Sens. Blackburn, Hagerty Back VA Job Cuts in Public Appearances

Sens. Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty defended Department of Veterans Affairs job cuts while making stops which highlighted veterans in Tennessee this week.

On Monday, Blackburn appeared with VA Secretary Doug Collins at Tennessee Valley Healthcare System (Nashville's VA medical center) where Collins addressed the ongoing VA job cuts. Blackburn let Collins do most of the talking that day, but did say that the U.S. should be looking at innovations and partnerships to make things better.

“What we want to do is make certain that the VA is responsive to the veterans. That's the goal, and that's where we're heading,” Blackburn told the Williamson Scene when asked again about the changes on Tuesday during the 2025 Ag Day on the Hill celebration in Nashville. “You know, if money and if added personnel solved it, we wouldn't have a wait list, a backlog of over 954,000 cases at the VA, and our veterans deserve to have their cases resolved.”

Blackburn is a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Veterans' Affairs and in January introduced the Veterans Health Care Freedom Act which would create a pilot program to allow veterans’ access to healthcare outside of the VA facilities and system.

The Nashville Post, a sister publication of the Williamson Scene, reported that some 40-50 jobs cuts have already occurred in Middle Tennessee, with more than more than 80,000 jobs planned to be terminated by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) nationwide. As previously reported, while the unelected billionaire Elon Musk had initially been named as the head of DOGE, it was revealed last month that Nashvillian and Brentwood High School graduate Amy Gleason is the department's acting administrator.

On Tuesday afternoon, Sen. Bill Hagerty toured Smyrna's K-CO Products, which employs veteran workers, and expressed his support for DOGE's efforts.

“I never thought it was going to be easy to work our way through a lot of the government's efficiency efforts, but I think it's absolutely necessary,” Hagerty told the Williamson Scene, adding that he believes the Trump administration is “going to do everything they can to minimize the disruption and make certain that the programs that are eventually rooted out are the ones that aren't serving America's best interests.”

While both Senators have claimed that the cuts are appropriate and not impacting veterans’ access to healthcare, some fired VA employees disagree. The VA has already reversed course on billions of dollars in planned contract terminations for medical equipment inspections.

CNN reported that a Trump directive to end remote work for federal workers could negatively impact service for veterans seeking mental healthcare support on crisis hotlines.

“I don't want to see anybody that's that's deserving to lose their job or to be put out of place, and I don't want to see any veterans not get their services, but at the same time, we've got to get to a point where we can do this more efficiently, that's the aim, and I think the goal is to try to get this done underway and in place as soon as possible,” Hagerty said.

Hagerty added that he would “absolutely” support increased funding for VA services that he said could be proven to be effective.

Blackburn and Hagerty's visit with veterans came days after dozens of veterans protested against ongoing VA cuts at the Tennessee state Capitol as part of a March 14 nationwide action in the wake of the firings, with thousands rallying in Washington D.C.

Russia, Russia, Russia

As the senators made public appearances on Tuesday, Trump and Putin spoke in a phone call that resulted in the two leaders agreeing to an immediate 30-day ceasefire in strikes against energy infrastructure.

However, hours after the ceasefire agreement, Russian forces attacked multiple Ukrainian areas including a power station.

Blackburn has long railed against the “New Axis of Evil,” a reference to China, Iran, North Korea and Russia, and a callback to the original “Axis of Evil” coined in 2002 by former President George W. Bush to describe Iraq, Iran and North Korea, ahead of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

When asked by the Williamson Scene if Russia was still a part of the “New Axis of Evil,” Blackburn responded, “absolutely.”

In the President’s first eight weeks back in the White House, his public warming up to Russia has been clear, from questioning the strength of the NATO alliance, to pausing both military aid and intelligence sharing to Ukraine, to pausing offensive cyber actions against Russia, and ending funding for efforts at documenting Russian war crimes in the ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Trump's statements and his administration's actions that have rattled Europe, upended decades of U.S. foreign policy and deepened distrust of the American government across the western world.

Trump's diplomatic shift towards Russian Pres. Vladamir Putin has caused some Republicans and conservatives to call the two leaders “allies,” which begs the question – if Russia is still a part of the “New Axis of Evil,” is America poised to become its newest member?

Blackburn pushed back against that question with an emphatic “no,” adding that “America is the beacon of freedom,” and declined to elaborate on what her view is of the evolving American-Russian relationship.

Hagerty, a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and former Ambassador to Japan, told the Williamson Scene that Russia is still an adversary of the U.S., but one that Trump can negotiate with, calling Trump a “master strategist” who he argued is “two steps ahead” of Putin.

“With respect to Russia, with China, with Iran, with North Korea, I'd have to put all of those in [the] adversarial category right now,” Hagerty said. “I think President Trump is the type of negotiator though that might open a path for every one of them to become an ally if they can see their way to behave according to market terms and not violate international laws, and President Trump's doing a lot to change that dialogue.”