Updated at 9:58 p.m. ET The pick wasn't surprising, but the announcement was – President Trump will nominate Robert Wilkie, the acting secretary of Veterans Affairs, to become the department's new secretary. Trump was speaking at a meeting on prison reform at the White House when he veered off topic to introduce Wilkie to the room. Trump praised the job Wilkie has been doing since he stepped in at the VA from the Department of Defense in March, and then gave everyone a surprise, including Wilkie. "Acting secretary Wilkie, who by the way has done an incredible job, and by the way I'll be informing him in a little while – he doesn't know this yet — that we'll be putting his name up for nomination," the president said at the event. The announcement was met with applause and appeared to be wholly unplanned. Wilkie, who still holds his job as undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, showed no signs of having been warned, a reaction that seemed to please Trump. "I'm sorry I
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