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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and New York City, along with cities and towns around the country, has canceled the Veterans Day Parade today as the COVID-19 pandemic reaches a death toll of 238,000 people nationwide. The Veterans Affairs medical system, the largest integrated health system in the United States, has reported 4,225 deaths and those are just the veterans diagnosed at VA hospitals and medical centers.

Here to talk about a range of issues affecting veterans from COVID-19, to what they want from a Biden administration is Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America the IAVA, president of Righteous Media and host of the podcast, Angry Americans. He is part of a new series called, While The Rest Of Us Die: Secrets Of America's Shadow Government. That'll premiere next Monday at ten o'clock on VICE TV. Paul, welcome back to WNYC. What do veterans say to each other on Veterans Day? Is it happy Veterans Day or what's appropriate to say to a vet, for those of us who are not?

Paul Rieckhoff: I think right now, they're all saying, "Holy cow." I mean, they're looking across this country, they're concerned, they want to mobilize to help and they just want to bring people together. On Veterans Day, more than any other day, they really don't want it to be about them. They want folks to use Veterans Day as a way to remember the values that bind this country, the reason we raised our right hand, to wear the uniform, and defend the constitution and all that's great about this country. That's what Veterans Day can be. It was originally Armistice Day, the end of World War I where we ended a war, and I think that this Veterans Day is maybe the most dangerous one we've seen in our lifetime.

I, for one, would like to see it as a time of peace and reconciliation. I was kind of hoping that it would be the day that Trump would invite Biden to the White House. It might be the one day they could actually unite and bring their people together in solidarity for our country. That didn't happen. Until then, we can go with Happy Veterans Day and that'll do it for now.

Brian: Listeners, if you're vet, happy Veterans Day. I have Paul Rieckhoff's permission to say that.

Paul: [laughs]

Brian: We want to hear from you as we break down the current issues in the veterans community. What are your priorities and hopes for the incoming Biden administration? Did Trump do right by you? He touts accomplishments for veterans as one of his promises kept. If that's real for you, you can say so. If not, you can say that, too. What do you want that's different or more from Biden?

Tweet @BrianLehrer or give us a call now at 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280, or maybe like Paul was saying at the beginning of his answer there, you just want to stand up and not even talk about veterans agenda items for policy, but talk about your reflection on your service and the values that you were fighting for or enlisted for, 646-435-7280, 646-435-7280. Paul, I think it's fair to say you've been more associated with progressive and Democratic politics. Do you have the president-elect's ear?

Paul: I've been an independent for a long time, Brian. I'll go anywhere and talk to anybody who wants to support veterans, and I think like an increasing number of veterans, I'm politically unaffiliated. I don't have his ear directly. I've worked with President-elect Biden in the past on a wide range of issues, like the GI Bill, like VA reform. He's somebody we can count on, I'll tell you that, as as an independent. He's a Blue Star Dad, a lot of folks forget that, meaning his son Joe and his son, Beau Biden, served in Iraq. He has an intimate understanding. I'm hoping he'll listen, I'm hoping he'll focus, and I'm hoping that he'll quickly understand that veterans can be a part of this solution.

They're also a part of bridging the divide, the deep, painful nasty divide that exists with Trump supporters. This can be an issue to build on. Today, actually, this day can be kind of a turning point if Biden's smart and figures out how to utilize this day is a unifying factor. It can give him a little wind in his sails, and maybe pull some people over at a really important time.

Brian: What's at the top of your agenda for the next four years or for the first 100 days?

Paul: I think it starts with stabilizing our country. Before we get to the individual veterans issues, we have to understand that this is the most precarious Veterans Day of our lifetime. We've talked about it before, Brian, over the years that veterans are hardwired to be leaders and be helpers. They represent leadership, and patriotism, and hope, and so much of what we need to unite this country, but we've got to recognize that the commander-in-chief is just attacking every value that we stood up to fight for. The most important priority I think right now that people may not be thinking about is COVID.

