President Trump told one of the nation’s largest veterans group Tuesday that the U.S. doesn’t “seek conflict” overseas despite his robust military buildup, a day after he warned Iran’s leader against provoking America.
Speaking at the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in Kansas City, Missouri, Mr. Trump said his two-year, $1.4 trillion Defense budget “is committed to ensuring that our war fighters have the tools, the resources, the firepower that they need to defeat our enemies with overwhelming force.”
“Hopefully we will never have to use the kind of power that I’m building and helping to build for you,” the president said. “Hopefully people will look at us and they’ll say ’let’s pass, let’s pass.’”
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has warned the U.S. not to engage in the “mother of all wars” with Tehran, prompting Mr. Trump to fire back on social media this week that Iran would “suffer consequences” of historic proportions if it ever threatened the U.S. again.
Democrats accused Mr. Trump of threatening war with Iran to divert attention from his controversial meeting last week with Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Mr. Trump told the VFW that “America is a peace-loving nation.”
“We do not seek conflict, but if conflict is forced upon us, we will defend ourselves and if we must, we will fight and we will do nothing but win,” the president said to applause.
Mr. Trump didn’t mention his war of words with the Iranian leader, but he did discuss his decision to withdraw the U.S. “from the horrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal” signed by former President Barack Obama.
“And Iran is not the same country any more,” the president said. “We’ll see what happens, but we’re ready to make a real deal, not the deal that was done by the previous administration, which was a disaster.”
As he arrived in Missouri, Mr. Trump also pushed back sarcastically against criticism in both parties that he hasn’t been tough enough on Russia for interfering in the presidential election in 2016.
“I’m very concerned that Russia will be fighting very hard to have an impact on the upcoming Election,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “Based on the fact that no President has been tougher on Russia than me, they will be pushing very hard for the Democrats. They definitely don’t want Trump!”
The president was accompanied to the VFW convention by new Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert L. Wilkie, who was confirmed by the Senate on Monday night on a vote of 86-9. Mr. Trump said the only senators who voted against new Mr. Wilkie were Democrats who plan on running against Mr. Trump in 2020.
“The only ones who actually voted against him were all the people, super-lefts, who are running against me in two years. If you want to know who’s running, just take a look at Wilkie’s score,” Mr. Trump told the annual Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, Missouri.
The “no” votes were from Democratic Sens. Cory Booker of New Jersey; Kamala D. Harris and Dianne Feinstein of California; Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Elizabeth Warren and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts; Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley of Oregon; and Bernard Sanders of Vermont.
Mr. Booker, Ms. Harris, Ms. Gillibrand, Ms. Warren and Mr. Sanders in particular are often mentioned as potential Democratic candidates in 2020.
Mr. Trump said of his new VA secretary, who accompanied him to Missouri, “He’s going to be fantastic.”
He is the second person in two years to head the VA, after Mr. Trump fired David Shulkin in March. Mr. Wilkie previously served as undersecretary of Defense for personnel and readiness. An intelligence officer in the U. S. Naval Reserve, he also served in the Department of Defense under President George W. Bush and worked in the White House as a national security aide.
Mr. Wilkie has a massive job ahead of him as he takes over the government’s second-largest agency. The VA is still experiencing problems with delays in patient wait times to see a doctor, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office last month.
Mr. Trump touted the Veterans’ Choice program for helping to ease delays by allowing veterans to see private doctors. But researchers say reforms to VA’s community care programs won’t fix the lengthy waits the agency improves its data collection and monitors the outside appointments more effectively. GAO said Choice participants can face waits of up to 70 days to receive care due to red tape.
Mr. Trump also signed into law a $52 billion VA Mission Act, which includes consolidating and overhauling separate outside care programs. But it’s expected to take another year to combine the programs.
House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Phil Roe, Tennessee Republican, said at a hearing Tuesday that the VA also has an “unacceptable” backlog of nearly 430,000 pending appeals on veterans claims for benefits, with many veterans waiting six years or longer for a final decision.
Mr. Roe said one proposed solution from the VA, a “rapid appeals” program, isn’t working well because only 13 percent of eligible veterans are transferring to it.
He also noted that the VA has a “leadership vacuum,” without a permanent deputy secretary or chief information officer.
Further, Mr. Roe said, the VA won’t meet its promise from January to install 75 percent of certain information technology services by August. He said the VA told his staff last week that only 35 percent of those “core functions” will be completed by next month.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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