President-elect Donald Trump tapped former Rep. Doug Collins, a longtime ally and military veteran, to head the Department of Veterans Affairs on Thursday evening.
Collins is the latest in the flurry of nominations Trump has made to top federal agencies ahead of his January inauguration.
Here’s everything you need to know about the person who is set to be the next VA secretary and how he could change the agency.
Georgia lawmaker
Collins spent four terms representing Georgia’s 9th Congressional District. Between 2013 and 2021, he ascended to the rank of vice chairman of the House Republican Conference and was also a member of the House Rules Committee, which is one of the most powerful committees in the lower chamber.
He also ascended to the top Republican position on the House Judiciary Committee in January 2019, subsequently emerging as a powerful defender of Trump during his first impeachment that year.
Labeling the impeachment a “sham,” Collins said it was based on “lies” at the time.
Collins retired from Congress after making an unsuccessful run for one of Georgia’s senate seats in 2020. He has since served as a legal counsel to Trump, including leading concerns in Georgia over how votes were counted in the state after the former president’s loss during the 2020 presidential election.
Iraq War veteran
Trump hailed the ex-Georgia lawmaker on Thursday as “a Veteran himself, who currently serves our Nation as a Chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command, and fought for our Country in the Iraq War.”
Collins served a combat tour in 2008 and has been an Air Force Reserve chaplain since 2002, where he continues to be on call as lieutenant colonel reservist.
“Together, we’ll make the VA work for those who fought for us. Time to deliver for our veterans and give them the world class care they deserve,” Collins said in a post to X responding to Trump’s announcement.
Role in 2024 election
Collins notably led efforts to help keep independent and third-party candidates on the ballot during the 2024 presidential elections, a move that likely helped pull votes from Vice President Kamala Harris in swing states.
Responding to Democratic affiliates Clear Choice, American Bridge, and Third Way, which sought to keep candidates such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornel West, and Jill Stein off the presidential ballot, Collins pulled a counter punch with his own group, the Fair Election Fund.
“The Democrats openly ran around this spring thumping their chests about how they were going to war against third party candidates and trying to limit the choices of the American people at the ballot box,” Collins told RealClearPolitics in October.
Democrats attacked his efforts, saying “Republicans are admitting … to buying nearly a million dollars of paid media to prop up Jill Stein and Cornel West’s spoiler candidacies.”
One adviser to the Democratic National Convention told the outlet that “Jill Stein delivered Trump the presidency in 2016 and she’s working alongside his closest allies to do it again in 2024. Thanks to Fair Election Fund for making it clear that a vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.”
Collins, however, called Democratic challenges to third-party ballot access a “vote suppression scheme,” and described his Fair Election Fund as an effort to ensure the “fairness of our elections by stopping Democrats from blocking Harris’s competition from the ballot and disenfranchising” voters.
Potential changes to the VA
Collins will have a hefty load on his shoulders as head of the VA. As one of the country’s largest federal agencies, the VA has a $68 billion annual budget that oversees healthcare for more than 9.1 million veterans.
The agency has come under increased scrutiny in recent years, as it has overseen a backlog of claims, with veteran suicides increasing by 11.6% since 2020. Meanwhile, homelessness among veterans increased by 7.4% in 2023.
Trump has indicated he wants to reform the veteran’s agency and suggested in his first presidential debate against Biden in June that the Democratic administration had prioritized illegal immigrants over veterans.
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“Just take a look at where they’re living,” Trump said of illegal immigrants. “They’re living in luxury hotels in New York City and other places. Our veterans are on the street, they’re dying, because he doesn’t care about our veterans.”
As head of the VA, Collins said he would “fight tirelessly to streamline and cut regulations in the VA, root out corruption, and ensure every veteran receives the benefits they’ve earned.”