By
Jon Reid
November 21, 2016 at 3:19 pm ET
Former Sen. Scott Brown said Monday that President-elect Donald Trump is considering him for secretary of Veterans Affairs.
“We obviously spoke about my passion and his passion, which is veterans and veterans’ issues. I think it’s the toughest job in the Cabinet is to lead the VA, because while it has so many angels working there, it has so many great problems as well,” Brown told reporters after meeting with Trump in his Manhattan skyscraper.
Brown, a former Massachusetts senator and Army National Guard veteran, said he expects Trump to announce his pick to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs after the Thanksgiving holiday.
If nominated, Brown said he would work to lower the suicide rate among veterans and reduce their wait times to receive health care, which was at the center of a 2014 scandal at the agency.
“There’s still high suicide. There’s still long lines,” Brown said in the lobby of Trump Tower. “There’s still I think a culture of kind of putting the soldiers as a second-class person versus making it a top priority. There have been some improvements but there needs to be, with all due respect, a tremendous amount of work there.”