The pandemic is hitting veterans especially hard, an unknown number of dead and sick veterans are facing COVID, tens of thousands of them at least, countless World War II veterans. A top priority for Joe Biden and for Donald Trump has got to be the virus. COVID cases at Department of Veterans Affairs are up 56% in just the last two weeks, and to recognize Veterans Day yesterday, the Veterans Affairs secretary was quarantining himself, because he had been exposed to Ben Carson. Nine consecutive days that the VA have record-high cases, 54% increase over the last couple of weeks, and it just keeps getting worse.

We've got to understand that if you want to care for veterans, you got to protect them from COVID and you got to understand the Department of Veterans Affairs is also designed to be the backstop for the entire country's healthcare system. If your local hospital can't see you, has happened in New York and other places, VA hospitals are supposed to handle the overflow. Until we get that focus, and get them fully mobilized, and recognizing the severity of this pandemic, I think many veterans are going to get sick and many veterans are going to die.

Brian: Drilling down on that even more, it's not just the VA hospitals as I understand it, it's the VA care homes, as I think they're called. Those care homes seem to be particularly dangerous places right now. As a New York Times article from late September reports, half of New Jersey's COVID-19 fatalities are linked to nursing homes, and that nowhere has the devastation been starker than at one built for members of the military. Can you talk about what's happening in these veterans homes nationwide?

Paul: Many of them are state-run homes like the one in Holyoke, where almost 100 veterans died. For a while, there were a couple dying every single day. I think it's one of the most egregious abandonment of leadership by the Trump administration and by Secretary Wilkie as they said, "Oh, they're state facilities, it's not really our responsibility." As veterans continue to die in these state-run nursing homes that do receive funding from the federal government, that are supposed to be inspected by the Department of Veterans Affairs, I believe that the VA secretary has been a hack for the president. He continues to put the president's agenda over that of veterans.

The nursing homes are one example, the failure to test is another example. Brian, there are about 20 million veterans in America. The VA has only tested about 900,000. They've only tested 900,000 in the entire country, with one of the largest agencies in the federal government, since the pandemic started. New York State tests more than that in about a week.

They failed to test, and maybe one step further that people really should be outraged about. At the height of the pandemic, the VA and Secretary Trump authorized testing hydroxychloroquine, their COVID snake oil, on dying veterans. Thousands of dying veterans were used as guinea pigs by this administration. There hasn't been an investigation. There hasn't been any accountability and a lot of folks, quite frankly, have forgotten about it.

This is really the core of the mismanagement, not just the pandemic, but of our national security and the entire federal government. It's the untold story of the pandemic, and I think of the Trump administration, is how badly they've screwed up our veterans affairs and our national security.

Brian: Anthony in Hoboken, you're on WNYC with Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Hi, Anthony.

Anthony: Hey, hoola guys, thank you very much for having me on the line. Long-time listener, first-time caller.

Brian: So glad you're in.

Anthony: Thank you. Our company is working on trying to put together a series of jobs to helping out the Biden administration and put the American people back to work due to the pandemic. We created a virtual call center, so that we can provide jobs as virtual call representatives. We want to help the Biden administration in doing the COVID tracing and we want to try to straighten out this whole situation of one bad seed of an individual had put us in. It's unfortunate that Trump has been lying this whole time and it's a very bad situation. He's never really helped us veterans, and it's a very bad situation he's put us in. I'm sorry for all this.

Brian: Anthony, take us to the next step. Assuming the transition, and Trump isn't there anymore, what do you want next?

Anthony: I like to work with the Biden administration to make sure that we can do the COVID tracing so that we can make sure that everyone can get off this illness, and we could put American people to work. Our virtual call center is allowing for people to be employed as a customer service rep, and they can work right from their homes. That separation of making sure that everybody's safe because of the pandemic, that type of job. We have a lot of American women that don't have work anymore, and there's a lot of people that don't have any more jobs.

Working as a customer service rep on the virtual level, it's a good way to come back on board, with bringing some money back into the economy by hiring people as virtual customer service reps, and assisting the banking system, the health system, the government with COVID tracing, et cetera. That's what we want to do.

