Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin is pushing back against criticism of President Trump's first Cabinet meeting, saying the president did not prompt top officials to praise him.

During a Tuesday interview on CNN, Shulkin was asked whether he was told ahead of the Cabinet meeting to praise or say something nice about the president in his introductory comments.

"Absolutely not," he said.

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"The president doesn't script the Cabinet and we're given the ability to say what's on our mind."

Shulkin noted this was the first time "where that group had ever been in the room together."

"And so, people were not given instructions, but people weren't used to knowing each other," Shulkin said.

"And so what the president does is he actually opens up these meetings to the press that I think is really unusual and so you saw something that frankly no one had a script for."