Admiral James Stavridis (Ret.), who was the 16th Supreme Allied Commander at NATO, joined Brian for a wide ranging interview in which he offered his analysis of the recent shake ups in the Navy due to the coronavirus pandemic. Last week, Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly resigned after he was heard on a leaked audio tape calling the ousted Captain of the USS Theodore Roosevelt “naïve” and “stupid.” Captain Brett E. Cozier was removed from command after he wrote a letter to his higher ups requesting coronavirus aid for his crew. The letter was then leaked to the San Francisco Chronicle.
“There are no winners here. The Captain did what he felt he had to, to really get the Navy’s attention, but in doing so he went outside the chain of command and outside the boundaries of classification,” Adm. Stavridis said. “Secretary of the Navy then fires him. I think then, inexplicably, gets on an airplane, flies round trip to Guam. He’s on the ship for 30 minutes and gives this talk in which he insults the captain. He calls him actually ‘naïve’ and ‘stupid,’ which is kind of, to the crew, it sounds like you’re calling them ‘naïve’ and ‘stupid.'”
The Admiral went on to add that Secretary Modly is a “solid guy” but made the right decision to step down as Acting Secretary of the Navy.
Other topics included whether our fleet’s combat readiness would be affected by the rising numbers of cases of coronavirus and how we as a country can effectively balance the country’s health with the need to reopen the economy and get back to a new normal.
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