Brian: Anthony, thank you so much. Glad you got on. Don't make it your last time, okay?

Anthony: Absolutely not. See you again.

Brian: Thank you so much. Paul Rieckhoff, he took a shot at the Trump administration as part of that call. What's your assessment as the founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, of the Trump record for vets? As I said at the top, it's certainly something that he touts, having to do with deepening the healthcare choice system and other things.

Paul: Look, Brian, I think it's like everything else within the Trump administration. It's a lot of big talk and very few results, and damage all on the way. Now, I don't run IAVA anymore. I'm on the board now. A great guy named Jeremy Butler runs it, and there's a lot of fantastic work being done by Anthony and so many other people across the country, and across the city. You and I have talked over the years. I think New York is a really important, innovative place for veterans' issues but it's also a reflection of the things that go well and the things that go wrong.

Anthony talked about it. The unemployment rate is still significant in New York City and around the country for veterans. In September, it was up to 7.5%, and that means about 570,000 veterans were looking for work last month. That's up almost 300,000 from a year ago. COVID's hitting them hard, health issues are hitting them hard, national security's hitting them hard. Everything that hits America also hits veterans. The difference with us is that veterans are being used by the Trump administration consistently as political props, egregiously.

While he talks a great game about veterans, he does things like pardoning war criminals, and abandoning NATO, and taking money from the Pentagon, and diverting it to the wall. We've become a political prop and I think that is really the most dangerous part of the Trump administration, Brian. There's a lot of folks that are concerned that the military is not there for the country, that they're there for the president, and he manipulates that. That, in my view, is the most dangerous thing he's done that you can't overlook.

I've called him a political suicide bomber. He blows up everything in his way. He doesn't care who he hurts, whether it's the Secretary of Defense that he fired just this week, or dying vets that he tests hydroxychloroquine on. This is who he is, and he is a failure as a commander-in- chief because he has no integrity. I don't think you can overlook that, and it's leadership that is so necessary in times like this. That's why the task is so huge for Joe Biden.

It's also huge for local leaders. De Blasio, in my view, has also failed on the pandemic. I think he's the second most responsible in this country outside of Trump. I think his leadership has been weak. It's why I've called for him to be removed or even impeached, and I wish you would run for mayor, Brian. I've said this on Twitter. I think there are a lot of candidates out there, including two veterans that are now running, so that's going to be an issue, but we need real leaders, real leaders that people trust and that have integrity. I'm going to start it today the Draft Brian Lehrer for Mayor campaign.

That's not a joke, Brian. I think people like you are needed in these times who really understand it, and who can talk the talk, but also walk the walk.

Brian: That's very kind but let me nip that in the bud, and obviously I didn't know that was coming. I have a place in the mayoral race of next year, and that is to interview the candidates, period. Just saying.

Paul: Errol Louis told me the same thing and I said that either one of you would be, I think, the immediate front -runner if either of you declared to run for mayor. You're the kind of folks that understand this city, fight for this city, and we need, especially in a time of crisis. We've had enough of the politicians. We need people who have their ear to the ground like you and Errol.

Brian: Thank you. It's not the business I'm in though, but Ben in Brooklyn, you're on WNYC. Hi, Ben.

Ben: Hey, Brian, how you doing? Hey, Paul. Hey, happy Veterans Day to everyone out there. I'm going to make this-- I'll make it brief. I'm a vet. I've got three tours in what we call the global war on terror and several deployments to other places prior to that. My biggest issue right now is, in the times when I've been deployed, and Paul, I was 18 series if that helps. My prior deployments, the very things that I see going on, that we all see going on with this election, are the things where, in certain places, was the exact reason we were there to prevent, and we're seeing it here.

What I'm very concerned with, and a lot of my friends, is that for some reason, and I'm going to say, the Democrats in most, but the American people in general, reason does not always play out. This notion of cooler heads will prevail. Just let whatever is happening run its course, does not work. It doesn't always work. If you allow, and like you said, this administration has continued to move the goalposts, to become more extreme, and everybody just says, "Hey, the cooler heads will prevail," and as we've seen now, what's happening with that, the post-election cycle.

