Rep. Mike Coffman, a Colorado Republican who has prominently led the charge to have a Veterans Affairs hospital stifled by bureaucratic delays built in his district, joked he'd like to put VA leadership in charge of ISIS on Friday.
"I was speaking before a group the other day and said it's too bad we can't take VA leadership and export it and give it to some of our adversaries around the planet. Let them suffer under VA's leadership," said Coffman.
"Can you imagine if the VA was in charge of ISIS?" he added using the beheading comparison.
"They'd probably say: 'Oh, you know if wasn't quite 2,000 that we beheaded, it was really 24… is the accurate number. And we're sorry that, in fact, they were all our own terrorists that we beheaded because they got misclassified in the system as Christians.'"
"I mean that would be, um…that would be the VA in charge of ISIS. So, clearly we need to clean house. We need better leadership. The president needs to be engaged on this and other issues."
"I don't know what they're putting in your orange juice back there but... that was great," the radio host replied to Coffman.
A Coffman spokesman said the comments were, "a controversy only with liberals and the Washington outrage machine. His sarcastic point was obvious - the VA is an organizational disaster."
Coffman was recently the lead sponsor of a bipartisan bill to get more funding to build the Aurora, Colorado, VA hospital. The project is the most expensive in VA history dues to delays and cost overruns. Additionally, the VA has faced intense scrutiny over the last year for massive waiting lists and delays in care to veterans.