Calls Grow for Hillary to Apologize for VA Comments

MIKE LACHANCE

OCT 28, 2015 8:30 AM

Last week on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow show, Hillary Clinton downplayed recent scandals at the Department of Veterans Affairs which resulted in the deaths of vets who were waiting for care.

Since then, a growing chorus is calling for Clinton to apologize. CNN reports:

Veterans’ groups fire back at Clinton’s VA commentsSome veterans groups are firing back after a comment Hillary Clinton made about the Department of Veterans Affairs scandal. The former secretary of state suggested in an interview late last week that the controversy which shook the VA last year was overblown, and Republicans used it to serve their own agenda.”It’s not been as widespread as it has been made out to be,” Clinton said Friday on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” when asked about the scandal and how she would fix the VA.Yet the federal government’s own report contradicts Clinton’s remarks.The VA’s inspector general concluded inappropriate scheduling practices at VA medical centers were “systemic” in 2014, after a CNN investigation revealed veterans were dying while waiting for care on “secret” lists at the Phoenix VA. The scandal led to the resignation of then-VA Secretary Eric Shinseki.Paul Rieckhoff, founder and CEO of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, or IAVA, called her comments a “head-scratcher” firing off this response on Twitter.”That is not a winning argument — or factually correct,” he said.