President-elect Trump may be considering Lockheed Martin Senior Vice President Leo Mackay to lead the embattled Department of Veterans Affairs, one of the final two Cabinet-level agencies that remain leaderless in the incoming administration.
Mackay, who served as deputy VA secretary under President George W. Bush, told reporters in Trump Tower on Tuesday that he and Trump had a “good discussion” when the two met earlier in the day.
“The president-elect is up on the issues and very concerned about the department and veterans issues,” Mackay said. “He’s a first-class veterans advocate and we had a good conversation.”
Mackay brushed off questions about whether he is considering the VA post, telling reporters who pressed him on it: “We’ll see.”
“Things are progressing, we’ll keep having a conversation,” he said.
Mackay is one of several finalists for the top job at VA, according to Stars and Stripes.
Two others, Luis Quinonez of IQ Management and Toby Cosgrove of the Cleveland Clinic, have reportedly dropped out of contention after meeting with Trump.
Other rumored contenders have included former Sen. Scott Brown, former House Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller and Fox News contributor Pete Hegseth, who helped grow Concerned Veterans for America into an influential veterans’ advocacy group.
But the transition team has declined to lay out a timeline for selecting a VA secretary.
Sean Spicer, incoming White House press secretary, declined to tell reporters on a conference call Tuesday whether Mackay is in the running for the position.
The VA secretary search carries unusual significance for the Trump team given how intensely the president-elect focused on veterans issues during his campaign. Trump regularly blasted the VA as a prime example of the Obama administration’s failures given that the VA suffered the largest scandal in its history on Obama’s watch when, in 2014, whistleblowers exposed the agency’s nationwide use of fake patient waiting lists to conceal long delays in health care.
The transition team did not immediately return a request for comment about whether Mackay is under consideration for the VA secretary position.
