A New York Times report published on Saturday details exactly how President Donald Trump’s attacks on the Department of Veterans Affairs are impacting the ability of mental health providers to do their jobs effectively, and painting an incredibly grim picture for vets seeking assistance.
According to the Times, Trump’s orders regarding the VA have caused chaos across the department. One of the most significant changes now requires thousands of mental health professionals to work full-time from federal office space. As The New York Times explains, this is a “jarring policy reversal for the VA, which pioneered the practice of virtual health care two decades ago as a way to reach isolated veterans.”
Trump’s decimation of the federal workforce has had an outsized impact on the VA; the department, which was already understaffed and looking to fill 66,000 vacancies as recently as 2024, is now facing the possible elimination of more than 80,000 jobs.
The Times conducted more than 30 interviews with current and recently fired VA mental health workers, many of whom believe that Trump’s cuts will degrade mental health treatment. They predict that wait times will increase, forcing veterans to seek treatment, at cost, outside the department. Others warned that there could be a mass exodus of specialists, including psychiatrists and psychologists.
One psychiatrist who spoke to the Times described how stunned she was to learn that she was expected to conduct virtual psychotherapy sessions from one of 13 cubicles in a large, open-plan office, which she described as “the kind of setup used for call centers.”
When she asked a supervisor how she could be expected to protect her patients' privacy, they suggested she purchase privacy screens and a white noise machine. In a text message to her manager, which she shared with the Times, she wrote, “I’m ready to walk away if it comes to it”; her manager replied, “Many of us are ready to walk away.”
In June 2020, Trump announced his President’s Roadmap to Empower Veterans and End a National Tragedy of Suicide (PREVENTS) policy plan. It was supposedly designed to “raise awareness about mental health, connect Veterans and others at risk of suicide to federal and local resources, and facilitate focused and coordinated research into suicide.“
Fast forward to March 2025, and Trump’s cuts to the VA mean that fewer veterans dealing with thoughts of suicide will be able to access the necessary resources or receive support, and that at least 350 researchers at the department will lose their jobs. An average of 17.6 veterans die by suicide every day in the U.S.