The example I will give you is how I don't think most Americans realize how fast things turn. They think there's going to be a declaration. They don't realize how fast the situation can change from light to dark, and Bosnia's a perfect example. Bosnia, we had the Olympics, and then the next thing I knew, we were in a shooting war. When we were there, I mean, you're there, you're looking at buildings which were used for the Olympics, every single building had damage from the war.

I'm not saying that it's going to happen that extreme tomorrow or anything like that, but actions, the way that Trump and his administration have taken, need to be curbed. Now, we do it administratively, of course, but you cannot allow them to continue, because things change on a dime. Most people seem to have the notion that there's an announcement where today, this is what's going to happen, and on January 20th, this will all go away. You need to nip things in the bud, which is what we've done all over the world.

I'm very concerned with this, and like I said, I'm not a liberal. I've voted conservative before. I did vote for Biden this year, but Donald Trump is a serious threat to the very essence and the existence of democracy, and what we, as veterans, have fought for, and my friends and my brothers have died for.

Brian: Paul, do you want to talk to Ben?

Paul: He's right. We all see it. Especially those of us who've been deployed in combat zones, have dealt with insurgencies, have seen violence up close and personal. These are the most precarious days of our lifetime. The next two months are the most dangerous times in our history that we've been alive for. This is precarious. Our enemies are celebrating. This is the situation we've got now, with a growing pandemic, an unstable president, a contested election, angry people across the country, division everywhere.

This is Kim Jong Un's dream. Putin would love to have this situation. ISIS couldn't have cooked this up in their wildest dreams. We are weak. We are fragile. We are vulnerable, and people will take advantage of that, foreign and domestic. Veterans Day is a good day to wake people up and help them understand the stakes because veterans understand it. We have to find ways to bring down the heat, to project calm. We say in the military a lot to stay frosty, but we've got to stay vigilant, and understand that the two days after the election was called, the president fired the Secretary of Defense.

He fired the Secretary of War, and basically the entire senior leadership. A lame-duck president is a dangerous president, because he has access to a wide range of disruptive and destructive tools. If you think things can't get worse, remember, Donald Trump has access to our nukes. That's how high the stakes are, Brian. We want to talk about veterans issues today but we have to talk about the immediate threat to our democracy, and the future of our country that is unfolding right now.

Brian: Ben, thank you for your call. Please keep calling us. Gina in Newtown, Connecticut. You're on WNYC with Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Hi, Gina.

Gina: Thank you so much, both of you, for this conversation. I agree with so much of what's been said. My husband would not let us celebrate on Saturday because he said we can't celebrate until inauguration, given the fragile state of our democracy. The reason I'm calling is because my godfather served two tours in Vietnam, I'm sorry, and he passed away from COVID in a VA, along with 39 other men and women in his facility.

It was a wonderful VA, I don't blame them at all. They were wonderful, but I'm just wondering, I agree we can't wait for President Trump to take care of our veterans. Are there services, nonprofits, or through the military, that are working together to get better treatments to our veterans and the most effective protocols? What are we doing right now to make sure that this doesn't continue to kill our wonderful veterans in our wonderful facilities across the country?

Brian: Paul, talk to Gina.

Paul: Gina, I'm so sorry for your loss. I'm grateful for the courage that you've displayed in just sharing it, because people need to understand. We say in the military, "Leave no man or woman behind." We are leaving behind people like your father and other people every day. Right now, they're dying in nursing homes, they're getting COVID. If we want to stand up and defend our veterans, wear a damn mask, focus on the virus, practice social distancing, protect our national security. We also have to understand, while the government drags their feet and Trump destroys everything in his path, there are local resources available, and inspiring Americans in the city and everywhere else are mobilizing.

