President Donald Trump said Monday he may step in and settle a controversy that brewed from Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly firing a captain of a coronavirus-infected air craft carrier and then giving a controversial defense of his actions.
Moldy told sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt that their fired captain was ‘naive’ and ‘stupid’ for the missive he wrote complaining about the lack of help from the Navy and then complained about the flak he was receiving for relieving Captain Brett Crozier of his command.
‘I must tell you have heard very good things about both gentlemen,’ President Trump said Monday when he was asked about it at the daily White House coronavirus briefing.
He acknowledged Modly used ‘tough language’ when he addressed the sailors and said he may wade into in the situation.
President Trump said Captain Brett Crozier made a mistake when he sent a letter decrying the Navy’s response to a coronavirus outbreak on the USS Theodore Roosevelt but said he shouldn’t have his career destroyed for ‘having a bad day’
‘Believe it or not, I am good at settling arguments. I’m good at settling these arguments. So I may look into it in great detail, in detail. I’ll be able to figure out very fast,’ the president said.
Trump also said Crozier shouldn’t have sent the memo that ended up leaked to the media, which led to Modly removing the captain from his command. But, he noted, the captain had a great career prior to the incident and shouldn’t have that destroyed for ‘having a bad day.’
‘With all of that said, his career prior to that was very good. So I’m going to get involved and see exactly was going on. I don’t want to destroy somebody for having a bad day,’ the president said.
‘He shouldn’t be writing letters like that. But it happens. Sometimes I’ll write a letter that I’ll say I wish I didn’t send it. Not too often but it happens,’ Trump said.
When pressed, President Trump declined to say what he may do for Crozier but said he would speak to Modly and Defense Secretary Mark Esper about it.
‘The only thing that has played right up here with me is that I looked at his record,’ Trump said, pointing to his head as he talked about Crozier. ‘He’s been an outstanding person. If he wasn’t, I wouldn’t even be talking about this. He’s been an outstanding person. He’s had a very exemplary military career.’
The president then went on to praise Crozier’s military record: ‘He started off as a helicopter pilot. They called him chopper. He was a great helicopter pilot. Takes tremendous skill. Then he went to F-16s or f-18’s and he was tremendous pilot and then he was very smart, he studied nuclear energy and he was fantastic and very few people have the aptitude, that they have the mentality to do that. Nuclear energy is very complex, it’s very hard, very few people can do it. And he did it well.’
Trump repeated that the captain merely made ‘a mistake’ in sending the missive and indicated Crozier shouldn’t have to pay for it with his military career.
‘He made a mistake. He made a mistake. And maybe we are going to make that mistake not destroy his life,’ he said.
President Trump said he may settle a controversy that brewed from Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly firing a captain from a coronavirus-infected ship
Thomas Modly, President Trump’s acting Navy secretary, told sailors on the USS Theodore Roosevelt that their fired captain was ‘naive’ and ‘stupid’
Modly flew to Guam over the weekend, where the Theodore Roosevelt is docked as 5,000 crew members get tested after a coronavirus outbreak on the aircraft carrier. He was there to address the sailors, who cheered Crozier as he left the ship after Modly relieved him of his command.
But his speech became a controversy of its own when he criticized Crozier for the scathing memo he wrote to Navy officials, where the captain pleaded to be able to take the Roosevelt to dock to try and contain the growing out break on the ship.
‘We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,’ Crozier wrote in the four-page missive, which was leaked to the media and ignited a fire storm of controversy for the Navy.
Modly, in remarks sent over the ship’s PA system, blasted the captain for going outside the chain of command.
‘If he didn’t think, in my opinion, that this information wasn’t going to get out into the public, in this day and information age we live in, then he was either A) too naïve or too stupid to be a commanding officer of a ship like this. The alternative is that he did this on purpose,’ the navy secretary told the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt in a speech obtained by the Daily Caller.
After Modly called Crozier ‘naive,’ a person on the ship is heard shouting ‘shut the f*** up,’ on an audio recording of the address.
