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Montana politics, elections and legislative news

Tester On VA Nomination: 'I Try To Be As Transparent As I Possibly Can'

Senator Jon Tester speaking at a Missoula County Democratic Party Event Saturday
Eric Whitney
/
Montana Public Radio
Senator Jon Tester speaking at a Missoula County Democratic Party Event Saturday

After a ten day Congressional break, Senator Jon Tester returns to Washington today. He spent the break mostly on his farm, doing few public appearances or media interviews.

Tester left Washington to a barrage of angry criticism from President Trump, after the Senatorreleased a list of anonymous allegations against Trump's nominee for Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Admiral Ronny Jackson. Jackson subsequently withdrew his nomination.

I was granted an interview with Senator Tester Saturday evening.

Eric Whitney: What's the week been like for you?

Senator Jon Tester: Well, I've been honest to God seeding for the last week. We've been putting in peas, getting to a point where we're starting to throw in grain now. But it's one of the real challenges, quite frankly, that I have, because I still believe in what the forefathers had, and that was a citizen legislature, and so I think it's really important we still have a job. And so, I've been farming this last week. So it's not been a lot different than it normally has been, quite frankly.

EW: How do we know that the list of allegations that you brought against Admiral Jackson - because they're anonymous - how do we know that they weren't just a made up attempt to smear him politically?

JT: Well, look, first of all, there's been - there's some people that've come to the media with some of the information. But what I'll tell you is this, Eric. We had 25 people come to us with information on Admiral Jackson, all from different angles. We didn't go looking for them, they came to us. We followed up with them.

And, the allegations were presented to get facts. Tell us what's really going on here. And it ended up with him pulling out of the race.

I can tell you that all we were looking for is the truth. My job as a United States Senator, when it comes to confirmation, is vet and confirm, and if they don't pass the vetting, they don't get confirmed. In this particular case, we never got to the confirmation hearing because it was delayed. Not postponed, but delayed, for a period of time until we could get the facts. This was done in a bipartisan way, with (US Senator) Jonny Isakson (the Republican Chair of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee), and we ended up never getting the facts, and he ended up pulling out of the confirmation.

EW: I understand that you didn't go looking for these people, these people came to you, but if we don't know who they are, and they're not willing to tell us who they are, then how are we supposed to judge whether or not they're telling the truth or if they just have an axe to grind against the Admiral?

JT: Well, I will tell you that these were all military folks, active and retired. They came to me with information. Let's go the other direction - would I have been doing my job if I'd have just pushed it all under the table and ignored it?

We needed to get answers, and that was the whole point. The allegations were tough allegations, and disqualifying allegations, I might add. So, we wanted to give him the opportunity to be able to respond to them, and it never came to that.

EW: Why release the allegations publicly prior to the nominations? Wouldn't it have been more fair to let Admiral Jackson and his people know about those allegations and let him answer them in a hearing, before you released them publicly?

JT: That is a great question, as you well know, or maybe you don't, actually, when it comes to these hearings, you get sworn in, and I didn't want to surprise anybody. I wouldn't have wanted to be surprised if I was in that situation. I think we could have done a gotcha moment on him really easily, but that's not the game I play. I try to be as transparent as I possibly can. It's part of what I think government needs to do, and we wanted to let him know what the allegations were. We'd written him a letter, we wanted to make sure that they knew that these were allegations we wanted a response to, and that was one of the ways to do it.

EW: So you let him know about the allegations before you released them publicly?

JT: No, we asked for information from him. We never got any response. We released them, we released them publicly, to get him to respond to them. If they were allegations that were bogus, he could have easily responded to those allegations and and then been done.

EW: Has there been any information, any independent confirmation of those allegations in the last week that would lend more credence to them?

JT: I can't tell you that. I can only tell you that I did not ask for him to pull his name from the confirmation process. He did it, and what else may have happened I can't really tell you at this moment in time, because I haven't been tracking it. He's outside my scope of jurisdiction as ranking member on the VA committee.

