The Senate on Monday confirmed Denis McDonough as President Biden’s veterans affairs secretary, choosing a non-veteran but a manager with years of government service to lead the sprawling health and benefits agency.
McDonough, 51, was chief of staff during Barack Obama’s second term and held senior roles on the National Security Council and on Capitol Hill before that. He told senators at his confirmation hearing that although he is not a veteran, his long career as a behind-the-scenes troubleshooter and policymaker would serve him well at the Department of Veterans Affairs, a massive bureaucracy beset by multiple challenges.
“I can unstick problems inside agencies and across agencies, especially at an agency as large as VA,” McDonough told the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee in January. Continue reading.