President Barack Obama plans to nominate former Procter and Gamble executive Robert McDonald to lead the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs, which has been plagued by long waits for treatment, a White House official said Sunday.
The president will formally announce his pick on Monday, exactly a month after Eric Shinseki, the VA secretary since the start of the Obama administration, resigned on May 30 after allegations of delayed care came to light.
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A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, McDonald rose from an entry-level job to CEO of Procter and Gamble over more than three decades at the company. He spent four years as CEO before leaving in mid-2013 amid cost-cutting at the Fortune 500 company.
(Also on POLITICO: Tom Coburn: ‘Wasn’t surprised’ about VA mess)
McDonald is an unusual choice for an agency that has typically been led by former military leaders, but given the agency’s bureaucratic and managerial challenges, he is seen by the White House as the kind of corporate leader the agency needs. His experience makes him “prepare[d] … well for a huge agency with management challenges,” the official said, adding that he is “the perfect person to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs during this important time.”
The planned nomination of McDonald comes after Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs Sloan D. Gibson and Rob Nabors, a White House aide sent to work on problems at the VA, updated Obama on Friday about their efforts to examine the VA’s struggles in delivering health care to veterans. The agency has “a corrosive culture” that has affected performance and care, Nabors said in a report to the president.
“The problems inherent within an agency with an extensive field structure are exacerbated by poor management and communication structures, distrust between some VA employees and management, a history of retaliation toward employees raising issues, and a lack of accountability across all grade levels,” the report added.
(Also on POLITICO: Report: VA overlooked whistleblowers)
Unlike other business leaders brought into the Obama administration to help problem-solve — such as now-National Economic Council head Jeff Zients — McDonald has a record of supporting Republicans. During the 2012 presidential race, he gave $2,500 to Mitt Romney and, less than a year ago, he made a contribution of $1,000 to House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
In a statement, Boehner praised McDonald as “a good man, a veteran and a strong leader with decades of experience in the private sector” who is “the kind of person who is capable of implementing the kind of dramatic systemic change that is badly needed and long overdue at the VA.”
But, Boehner added, McDonald will only be able to effect change if Obama “first commits to doing whatever it takes to give our veterans the world class health care system they deserve by articulating a vision for sweeping reform. Our nation’s veterans deserve nothing less.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, held his judgment Sunday on the president’s pick.
“The VA needs significantly improved transparency and accountability and it needs an increased number of doctors, nurses and other medical staff so that all eligible veterans get high-quality health care in a timely manner. I look forward to meeting with Mr. McDonald next week in order to ascertain his views on these important issues,” Sanders said in a statement.
The chair of the corresponding committee in the House, Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Florida), said a statement Sunday that he hopes McDonald will lead by “focusing on solving problems instead of downplaying or hiding them, holding employees accountable for mismanagement and negligence that harms veterans, and understanding that taxpayer funded organizations such as VA have a responsibility to provide information to Congress and the public rather than stonewalling them.”
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