Doug Collins, the man President Donald Trump put in charge of slashing the Department of Veterans Affairs, controls the fate of some 9 million veterans who receive health care from VA and 6 million who rely on VA for disability benefits.

Yet when he came before the Senate to testify on Tuesday, it quickly became apparent that Collins, a former congressman from Georgia, lacks even a tenuous grasp on what he is doing.

How many clinical trials has the Trump administration stopped?

“I’d have to get that number back to you.”

How much has been saved from staff reductions so far?

“I’d have to get back to you.”

Sen. John Boozman, an Arkansas Republican, asked why Veterans Affairs cut a program shown to reduce the number of amputations among veterans.

“I’ll have to get back with you on that one,” the secretary answered.

Collins gloated that wait times for VA appointments increased during the Biden administration - but questioning revealed he was unaware that a 2022 change in the way wait-times are calculated made the comparison meaningless. At another point, Collins was asked about Medicaid, which is for the poor and near-poor, and he confused it with Medicare, which is for seniors.

The Trump administration has thrown VA into absolute chaos. The department announced that it was terminating 875 contracts - then announced that it was terminating the terminations. It fired 2,400 workers - then took 1,400 of them back as the dismissals are challenged in court. Across the country, notices have been taped to the doors of VA clinics announcing closures because of staff shortages. The department has ended clinical trials that provided treatments to veterans for cancers, traumatic brain injuries and other illnesses, ProPublica reported on Tuesday. The department even sacked people who worked on the veterans’ suicide prevention hotline, only to hire them back.

And this is but a fraction of the destruction that’s planned: Collins has announced a goal of eliminating 15 percent of VA staff - some 83,000 jobs - without any word about how he intends to go about it. This has spread fear among staff and veterans alike that health care will be curtailed along with the government’s sacred responsibility, as Abraham Lincoln put it, “to care for him who shall have borne the battle.”

What the Trump administration is doing to Veterans Affairs is, in short, a microcosm of what it has been doing to the overall federal government: sabotage without purpose. Or perhaps sabotage is the purpose - a deliberate effort to incapacitate and discredit the government. But Trump sabotages VA at his peril, for veterans have a political clout that, say, the kids affected by the White House’s dismantling of the Education Department don’t enjoy.

Maybe that is why Trump tapped Collins to lead VA, which oversees 155 cemeteries: His main qualification appears to be a talent for whistling past the graveyard.

“We’ve been met by a barrage of false rumors, innuendo, disinformation, speculation implying firing doctors and nurses, and forcing staff to work in closets and showers, and that there’s chaos in the department - none of which has been backed up,” Collins protested to the senators. In the secretary’s account, VA is merely “phasing out nonessential roles like interior designers.”

VA has 83,000 interior designers?

Even Republicans on the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee were not sympathetic to the familiar cry of fake news coming from Collins.

The GOP chairman, Jerry Moran of Kansas, told Collins that there is “understandable concern among veterans and VA staff, as well as many of us here on the dais.”

Yet, asked by Moran to name the “most significant areas of concern for the VA,” Collins returned to whining: “I think one of the most interesting things for me in the first 100 days is constantly fighting rumor and innuendo.” And the chairman cautioned that those “who entered public service to care for veterans” should be treated “with gratitude and respect.”

Collins couldn’t manage to adhere to such sentiments, as he repeatedly condemned the “broken” bureaucracy and systems of the agency he runs. Instead of reason, he reacted to the senators with Trumpian rage. He informed Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Connecticut), the ranking Democrat, that “you have no knowledge of what you just said.”

But the hapless secretary got tangled in his own fury. “There’s not been 83,000 people targeted for firing,” he raged, mocking this as nothing more than “a nice talking point.”

“It’s your talking point,” Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-New Hampshire) pointed out. “We’re quoting you saying that’s your goal.”

“It is our goal,” Collins shot back.

Not for the first time, I found myself wondering: As Trump and his appointees try to vandalize the U.S. government, could the Republic be saved by their incompetence?