Modly’s speech leaked like wildfire and brought a new firestorm of criticism on the acting Navy secretary with some saying his speech made the situation surrounding Crozier’s dismissal worse.
He defended his remarks in a statement.
‘I have not listened to a recording of my remarks since speaking to the crew so I cannot verify if the transcript is accurate. The spoken words were from the heart, and meant for them. I stand by every word I said, even, regrettably any profanity that may have been used for emphasis. Anyone who has ever served on a Navy ship would understand. I ask, but don’t expect, that people would read them in their entirety,’ he said.
A handout photo made available by the US Navy shows medical staff taking a swab sample for COVID-19 testing aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt at Apra Harbor, Guam
Captain Brett Crozier was relieved of his duties after a memo he wrote complaining the Navy wasn’t doing enough to help with a coronavirus outbreak on his ship went viral
Acting Navy Secretary Tom Modly, seen with President Donald Trump at the December Army-Navy game, said he fired the captain because he thought Trump would want him to
Modly also used his speech to the crew to attack the media for printing Crozier’s memo.
‘I’m gonna tell you something, all of you, there is never a situation where you should consider the media a part of your chain of command,’ he noted in his remarks. ‘You can jump the chain of command if you want and take the consequences, you can disobey the chain of command and take the consequences, but there is no, no situation where you go to the media, because the media has an agenda, and the agenda that they have depends on which side of the political aisle they sit. I’m sorry that’s the way the country is now but it’s the truth and so they use it to divide us and use it to embarrass the Navy. They use it to embarrass you.’
He then went on to complain about the hate being levied at him for firing the ‘hero’ captain, as Crozier is being referred to by supporters online.
‘I cannot control or attempt to change whatever anger you have with me for relieving your beloved CO. If I could offer you a glimpse of the level of hatred and pure evil that has been thrown my way, my family’s way and they are taking care of people on the shore who are busting their asses to get them off this ship. They aren’t taking shots at them. They’re asking how can we help them,’ Modly said.
The backlash to Modly’s decision has been intense and support for the captain is strong. The crew of Theodore Roosevelt applauded Crozier as he descended the gangplank of the nuclear-powered ship after Modly relieved him.
In his 15 minutes of remarks, Modly lectured the crew to do their duty and stop complaining even as he complained about his treatment after his decision to relieve Crozier.
‘I’m gonna give ya little bit of advice to make this important – and often difficult – job far easier on yourselves. My best advice to you is don’t ever be – don’t ever worry – about being loved for what you do. Rather, love the country you are asked to defend. Love the constitution you pledged your life to protect. And, most importantly, love the people you are ordered to lead. Make sure they eat before you do, care about their families as much as your own, be invested in their success far more than your own accomplishments. Nurture their careers more than you pursue your own advancement and value their lives to the point that you will always consider their safety in every single decision you make,’ he said.
He told the crew: ‘You are under no obligation to love your leadership, only respect it. You are under no obligation to like your job, only to do it. You are under no obligation, you are under no obligation to expect anything from your leaders other than they will treat you fairly and put the mission of the ship first.’
Then he went on: ‘That’s your duty. Not to complain. Everyone is scared about this thing. And let me tell ya something, if this ship was in combat and there were hypersonic missiles coming in at it, you’d be pretty f***ing scared too. But you do your jobs. And that’s what I expect you to. And that’s what I expect every officer on this ship to do, is to do your jobs.’
He acknowledged he received a list of questions from the crew that he would answer once he was back in his office in Washington D.C.
‘I got your list of questions. I’m very, very thankful to have gotten them. I know they’re all sincere. I don’t think there is any agenda in any of those. But there’s a lot of them and I’m gonna answer every single one of them. But I’ve gotta do it respectfully, and I’ve gotta take some time so you understand all the nuances of the questions you are asking. And there’s a lot of them here. So rather than answer them all today I’m going to take them back with me to Washington and I’m going to answer them,’ he said.
Modly also brought up former Vice President Joe Biden, who said the decision to relieve Crozier was ‘close to criminal.’
