Apr 4, 2020
Trump Says He Agrees With Removal of Captain After Virus Memo
, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said he agrees with the decision on the captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt, who was relieved of command after writing a memo pleading for assistance in addressing the coronavirus outbreak on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday that the captain, Brett Crozier, shouldn’t have expressed his alarm in a widely circulated letter after more than 100 crew members were affected. “The letter was all over the place,” Trump said. “That’s not appropriate”
“I thought it looked terrible, to be honest with you,” Trump said.
Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced the decision to fire the captain on Thursday at the Pentagon, criticizing the way Crozier expressed his concerns and saying the officer let the stress of the outbreak “overwhelm his ability to act professionally.”
The memo, which Navy leaders say was sent via unsecured email and distributed broadly outside the chain of command, “created a little bit of panic on the ship,” and “misrepresented the facts of what was going on on the ship as well,” Modly said. “It raised alarm bells unnecessarily.”
Citing an “ongoing and accelerating” danger on board the carrier, Crozier sent his Navy superiors the memo pleading, “We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die.” He called for removing all but a skeleton crew from the carrier, where sailors are in close quarters, so that they can be isolated and tested.
Modly suggested that the captain’s move “jeopardized the national security interests of the United States” and that the Navy was already in the process of addressing Crozier’s concerns when he sent his message. He added that Crozier failed to discuss the concerns in the memo with his commanding officer, who was also on board the Roosevelt.
About 144 crew members on the 4,800-person carrier have tested positive for the virus, Modly said, adding that none are hospitalized and that some are showing no symptoms. He said sailors are being rotated off the carrier for coronavirus testing.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