New York City Veterans Alliance is a fantastic resource locally, IAVA, TAPS. There are others. Maybe Brian can link them on his site, but they are out there and they need your support, so if you're not already supporting them, donate, volunteer. We've got to mobilize if our government won't. That's what New Yorkers always do, but especially right now, and especially in fighting the virus.

Brian: Gina, I hope that's helpful. I'm so sorry for your loss and under those circumstances.

Gina: It is. No, I'm so glad y'all are making the space to talk about it, truly.

Brian: Was it one of those care homes that your godfather was in or a hospital per se?

Gina: I hadn't heard that term, care home before. I don't want to say the name of the home because they did lose so many veterans. It was a wonderful place. I don't blame them. There was a combination of a resident area. That was where my godfather was because he had a debilitating brain tumor. They had hundreds of folks in for day programs. I don't know how we would classify that specific facility.

Paul: Brian?

Brian: Gina, thanks. Thank you very much. Paul?

Paul: 76 veterans died in the Holyoke Soldiers' Home, 76. All across the country, there were these enclaves of dozens of veterans dying in veterans' homes; in New Jersey, in Texas, all across the country, and the Trump administration buried it. They weren't testing, they weren't responding, and veterans continued to die. Those are just the ones we know about. If you die at home or you die in a civilian hospital, you don't get counted. I think one of the most glaring examples of the failures of this administration is they don't even know how many veterans have died. They don't know how many have died, and they definitely don't know how many have had it, and they've only tested 800,000 of them.

I think it cuts to the core of the failures of responsibility and integrity, all the values that we talk about on Veterans Day. There's no more glaring example of the failures. I hope it will mobilize people, I hope it'll wake them up, and I hope it'll drive them to action, because this is one of those examples where we can't wait for Trump, we can't wait for Biden. We've got to do what we can locally to help each other.

Brian: We're almost out of time. It's eleven o'clock. We have the news standing by. I want to touch one more thing. The Military Times reported, "This election cycle also features the largest number of women veteran candidates ever, with 24 competing for House seats in addition to the four Senate candidates," who they also list. Can you talk about the role of female veterans in this year's election cycle and the significance of that?

Paul: Absolutely. Mr. Rogers always says, "Look for the helpers when there's crisis." Women veterans are the helpers. All our veterans are helpers, but women veterans are an inspiring example of what's still possible in this country. They are a critical element of our national security, of everything we do. People like Tammy Duckworth, who was rumored for a while as a vice-presidential candidate will probably be rumored as a VA secretary, maybe a defense secretary.

She is an example of the future of our military, the future of our country. A number of them lost, but a number of them won. We may also see, in a Biden administration, I would put money on the first female Secretary of Defense in American history. Whether it's Michelle Howard or Michèle Flournoy, I think you're likely to see the first female defense secretary in a Biden ministration.

Brian: As we finish up with Paul Rieckhoff, founder of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, president of Righteous Media, and host of the podcast, Angry Americans, he is part of a new series as well called While the Rest of Us Die: Secrets of America's Shadow Government, which premieres next Monday, November 16th at ten o'clock Eastern on VICE TV. You want to plug that and tell us what people can expect?

Paul: I think you did a great job of it right there, but if you want to know what can happen in the next couple of months, this series lays it out. We talk about in one episode, for example, the exceptional access to power that a lame-duck president has, how he can access the nukes, the things that you should be concerned about, a lot of the sides of our government that protect the leadership as they should in some ways strategically, but also leave the rest of us hanging out to dry like we've seen on COVID and so many other things.

It's got people like Richard Clarke, former Homeland Security Jeh Johnson, Malcolm Nance. It's narrated by the fantastic Jeffrey Wright of Westworld who is in Brooklyn, doing great work on COVID and so many other things. He was also a guest on my show. I think it's a really important series. Check it out on VICE TV, and you can see the clips online. I think it's another wake-up call. I also hope that, as we say in our show, "You can't just be angry, you've got to be active," I hope this is the kind of show that'll mobilize people to get active, and get involved, and stay vigilant.

Brian: Paul, thanks again.

Paul: Thank you, as always, Brian.

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