Obama has come under increasing pressure to fire Shinseki over the VA scandal. Shinseki resigns

President Barack Obama said Friday that he had reluctantly accepted the resignation of Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, giving in to growing calls from lawmakers and veterans’ advocates that he step down in the wake of widespread reports that VA hospitals falsified waiting lists.

“I want to reiterate: he is a very good man,” Obama said of Shinseki. However, the president said the decorated retired Army general concluded “he could not carry out the next stages of reform without being a distraction…I regret that he has to resign under these circumstances.”


The secretary had set in motion several firings and disciplinary actions, the president said, and more changes were coming — significant ones. “There is a need for a change in culture …that makes sure bad news surfaces quickly so things can be fixed,” he said.

Shinseki “is deeply disappointed in the fact that bad news did not get to him and that the structures weren’t in place for him to identify this problem quickly and fix it,” the president said. “His priority now is to make sure that happens, and he felt like new leadership would be — would serve our veterans best, and I agree with him.”

( PHOTOS: Eric Shinseki's career)

Obama said Deputy VA Secretary Sloan Gibson, who’s only been in that job for three months, will step in temporarily as VA secretary while the administration looks for a permanent head for the department.

In that post, “I want someone who is spending every minute of every day figuring out, have we called every veteran that’s waiting?” the president said.

Obama also he recognizes that, regardless of personnel moves, he is ultimately responsible for the failures at the VA.

( TRANSCRIPT: President Obama announces Eric Shinseki's resignation)

“This is my administration; I always take responsibility for whatever happens,” he said, adding that he’s been deeply concerned about veterans’ issues since serving on the Veterans Affairs committee in the Senate.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who had notably shied away from calling for Shinseki’s ouster, told reporters Friday afternoon that the move should not take pressure off of Obama to resolve the VA’s problems.

“Gen. Shinseki has designated his life to his country, and we thank him for his service,” Boehner said at a brief press conference Friday afternoon. “His resignation, though, does not absolve the president of his responsibility to step in and make things right for our veterans. Business as usual cannot continue…Today’s announcement really changes nothing. One personnel change cannot be used as an excuse to paper over a systemic problem.”

Other key lawmakers said they welcomed Shinseki’s departure, but had no warning of it before the president spoke.

( Also on POLITICO: Shinseki: VA problems 'indefensible')

“Leadership matters; calling for Secretary Shinseki’s resignation did not come lightly to me, but accountability starts at the top and the step taken today is just the beginning,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Ks.) said. “We now need accountability and true reform within the VA all across the country. For this to occur, we need a fresh perspective and a leader who is willing to shake up the VA’s bureaucratic culture.”

House Veteran Affairs Chairman Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) said he’d received no heads up from the administration or Shinseki about the announcement, which Obama delivered at a hastily-called press conference just after meeting with the VA secretary.

”It is a sad day to see somebody who has such a distinguished record like Secretary Shinseki have to resign. I’ve been telling the secretary for a number of years, his people are not telling him the truth. And I believe he admitted as much today that in his entire career, he’s never been lied to in a way that has happened in this incident,” Miller said.

( Also on POLITICO: Dems help upend Obama's scandal playbook)

“Oh, did he resign?” House Armed Services Chairman Buck McKeon (R-Calif.) said to reporters seeking reaction to Shinseki’s exit. “You just informed me. I’m feeling kind of like the president, I’m learning everything from the press.”

Shinseki becomes the highest-profile member of the Obama administration to be forced out — a major departure for Obama, who has consistently stuck by aides in crisis.

The president was asked Friday why he accepted Shinseki’s resignation, but rebuffed former Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius when she offered to step down last fall over the disastrous rollout of healthcare.gov. She ultimately announced her resignation last month.

Obama did not criticize Shinseki’s management skills, but suggested the problems at the VA were so widespread that a change in leadership made sense. By contrast, the Obamacare website’s issues were more discrete.

”With respect to Secretary Sebelius, at the time I thought it would be a distraction to replace somebody HHS at a time when we were trying to fix that system. And I wanted to just stay focused because I knew that if we bear down on it and we got folks enrolled that it would work,” said the president. “So in each instance, my primary decision is based on how can I deliver service to the American people, and in this case, how can I deliver for our veterans.”

But from the beginning, this one was different: a CNN report revealed efforts to conceal the extent of the backlog processing veteran’s health claims at a facility in Phoenix, casting doubt on the success often touted over the past year by Shinseki and the White House about VA efforts cutting the backlog in half. CNN’s report cited up to 40 veterans’ deaths as attributable to not being seen in time at health facilities, with thousands more left waiting for care while VA officials racked up bonuses by appearing to move cut the backlog.

Heading into the midterms, the GOP has been trying to use the controversy as the latest reminder of what they say is a dysfunctional, failed Obama administration — which they’re looking to hang on Democratic Senate and House candidates across the country.

Obama said Friday that political pressure was one of the factors that led to Shinseki’s exit.

“The distractions that Ric refers to in part are political…” he said. “At this stage, what I want is somebody at the VA who’s not spending time outside of solving problems for the veterans. I want somebody spending every minute of every day figuring out, have we called every single veteran that’s waiting?…That’s what I want somebody at the VA focused on, not how are they getting second-guessed and, you know, speculation about their futures and so forth and so on. And that was what Ric agreed to as well.”

Filling Shinseki’s spot won’t be easy. Between the depth of the problems and the scrutiny over fixing them, there’s no clear path to success.

Obama’s statement came immediately after what the president had earlier described as a “serious conversation” he had planned to have with Shinseki about the secretary’s “capacity” to adequately handle the problems in the department.

“I’ll have a serious conversation with him about whether he thinks he’s prepared and has the capacity to take on the job of fixing it, because I don’t want any veteran to not be getting the kind of services they deserve,” the president said during the excerpt of an interview with Kelly Ripa and Michael Strahan that was taped on Thursday and aired on Friday.

Shinseki on Friday delivered to the president an internal audit on the situation at the VA.

Obama had come under increasing pressure to fire Shinseki over the VA scandal. An interim inspector general report released this week detailed “systemic” problems in the department, prompting a flurry of lawmakers on the left and right to call for the secretary’s resignation. The IG review came after reports that said at least 40 veterans died while waiting for health care in the Phoenix VA system.

During a speech earlier Friday morning at the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans annual conference in Washington, Shinseki had apologized for what he acknowledged were systemic problems inside the VA health system but gave no sign he would step aside amid calls for his resignation.

Shinseki said then that he was removing the leadership of the Phoenix VA center that has been ground zero of the scandal, suspending bonuses for senior leaders and endorsing action by Congress to enhance VA’s ability to fire some workers.

“This situation can be fixed,” he said.

The secretary also acknowledged that it had been a “challenging” time for the department.

“The past few weeks have been challenging for everyone at VA because we take caring for veterans so very seriously,” he said near the beginning of his remarks. “We’ve done tremendous work together these past five years.”

Friday afternoon, Shinseki wrote a farewell message to VA staffers, explaining his decision to resign and thanking “the employees and leaders who have placed the interests of Veterans above and beyond their own self-interests.”

“This morning, I resigned as secretary of Veterans Affairs,” Shineski wrote. “My personal and professional commitment and my loyalty to Veterans, their families, and our survivors was the driving force behind that decision. That loyalty has never wavered, and it will never wane.”

— Jonathan Topaz, Philip Ewing, Jake Sherman, Burgess Everett and Jeremy Herb contributed to this story.