Politics - News Analysis

Trump Slams Navy Captain Who Tried To Save His Sailors: ‘It Was Terrible What He Did’

Donald Trump slammed Capt. Brett Crozier on Saturday, the fired Navy commander who wrote a letter demanding assistance with the coronavirus outbreak on his ship that sickened dozens of sailors.

Trump said he agreed “100%” with the Navy’s decision to fire the commander, though he acknowledged he didn’t “know much about it.”

Navy officials removed Crozier from command on Thursday, several days after he sent a four-page letter to senior military officials pleading for help from the Pentagon as the virus spread throughout the ship. The letter was then leaked to the media.

The acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly told media the dismissal was because Crozier circumvented the chain of command when he sent the letter, and wasn’t careful with “who that information went to.”

“He wrote a letter. The letter was a five-page letter from a captain. And the letter was all over the place,” Trump told reporters at his Saturday press briefing, inaccurately stating the number of pages. “That’s not appropriate. I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

UPDATE: Captain Crozier has tested positive for COVID-19.

In the letter, Crozier had described the impossible feat of implementing quarantines and social-distancing guidelines, noting that the warship had major space limitations.

He urged the military officials to remove most of the 4,800 service members aboard the ship and provide space to quarantine on shore in Guam, saying he knew it was an “extraordinary measure,” but that it was a “necessary risk.”

“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die,” Crozier wrote. “If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our Sailors.”

In his Saturday press briefing, Trump said he thought the letter “looked terrible.”

“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,” Trump said. “And he shouldn’t be talking that way in a letter. He could call and ask, and suggest.”

And as it turns out, top military officials didn’t want Crozier fired…not until a full investigation was done.

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 Captain Brett Crozier to run its course.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper initially sided with the officers, according to The Washington Post.

But Esper eventually yielded to Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly, who favored immediately dismissing Crozier because he believed that is what Trump wanted.

After Crozier was fired, several videos went viral showing the send-off the sailors gave him.

Crozier walked off the ship in Guam to raucous cheers and applause, with sailors chanting Crozier’s name.

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