Obama: If True, V.A. Allegations 'Disgraceful'
BLITZER: We're continuing to monitor the breaking news out of the Denver, Colorado, area where there have been tornadoes on the ground, not far away from the Denver International Airport. You have heard a bunch of storm chasers report on what's going on. Heavy, heavy hailstorms in the midst of all of these tornadoes. We'll continue to monitor what's going on in the Denver, Colorado, area. Stay with us for that. Meanwhile, there's other news we're watching, including the exploding scandal of V.A. hospitals finally drawing a direct response from President Obama. The controversy has been growing since CNN first reported fraudulent record-keeping and the deaths of dozens of veterans waiting for care. Now the president says he won't stand for that. He's ordering the V.A. to speed up its review of the entire situation. President Obama isn't getting rid of his embattled secretary, at least not yet. We have full coverage, Drew Griffin who broke the story for CNN. He's standing by. And we'll have our correspondents and guests. And let's get to the White House first, though. our senior White House correspondent, Jim Acosta has the very latest -- Jim.</s>JIM ACOSTA, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Wolf, in his first comments on the V.A. scandal in four weeks, President Obama is vowing action and accountability. But that's not good enough for the president's critics, who want heads to roll now.</s>ACOSTA (voice-over): For President Obama it's another "buck stops here" moment. This time over allegations of veteran wait times at V.A. Facilities.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: If these allegations prove to be true it is dishonorable, it is disgraceful and I will not tolerate it, period.</s>ACOSTA: After meeting with the Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki, the praised the general he called "Rick," but he suggested the secretary's days may be numbered pending an internal investigation.</s>OBAMA: I've said to Rick, and I said it to him today, I want to see what the results of these reports are, and there is going to be accountability.</s>ACOSTA: Veterans groups were quick to slam the president's comments, the American Legion saying his decision to keep Secretary Shinseki at his post is an unfortunate one. Even Democrats are pouncing.</s>REP. DAVID SCOTT (D), GEORGIA: Mr. President, we need urgency. We need you to roll up our sleeves and get into these hospitals.</s>ACOSTA: The White House faces a political crisis that's building with 26 V.A. facilities now under investigation.</s>OBAMA: I don't yet know. Are there a lot of other facilities that have been cooking the books? Or is this just an episodic problem?</s>ACOSTA: This is not the first time the president has been caught off guard by its administration's failures. The president touted HealthCare.gov before it launched.</s>OBAMA: -- on Kayak.</s>ACOSTA: Then found it didn't work.</s>OBAMA: Nobody is madder than me about the fact that the Web site isn't working as well as it should.</s>ACOSTA: Republicans charge there's a pattern, pointing to his response to the IRS scandal.</s>OBAMA: I first learned about it from the same news reports that I think most people learned about this. I think it was on Friday.</s>ACOSTA: And the president's crisis management is also familiar, standing by Shinseki as he did with HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. (on camera): Is he too detached from some of the nuts and bolts of running the government, running the administration?</s>JAY CARNEY, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think if you look at the way the president handles a challenge like the Web site and handles this challenge, he responds by demanding action.</s>ACOSTA: And so far, the only action the president took today is demanding that his secretary of veterans affairs, Shinseki, complete that internal investigation that he has under way right now and that his top aide, Rob Nabors, finishes the broader review of the department by next month. And, Wolf, as we've seen in crises past here at the White House, this administration is back in bunker mode -- Wolf.</s>BLITZER: Jim Acosta at the White House, thank you. President Obama made at least a dozen claims about ways in which the administration has improved services for veterans. Tom Foreman has been doing a fact check for us. So what are you finding out, Tom?</s>TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Wolf. The president's claims about the facts are clearly designed to bolster the very things that Jim Acosta was talking about. But some veterans advocates say those facts do not tell the whole story. And neither did he.</s>OBAMA: We have made progress over the last five years.</s>FOREMAN (voice-over): Claim: veterans among funding has been boosted to record levels. True, the V.A.'s budget request for this year is $164 billion, way up from a few years back, when it was $113 billion. What's missing? The White House is facing overall budget issues may not yet be asking for enough to provide promise services to all the vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, according to some veterans advocates.</s>ALEX NICHOLSON, IRAQ AND AFGHANISTAN VETERANS OF AMERICA: As they say in the Army, failing to plan is planning to fail. And it is clear the V.A. Has failed to plan for the numbers of troops and vets that it was going to be services for years now.</s>FOREMAN: Claim: the V.A. has slashed the backlog of disability claims cases by half in the past year.</s>OBAMA: We launched an all-out war on the disability claims backlog.</s>FOREMAN: Also true but complicated. Claims rose in 2011 after a court decided 150,000 cases involved with troops exposed to Agent Orange, cases which had been decided, must be reconsidered. The V.A. instituted new procedures which would cut down on that spike, and the secretary made a big promise.</s>GEN. ERIC SHINSEKI, SECRETARY OF VETERANS AFFAIRS: We're open for business, and we'll end the backlog in 2015.