And hopefully we can get somebody to fill that position very soon. I think it's a really important position, it's the second largest department in the federal government, and it's very important responsibility to our veterans, and I'm going to work hard to make sure we get somebody good in there. Why? Because Chairman Isakson and myself have worked hard. We've got eight bills to the president's desk to help with everything from reducing the backlog to accountability with employees. The list goes on and on and on. We're gonna hopefully pump another bill out this week that's going to help with the Choice program, streamlining it for our veterans, and building capacity within the VA.

And so we need somebody that'll be able to take those tools we have given the VA secretary and be able to move forward to be sure our veterans get what they've earned.

And so, hopefully, President Trump will get somebody who's qualified. This is a big, big job. It has some problems that need to get fixed, and I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and work with the next secretary, just like I've worked with the last many, to try to fix these problems.

EW: Do you think President Trump wants to privatize the VA?

JT: There has been some word of that, yes. There's been some word of it. But the truth is, he's never come out and said it. We've got a bill that there was some pushback on, and I'd heard that potentially might have been the demise of David Shulking, that really built capacity within the VA while working on the Choice program. But I have never heard those words come out of his mouth, but I have heard words come out of organizations that have a lot of influence on him.

EW: Obviously you're running for re-election. You got a week off from Congress, you're back in your home state. As far as I know you did one public event today?

JT: Yeah, well, I did several, but yeah, yeah.

EW: I think a lot of people are reading it as, you came back, you were catching a lot of heat from the President in the media and you're laying low?

JT: No, not at all. Look, if you're involved in agriculture, agriculture is time sensitive. We're a month later than we should be. I need to get that stuff in the ground. Right now, we're going to depend upon July rain. If we don't get July rain it's going to be a pretty short year. Now, we oftentimes have gotten July rain, so we're going to put it in the ground, but the longer you wait the more you depend upon years that are traditionally pretty darn dry to make your crop, and I can't do that. I've just got to do it.

Every spring for me has been a very, very much a challenge, because I've got to get the seed in the ground, and my wife and I can only do so much every day. We're pretty efficient, but it still takes time.

EW: As somebody that's trying to get re-elected in a state that President Trump won by 20 points, he's been beating up on you on Twitter, on national television, in public events - that's got to be a hit to your campaign. It's got to be tough for you to overcome?

JT: No, I don't think so. I think Montanans are smarter than that. I think that Montanans understand that I'm somebody who has fought for them, and will continue to fight for them, and that when it comes to veterans I'm not going to put up with much baloney. Because we need to have somebody that's - we need to make sure we treat these folks the way they need to be treated.

Look, would I rather have him be heaping praise on me? Sure. But the truth is, President Trump is going to do what President Trump wants to do, and I'm going to do what I want to do. And right now my job is to make sure that veterans get what they're promised when they've served and go back into civilian life.

EW: President Trump has said he could say some things about you that could guarantee that you would not be re-elected. You know what he's talking about there?

JT: I have no idea. I look forward to finding out, but it reminds me a lot of grade school.

EW: To me, this comes down to, since we don't know the names of the people who made these allegations, it's sort of your word against the President's. You're saying these are credible allegations, the President is saying they're not. Why should voters trust you instead of the President?

JT: Well, what I said was, is that we need answers to questions. That's what I said. That's been it. I wasn't going to try to hijack a hearing and put a bunch of questions out there. I wanted to put the cards on the table in a very transparent way, and did that. It would have been very easy to answer those questions. All you've got to do is answer them, and they chose not to. They chose to withdraw.

I pass no judgement on Ronny Jackson. I met him. I think he's a nice guy, but the allegations were made by 25 people, military people, and I thought it was my job, and I have a Constitutional obligation, as a senator, as a member of Congress, to make sure we get answers to questions before the confirmation process goes forward. That's what I did. I did my job.

Eric Whitney is NPR's Mountain West/Great Plains Bureau Chief, and was the former news director for Montana Public Radio.
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