‘It’s not about me. The former Vice President of the United States Joe Biden suggested just yesterday that my decision was criminal. I assure you that it was not. Because I understand the facts and those facts show that what your captain did was very, very wrong in a moment when we expected him to be the calming force on a turbulent sea,’ he told the crew, many of who have hailed Crozier a ‘hero’ for his actions.
‘There was very little upside in this decision for me. You can believe that or not. I made a decision for the Navy I love, for the Navy I serve in and now serve for, and mostly for the sailors I am responsible for. Not just here but on nearly 300 other ships in the fleet. Your captain’s actions had implications for them too. Imagine if every other CO also believed the media was a proper channel to air grievances with their chain of command under difficult circumstances. We would no longer have a Navy. Not long after that, we would no longer have a country,’ Modly added.
And he concluded with these words: ‘Still I understand that you may be angry with me for the rest of your lives. I guarantee that you won’t be alone. Being angry is not your duty. Your duty is to each other, to this ship and to the nation that build it for you to protect them. Even in the midst of unexpected crisis, it is the mission of this ship that matters. Our adversaries are watching and that is why we are here. We will get you the help that you need. You have my personal word on it. Your CO had my personal word on that from day one. Whatever else you may think of me, I don’t go back on my word. And when it comes the T-R – whether you hate me or not – I will never, ever, ever, ever give up the ship. And neither should you. Thanks for listening and I’ll get the detailed answers to your questions to you sometime later this week. Go Navy.’
In his 15 minutes of remarks, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly lectured the crew of the USS Theodore Roosevelt to do their duty and stop complaining even as he complained about his treatment after his decision to relieve Crozier.
In this Nov. 15, 2019, photo U.S. Navy Capt. Brett Crozier, commanding officer of the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), addresses the crew
Many sailors on the Roosevelt praised Crozier for his actions and for being a leader when the sailors needed him.
‘He had legitimate concerns about his sailors, asked for help in a respectful and honorable way, and then they relieved him of duty’ one Roosevelt sailor told The Wall Street Journal.
‘Seriously, that’s crazy. If anything the guy deserves a promotion. That’s the type of leadership they lack, but the type they need,’ another said.
The acting Navy secretary defended his decision in an interview with The Washington Post, where he explained he fired Crozier because he thought that was what President Trump would want.
‘I didn’t want to get into a decision where the president would feel that he had to intervene because the Navy couldn’t be decisive,’ Modly said: ‘If I were president, and I saw a commanding officer of a ship exercising such poor judgment, I would be asking why the leadership of the Navy wasn’t taking action itself.’
He said he did not speak to anyone in the White House before he made his decision.
But Modly also recounted how his predecessor, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, ‘lost his job because the Navy Department got crossways with the president’ in the case of former Navy Seal Eddie Gallagher.
‘I didn’t want that to happen again,’ Modly said.
And the president made it clear he agreed with the decision to terminate Crozier.
‘I thought it was terrible, what he did, to write a letter. I mean, this isn’t a class on literature. This is a captain of a massive ship that’s nuclear powered. And he shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter,’ Trump said.
Captain Brett Crozier was relieved of his command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt on Thursday, two days after his letter calling to evacuate the aircraft carrier was leaked in the media. Video posted to social media on Thursday shows hundreds of sailors aboard the ship bidding a raucous farewell and saluting their fired commander
Trump went against Spencer’s recommendation and reversed a demotion Gallagher received from the Navy.
Gallagher was accused of multiple offenses during his final deployment to Iraq, including the murder of a prisoner of war. Ultimately, a court only convicted him on one count. He was sentenced to time served and demoted.
Modly recounted that situation in his interview with The Post.
‘I put myself in the president’s shoes. I considered how the president felt like he needed to get involved in Navy decisions [in the Gallagher case and the Spencer firing]. I didn’t want that to happen again,’ he said.
Modly is a graduate of the Naval Academy who spent seven years as a U.S. Navy officer before working in the private sector. He’s served as acting secretary of the Navy since November.
