David Shulkin led the Veterans Health Administration for two years under former President Barack Obama, and was confirmed as President Donald Trump‘s nominee to head the VA on a 99-0 Senate vote. | Charles Krupa/AP Photo VA Secretary Shulkin out after months of struggle His exit was expected after he antagonized the White House with a scandal over a taxpayer-financed trip to Europe.

President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he was ousting embattled Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin and nominating presidential physician Dr. Ronny Jackson to replace him in the latest administration shake-up.

Shulkin's exit was expected, though the timing was not known, after he antagonized the White House with a scandal over a taxpayer-financed trip to Europe last summer and engaged in open warfare with conservatives in his agency.


“I am thankful for Dr. David Shulkin’s service to our country and to our GREAT VETERANS!” Trump tweeted Wednesday evening, announcing his ouster.

Trump made the decision this afternoon, and the news was delivered by chief of staff John Kelly in a short phone call to Shulkin, according to a White House official.

Trump had been considering a few replacements, including Robert Wilkie, undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, who will serve as acting secretary, and Fox News host Pete Hegseth. But Trump had talked about Jackson for some time, and Shulkin had recommended Jackson for an under-secretary post at VA in the fall and received a significant level of vetting then, according to the official.

The choice of Jackson, a rear admiral known in the White House as Dr. Ronny, came as more of a surprise. Jackson also served as White House physician under the two presidents prior to Trump and was known publicly as the doctor who gave Trump a clean bill of health and said he performed “well” on a cognitive screening exam earlier this year.

Jackson was recently nominated for a promotion in rank, though it is unclear whether he will remain an active-duty officer if he is confirmed by the Senate. His prospects were not immediately clear. Previous leaders of the VA’s sprawling bureaucracy include Bob McDonald, who had been CEO of corporate giant Proctor & Gamble, and Eric Shinseki, a retired four-star general and former chief of staff of the Army.

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In the interim, Trump said Wilkie will serve as the interim secretary. Wilkie was previously a senior adviser to Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and helped Trump's transition team as a “sherpa” for Defense Secretary James Mattis during his confirmation process.

Shulkin, 58, led the Veterans Health Administration for two years under Obama and was confirmed as Trump‘s nominee to head the VA on a 99-0 Senate vote. Veterans groups and congressional leaders from both parties have praised his efforts to increase accountability, improve health care and overhaul the agency’s IT infrastructure.

But his tenure took a sour turn on Feb. 14, when the VA inspector general reported that Shulkin and his wife had improperly accepted Wimbledon tickets and used staff to arrange sightseeing visits during a business trip to Denmark and England last summer.

Although Shulkin repaid the money in question, foes in the White House and the VA, loosely allied with the Koch brothers-funded Concerned Veterans of America, used the opportunity to press for his removal.

Shulkin responded in a series of interviews with POLITICO and other news outlets that there was “subversion” against him and his mission.

Some members of Congress and veterans groups agreed. But Trump, a regular viewer of “Fox & Friends” commentator Pete Hegseth — a critic of Shulkin who once vied for his job — reportedly was irked by Shulkin’s claims that he had full White House support.

It came as little surprise on Wednesday when he joined Rex Tillerson, Reince Priebus and H.R. McMaster as high-ranking government officials to have their professional fates announced on the president’s personal Twitter account.

“I am proud to nominate Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson M.D. as Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Admiral Jackson is highly trained and qualified and as a service member himself, he has seen firsthand the tremendous sacrifice our veterans make and has a deep appreciation for the debt our great country owes them,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House after his tweet.

“I appreciate the work of Dr. David Shulkin and the many great things we did together at Veterans Affairs,” Trump said in the statement. “He has been a great supporter of veterans across the country and I am grateful for his service.”

Shulkin did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.

Jackson received his medical degree in 1995 and began his active duty naval service the same year, the White House said. He deployed with the Marines to Iraq in 2005 as an emergency medicine physician with a Surgical Shock Trauma Platoon.

He has served as White House physician under Presidents George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump. He gained a degree of fame unusual for White House physicians in 2017 when he took questions from the White House press corps on national television, discussing at length the president’s physical exam.

Trump, the oldest first-term president in American history, was plagued at the time by questions about his physical health, weight and mental stability. Jackson largely put to rest those questions.

“The president’s overall health is excellent,” Jackson declared at the time. “His cardiac performance during his physical exam was very good. He continues to enjoy the significant long-term cardiac and overall health benefits that come from a lifetime of abstinence from tobacco and alcohol. ... All clinical data indicates that the president is currently very healthy and that he will remain so for the duration of his presidency.”

Running the VA, the second-largest federal government department, would be a considerable shift from Jackson’s current role.

“We don’t know much about this fellow,” said Garry Augustine, executive director of Disabled American Veterans. “We’re concerned about what seems to be someone who is coming in and doesn’t seem to have any background or experience in government.”

Other experts were less concerned.

“Even if you’ve worked in 10 bureaucracies, I don’t know if anybody has special knowledge or insight into the VA,” said Tevi Troy, a former deputy secretary of Health and Human Services under George W. Bush.

Senators appeared to reserve judgment Wednesday on Jackson's nomination.

Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), chairman of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, praised Shulkin in a statement and said he looked forward to “learning more about” Jackson.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) released a statement saying the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee “should not approve any nominee for secretary who supports the privatization of the VA.”

It was unclear where Jackson would position himself on that debate, which helped seal Shulkin's fate.

The fight centered around two versions of a bill to give veterans greater access to private health care. A bill championed by Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and supported by the Koch-backed CVA would allow veterans to choose care as they please outside of the VA system, which critics say amounts to privatizing the VA system while taxpayers foot the bill.

Moran praised Jackson in a statement Wednesday saying he had a "career in service," and said he looked forward to discussing his plans for the VA.

Shulkin, with the support of veterans groups like the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, supported a bipartisan bill that gave VA physicians the ultimate control over when veterans could go out of the system. Neither bill was included in the fiscal year 2018 omnibus budget, and by late March, senators were still negotiating over them.

“Secretary Shulkin made significant headway in reforming the department, but ultimately became a distraction from the important task of improving health care for our veterans,” Dan Caldwell, executive director of the Concerned Veterans for America, said in a statement.

Shulkin repeatedly said he would never oversee the privatization of the VA, the only large government-run health care system in the United States. Veterans groups and some Democrats on House and Senate veterans committees viewed the attacks on Shulkin as an effort to remove barriers to privatization.

Eliana Johnson and Connor O’Brien contributed to this report.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this report misstated Jackson's rank. He is a rear admiral.