In his 2020 run for the presidency, Joe Biden presented himself as a true friend of veterans. Unlike his Republican opponent, Biden actually had a son who served in the Army National Guard and won a Bronze Star for his service in Iraq. He and his wife Jill stressed their personal connection to other military families. Biden criticized Donald Trump for the “poor organizational performance, staff shortfalls, leadership gaps, and IT systems failures” of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) during his administration.

Biden accused Trump of trying “to privatize and dismantle the VA” and pledged that he would never “defund” the nation’s largest public health care system, whose 9 million patients get treatment that is “specialized, supportive, and second to none.” Referencing his son Beau’s service on military bases with burn pits and his later death from brain cancer, Biden promised an expedited study of such toxic exposures and their possible impact on hundreds of thousands of other post-9/11 combat veterans.

During his March 1 State of the Union address, the president introduced the widow of an Iraq War veteran from Ohio, who died of lung cancer after being stationed “just yards from burn pits the size of football fields” near Baghdad. He informed Congress that, under his leadership, the VA was now “pioneering new ways of linking toxic exposures to disease” and “helping more veterans get benefits” for respiratory conditions related to their military service. He proposed legislation to further insure that “veterans devastated by toxic exposures in Iraq and Afghanistan finally get the benefits and the comprehensive healthcare that they deserve.”