The Pentagon failed to provide DailyMail.com with the rank Modly held when he left the Navy or to confirm that he left with an honorable discharge.
In early March, the USS Theodore Roosevelt made a stop in Vietnam. As it headed back out to sea, crew members began falling ill to the coronavirus with the highly contagious disease spreading rapidly throughout the ship.
The numbers rose from from three initially to more than 150 sailors affected.
In his memo, Crozier complained about the limitations of the coronavirus test, saying seven who tested negative displayed symptoms of infection one to three days later.
He also pointed out the ship’s close quarters made it unable to comply with the recommended social distancing guidelines.
He wrote that bunk space, shared meals and bathroom spaces are ‘most conducive’ to spreading the disease.
‘With the exceptions of a handful of senior officer staterooms, none of the berthing onboard a warship is appropriate for quarantine or isolation,’ he noted.
After the memo went viral, Crozier was relieved of command.
Modly defended his actions, saying he had his chief of staff reach out to Crozier directly after he learned of the outbreak on the ship.
‘That message and all the contents of that message was perfectly fine for him to send to people in his chain of command in a confidential way so they could get acting on it. He, in fact, could have given it to me, either my chief of staff, or to me, as I asked him to do when I first reached out to him on the ship when we first found out that there were COVID cases here,’ he told the Roosevelt sailors in his speech.
The outbreak aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt (seen docked in Guam on March 27) was first reported days after the ship concluded a historic five-day visit to Vietnam from March 4-9. Officials say they are still working to trace the origins of the outbreak
Sailors say morale quickly plummeted after the first COVID-19 cases were reported on the vessel, which provided the perfect environment for an outbreak given its close quarters. The ship is seen docked in Guam on March 27
And he told The Washington Post he was shocked when the missive from Crozier, which was sent to an email distribution list Modly wasn’t on, went public.
‘I was flabbergasted,’ Modly said. ‘My only conclusion was, ‘he’s panicking.’ It was so out of character.’
Officials say they are still working to trace the origins of the outbreak on the ship and have not positively determined whether it began in Vietnam.
Data from the Vietnamese Ministry of Health suggests that the number of COVID-19 cases in Vietnam doubled during the five days the Roosevelt was docked at Tien Sa port in Da Nang.
But sailors were largely unfazed by the virus as they went on shore leave in Da Nang, even as the number of cases across the world skyrocketed.
Two Naval Academy classmates of Crozier who remain close to the family revealed that he had tested positive for COVID-19 to The New York Times on Sunday.
The classmates said Crozier began to show symptoms of the disease before he was relieved of his command.
A spokesperson for the Navy told the Times on Sunday that the captain has been reassigned to the headquarters of the Naval Air Forces Pacific command in San Diego.
Before resuming his duties, however, Crozier must complete a quarantine period.
News of Crozier’s diagnosis comes on the heels of a report claiming that the top US military commander and the most senior naval officer were opposed to Crozier’s dismissal but were overruled by the Trump administration.
General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Admiral Michael Gilday, the chief of naval operations, believed that the Navy should have allowed an investigation into the letter written by Crozier to run its course.
Defense Secretary Mark Esper on Sunday backed Modly’s decision to fire Crozier
Defense Secretary Mark Esper initially sided with the officers, according to The Washington Post.
Esper on Sunday defended Modly’s decision to fire Crozier.
‘I think acting Secretary Modly made a very tough decision – a decision that I support,’ Esper told CNN on Sunday.
‘It was based on his view that he had lost faith and confidence in the captain based on his actions.
‘It’s just another example (of) how we hold leaders accountable for their actions.’
Esper was asked if the Trump administration moved too quickly to fire Crozier instead of allowing the military to complete its probe into the matter.
The defense secretary replied that it was ‘not unheard of’ for the Navy to fire a senior officer before an internal investigation is complete.
‘All the services at times relieve commanders without the benefit of an investigation up front because they have lost confidence in them,’ Esper said.
‘It’s certainly not unique to the Navy.
‘The Navy has a culture of swiftly and decisively removing captains if they lose confidence in them.’