‘Innuendo And Rumor Stories’: VA Secretary Collins Blasts Media Hacktivist’s Anti-DOGE Hatchet Job
First, it was ABC’s Martha Raddatz. Then, it was CBS’s Margaret Brennan. And now, Military.com’s Patricia Kime is the latest member of the propaganda press to get a well-deserved scolding from the Trump administration for masquerading her left-wing activism as reporting.
The moment came during a newly released sit-down exchange between Kime and Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins. The former congressman was sworn into the position last month following a bipartisan vote in the U.S. Senate.
“I need your help on something. I need your help because all I seem to be doing lately is fighting back against innuendo and rumor stories,” Collins told Kime. “In fact, Patricia, part of it is with you.”
The VA secretary took specific aim at a Feb. 5 story authored by Kime titled, “Elon Musk Aide Is Now Working at VA and Accessing Its Computer Systems.” Citing unconfirmed reports, the Military.com reporter wrote in her piece that, “Rumors began circulating Tuesday that DOGE representatives visited the VA on Tuesday with an intent to mine data on disability compensation and benefits.”
Passing what appeared to be a copy of the article to Kime, Collins criticized the so-called “journalist” for sensationalizing the unconfirmed rumors about the VA’s operations and asked her to commit to not publish similarly shoddy work in the future.
“When you start headlines with ‘there’s a rumor going around,’ and … ‘we’ve heard that,’ that hurts my veterans. That scares my veterans. That scares my employees, because it’s not true,” Collins said. “Will you commit to not doing that in the future?”
“Well, there was a DOGE representative [at the VA] that day,” Kime replied.
The VA secretary quickly shot back, saying that he has “a VA employee who is our DOGE liaison,” and that Kime “knew that, and could ask that question.”
“Nobody hid that from you. Nobody. We answered it, but it was reported as a rumor,” Collins later added.
In her poorly written hatchet job, Kime cited comments from VA Press Secretary Pete Kasperowicz, who said that the agency has a single DOGE official who is “specifically focused on identifying wasteful contracts, improving VA operations and strengthening management of the department’s IT projects.” Despite confirming that this DOGE employee “will not have access to veterans’ or VA beneficiaries’ data,” Kasperowicz’s comments were mentioned below the fearmongering headline and the “rumors” in the story.
Collins went on to blast Kime for later including unsubstantiated Feb. 4 remarks from Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., who claimed she heard DOGE “may have barged into VA today.”
“Unconfirmed hearsay,” Collins said. “You know what you’d have done if I was a member of Congress and probably done that? ‘Unconfirmed report,’ but you didn’t put ‘unconfirmed report.’ So, Patricia, I wanna work together with you, but I need you to commit to me that you’re not gonna do this.”
Kime seemed to acknowledge the VA secretary’s criticisms were “fair,” before attempting to move on to a separate question without pledging to abide by Collins’ request. Collins interjected, again asking Kime to commit to “not … do rumors.”
“[Y]ou’re scaring my VA employees about this, and you’re scaring my veterans,” Collins said.
Kime tepedily agreed to Collins’ request, but then seemingly attempted to run cover for potential future hit pieces based on unsubstantiated claims by saying, “a rumor is different than if I have a source.”
“Then you source it to our PR people and let them know,” Collins responded.
This eventually led to a short back and forth between the two, which resulted in Kime whining, “I take issue with parsing out my stuff.”
“I want to work with you a lot as we go forward. We’re gonna have a lot of time together. But I’m not gonna have any reporter scaring my employees and scaring the veterans, and that’s what this is doing,” Collins said. “Let’s get it right.”
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He previously served as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
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