veterans Affairs Nurses - (Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

The Department of Veterans Affairs is planning a reorganization that includes cutting over 80,000 jobs from the sprawling agency that provides health care for retired military members, according to an internal memo obtained by The Associated Press.

The VA's 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.

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