Rick Perry is not leaving his post as head of the Department of Energy, he said in an exclusive interview with the Washington Examiner Thursday afternoon.
“The president knows I like where I am,” Perry said. “He knows that we have done a really good job of keeping this agency focused, particularly in those areas he is interested in: selling American, running an agency effectively.”
Perry said he discussed a wide range of issues with President Trump on Monday, but switching jobs was not one of them. Reports had said Monday’s meeting with Perry was to discuss his leaving the Energy Department to lead the Department of Veterans Affairs.
“We talked about a lot of different things,” Perry said. “What he didn’t talk about was me changing jobs. I know there is a lot of interest in that in the last 48 to 72 hours.”
He said they discussed veterans issues, but those had to do with areas that Energy Department and the VA are collaborating on, such as the Million Veteran initiative and the ACTIV program.
“As a rule that I don’t break, I don’t talk about my conversations with the president,” he said. “One thing I will tell you, we talked about some veterans issues, because we have a program over here called ACTIV, which we use our massive computing capability to deal with traumatic brain injury, traumatic stress, some mental sides of the veteran world.”
Perry said the data the agency will make available on those health concerns “is literally going to change the world, if you had traumatic brain injury or been affected by post-traumatic stress.”
Perry said he brought up his department’s veterans activities. “That was my job to share that with him, so that he understands the importance of what we’re doing over here,” Perry said.
Perry said Trump is “curious” about his work at the department. “He asked a lot of questions. He wants to know what’s going on, ‘What have you been doing? How’s this sector, that sector doing?’”
The meeting lasted one hour, but they “covered the watershed,” Perry said. “We talked about a lot of different things.”