</s>FOREMAN: That could be a stretch, but supporters say he's made a good start.</s>UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can't just get to the bottom of something like this in a week.</s>FOREMAN: Claim: the V.A. has reduced homelessness among vets. In 2009, almost 76,000 vets were homeless. The administration missed its goal last year but still saw the number fall to about 58,000.</s>OBAMA: We've helped hundreds of thousands of veterans find a job.</s>FOREMAN: Claim: the administration is helping veterans find jobs. The jobless rate for all veterans in 2009 was 8.1 percent. By 2013, it was down to 6.6 percent. That's better than what the general population has experienced, although the numbers are not nearly so good for younger vets.</s>FOREMAN: Now, of course, many veterans groups will say there are still plenty of very serious problems out there that they are concerned about. And they accuse the president of shading the facts to fit his politics. But that aside, Wolf, the facts in the areas he raised seemed to put him on fairly firm ground to say the administration has been making progress on this.</s>BLITZER: Tom Foreman, thank you. Our senior investigative correspondent, Drew Griffin, who first broke the story, is joining us now from Phoenix, which has become the epicenter of the V.A. Also joining us, Lou Celli, who's the legislative director of the American Legion. Drew, let me get to you first, your reaction to what the president had to say today.</s>DREW GRIFFIN, CNN SENIOR INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT: I was somewhat taken aback by what he said today for this reason. I thought this was something the president could have come out and said months ago when these allegations first broke, that he was mad, that he wouldn't stand for it, that we're going to investigate and find out. But a month later, a month of all of this reporting, Wolf, and quite frankly, after all this evidence from the government's own reports, the V.A.'s own reports, from these memos that have surfaced that this is a systemic problem to come out now a month later, and say, "If true, I want to hold somebody accountable. We're going to look into this"? I felt it was a lack of substance in actually doing something other than what Eric Shinseki told the Senate last week. Have patience, we're looking into it.</s>BLITZER: Let me bring Lou Celli into this conversation from the American Legion. Your organization, a powerful organization, very important organization. You want the secretary of veterans affairs, Eric Shinseki, to step down. The president says he's in the middle of an investigation right now. He's got an audit under way. The inspector general's report is about to come out. He doesn't want to fire someone, at least not yet until he has all the information. What's wrong with that?</s>LOU CELLI, AMERICAN LEGION: Well, Wolf, the president has had the information, and so has Secretary Shinseki, at least since 2010. There was a memo that had come out that was introduced last Thursday that specifically said these are the ways that the V.A. is gaming the system. We need it to stop, we need it to stop immediately. So for four years, Secretary Shinseki had the time to get in front of this and to put an end to it. And now we're just hearing from the president today that now is the time for it to stop. The time for it to stop was four years ago. Secretary Shinseki was brought in specifically after Chief</s>BLITZER: You've totally lost confidence in him. You are the American spokesperson now for the American Legion. You want him to go away?</s>CELLI: It's time -- It's time for -- We believe at this point, Secretary Shinseki is nothing more than a distraction. The only time that we're going to be able to watch the V.A. start to heal and get better is after this leadership is done, we start to infuse new leadership, we start to clean it up from the middle, from the bottom and from the top.</s>BLITZER: Let me go back to Drew. Drew, one of the arguments you hear being made is that there may be problems at 30 or 40 V.A. facilities across the country, including where you are in Phoenix right now, but there are hundreds of others where there have been no problems. And you can't just go along with these problems that some of these hospitals and other facilities and ignore all the good work that's being done elsewhere?</s>GRIFFIN: Of course you can't ignore the good work. But, you know, this is the problem with the bad work, and the bad work needs to be fixed. Because veterans aren't receiving -- not receiving care. And the allegations are that many of them have died out here in Phoenix. And we know dozens of veterans, two dozen veterans have died because of delayed care. So just focusing on the positive spin is not going to make the bad stuff any better. I just want to add one thing. I talked to some would-be whistle- blowers last night, today, people who want to come out and tell their stories, who were looking for some direction last week from Eric Shinseki. They wanted assurance that, if they came out and told the truth, that they wouldn't be retaliated against by V.A. administration. There is a very big fear factor. They didn't fear that. And they're telling me they're not coming out right now, because they're afraid of ruining their career or ruining their reputation reporting these things to a V.A. administration they believe is not listening to them.</s>BLITZER: Drew Griffin, who has been doing excellent reporting on this breaking news story from the very beginning, thanks very much. Lou Celli from the American Legion, thanks to you, as well. Coming up, stunning new allegations against the Los Angeles Clippers owner, Donald Sterling. Shocking revelations as his girlfriend now goes public with Dr. Phil.</s>V. STIVIANO, GIRLFRIEND OF DONALD STERLING: Mr. Sterling also said that I'm an animal in bed. So what do you want me to tell you? How am I supposed to know why he says the things he said. This is why I recorded it.