You do what he wants or else. And if it blows back on him, you will take the fall. That’s the deal.
Why so many people eagerly sign on to that is beyond me but there seems to be an endless supply of them:
Acting Secretary of the Navy Thomas Modly resigned Tuesday after traveling nearly 8,000 miles to Guam to berate thousands of sailors on Monday, later saying he stood “by every word,” and then subsequently apologizing for the remarks within the span of about eight hours.
Modly submitted his resignation a day after audio of his speech on the carrier was published by Task & Purpose. James McPherson, Undersecretary of the Army, will be tapped to replace Modly, a defense official told Task & Purpose.
Modly, who came into the job after his predecessor was forced out for going against President Trump during the Eddie Gallagher affair, faced intense pressure to resign over his handling of the situation on the USS Theodore Roosevelt, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier which quickly went from having three COVID-19 cases to hundreds among a crew of nearly 5,000 sailors after a port visit to Vietnam in early March.
Modly spoke over the ship’s intercom for roughly 15 minutes on Monday, chastising sailors who enthusiastically cheered for their captain, Capt. Brett Crozier, as he departed the ship. In his remarks, Modly said Crozier was either “too naive or too stupid to be a commanding officer” of their ship since a letter he wrote to Navy leadership subsequently leaked to the press.
Crozier was relieved of command over the leaked letter, in which he pleaded with senior leadership to allow the evacuation of his sailors from the ship since social distancing is practically impossible.
“Crew of the Teddy Roosevelt, you are under no obligation to love your leadership, only respect it,” Modly said. “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.”
“That’s your duty,” Modly continued. “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 fucking 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.”
Remember, he fired Crozier because it was what Trump wanted.
David Ignatius wrote in the Post:
“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 told me in a telephone call from Hawaii at about 1 a.m. Sunday, Washington time. He continued: “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.”
Modly explained that his predecessor, Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, “lost his job because the Navy Department got crossways with the president” in the Gallagher case. “I didn’t want that to happen again.” The acting secretary reiterated the point later in the conversation: “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.”Navy relieves commander who wrote letter urging coronavirus actionThe Navy relieved Navy Capt. Brett Crozier on April 2, two days after he raised alarm about a coronavirus outbreak on his ship. (Reuters)
Modly said he “had no discussions with anyone at the White House prior to making the decision” to relieve Crozier. Referring to his boss, Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper, he said: “That is Secretary Esper’s job, not mine.”
Navy sources had said Modly told a colleague that Trump “wants him [Crozier] fired,” and though Modly denied getting any direct message to that effect, he clearly understood that Trump was unhappy with the uproar surrounding the Roosevelt.
Of course he was. Trump didn’t try to hide it. Here he was last Saturday:
THE PRESIDENT: Here we have one of the greatest — here we have one of the greatest ships in the world. Nuclear aircraft carrier. Incredible ship with thousands and thousands of people. And you had about 120 that were infected.
Now, I guess the captain stopped in Vietnam and people got off in Vietnam. Perhaps you don’t do that in the middle of a pandemic or — or something that looked like it was going to be — you know, history would say you don’t necessarily stop and let your sailors get off, number one.
But more importantly, he wrote a letter. The letter was a five-page letter from a captain, and the letter was all over the place. That’s not appropriate. I don’t think that’s appropriate. And these are tough people. These are tough, strong people.
I thought it looked terrible, to be honest with you. Now, they made their decision. I didn’t make the decision. Secretary of Defense was involved and a lot of people were involved. 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. He could call and ask and suggest.
But he stopped in Vietnam. A lot of people got off the boat. They came back and they had infection. And I thought it was inappropriate for the captain of a ship to do —
Q Were you consulted about his removal?
THE PRESIDENT: I don’t want to — I don’t want to comment as to whether or not. But I agree with their decision 100 percent.
It is highly unlikely that he took the 8,000 mile trip to make that speech without getting permission from the top, either.
Trump obviously got some blowback from wingnuts he cares about and so he agreed to throw this guy over the side.
Trump has no loyalty to anyone. It’s always a one-way street.