The NPR Politics Podcast - Trump Fires Navy Secretary; Will Allow Eddie Gallagher to Retire As Navy SEAL

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

President Trump has repeatedly intervened on behalf of the Navy SEAL recently convicted of misconduct. This episode: Congressional correspondent Susan Davis, Election Security editor Phil Ewing, and National Political correspondent Mara Liasson. Connect:Email the show at [e-mail] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Hi, I'm Brady. And I'm Lydia, Brady's mom. We're in Madison, Wisconsin on our ongoing quest to tour all 50 state capitol buildings. This is our 32nd state capitol. Wow. On this trip, we've seen Indianapolis, Des Moines, and St. Paul. We also saw Joe Biden in Knoxville, Iowa. This podcast was recorded at 2.07 p.m. on Monday, November 25th. Things may have changed by the time you hear this. Like we may have seen our 33rd state capitol. Enjoy the show. Can I tell you what I think my underrated capitol is? Hit me with it. Harrisburg. Interesting. You would not expect it. Absolutely beautiful capitol building. I spent a lot of time in in the Illinois State Capitol, which is where some of Reese Witherspoon's scenes from Legally Blonde were filmed. I prefer state capitals with golden domes. That's what Harrisburg has.

West Virginia, Charleston, West Virginia has a beautiful golden dome. Brady, let us know when you hit all 50. As of today, though, Secretary of the Navy Richard Spencer has been fired over how he handled the case of a Navy SEAL accused of war crimes. Since we've been essentially immersed in impeachment, speaking for myself, I think we should start with a little bit of background on the case before we get to what went down and what the politics are. So this case involves Navy SEAL Eddie Gallagher. Phil, can you just give us a little bit of background on who Gallagher is? Sure. This is a classic Trump story about can the president do it? Yes, he can. The question is, should he? And that's where people are divided as we're recording this podcast today. Eddie Gallagher is a Navy chief special warfare operator.

He was in the SEALs and served in Iraq in the fight against ISIS. He was accused of some very serious war crimes there in a Navy court-martial that was itself very problematic. And he became a cause celeb for Fox News and some other supporters on the rights because of the way the Navy handled that case. Ultimately, he was acquitted of a murder charge, but he was found guilty of posing with a body that had been killed in the conflict with ISIS in Iraq. And then the Navy began the process of deciding what his punishment would be. It decided to take away one of his ranks, taking him down to a petty officer first class. And theoretically, he could have lost his affiliation with the SEALs, the so-called trident pin that SEALs are allowed to wear in their

uniforms. That's what brings us up to now because the president has intervened, first of all, to restore his rank as a chief petty officer. And he's told the Defense Department that Gallagher is going to be able to keep his Trident pin and his affiliation with the SEALs. So, Mara, why did the president decide to weigh in on this case? Well, this follows a pattern for the president. He generally doesn't like to work within established channels. He doesn't take advice from his own administration. He sees that on Fox News, Gallagher had become a clause celebre, not unlike how he pardoned some prisoners

after the Kardashians and Kanye West lobbied him about them. So he not only intervened in the case of Chief Gallagher, but he also pardoned two other soldiers against Pentagon recommendations. He issued pardons to Army Major Matthew Goldstein, who had faced a murder trial, and former First Lieutenant Clint Lawrence, who was convicted in the murder of two unarmed men in Afghanistan. Gallagher's been doing a lot of media around this, and he was on Fox News this weekend. You know, I just want to retire peacefully with all the honors that I've earned, get back to my family. And, you know, I don't know how many times I've thanked the president. He keeps, you know, stepping in and doing the right thing. And I just want to let him know that the rest of the SEAL community is not about this

right now. They all respect the president and what the admiral is doing, showing complete insubordination, is not the good example of good order and discipline. And the admiral he's referring to in that clip is Colin Green, who oversees the Navy SEALs. So Gallagher says the rank and file is behind him, but the brass isn't. But the brass is where Richard Spencer comes into play in this story. After President Trump makes this announcement, not everyone at the Pentagon's on board, right? That's right. There were some press reports over the past couple of days that suggested that Spencer, the Navy secretary, and some other leaders in the Navy might resign rather than go along with directions from the White House to let Gallagher keep this trident, this SEAL device, and retire honorably from the Navy.

They view his crimes and this process as being essential to what you'll hear people call good order and discipline within the force. There has to be a process that plays out and people who are subject to that process must honor those outcomes. Can I ask a question about the trident pin? Is it more symbolic or is it actual lowering of rank? Is he not allowed to wear a trident pin anymore? I've just been hearing a lot about the trident pin and I don't understand if it's just a matter of being able to wear it

or if it actually does signify some kind of punishment. It's intensely symbolic because the trident is what SEALs are awarded once they come through the incredible, infamously grueling training process that weeds them out and selects which small numbers of them will actually go on and become active members of the team. And if you get it taken away, it means you're not eligible to be a member of these elite SEAL units and take those assignments. So even at the end of his career, losing this Trident pin would have been very symbolic for him to have begun his career as a SEAL, but not to end it that way. Now, the firing of Richard Spencer gets a little

confusing. And there was a lot of events that happened over the course of the weekend. One was these reports that Spencer was part of a group of Navy officials that weren't happy about it. But then the Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, says that Spencer was actually doing some behind the scenes maneuvering that basically pissed a lot of people off. That's right. It's a very complicated story. And we may not have the full picture as we're talking Monday as we record this podcast. But here's what appears to have happened. Spencer said those reports were wrong that he was going to step down. He said he was not going to step down. But what we've since learned is that he was talking in a back channel with the White House about a review board that had been set up

for Gallagher's Trident pin. And what he apparently said was, please, Mr. President, let this board play out and have Gallagher retired with his chief petty officer rank and his SEAL device, but just don't intervene. It's important for this process to be seen as the final word and for you, the White House, not to intervene with this. But the defense secretary, who's above the Navy secretary, Mark Esper, apparently learned about this. And according to what he said, Spencer was not forthright with him about this back channel that he had with the White House. He went outside the chain of command. Correct. So not only did he go outside the chain of command within the Defense Department, he may not have told the truth about it to the defense secretary. And that became problematic.

The other complicating factor here is the president had expressed on Twitter that he wanted Gallagher to keep his rank and his Trident pin, but he had never actually said that directly to any defense official. Esper went to go see Trump. Trump, according to the defense secretary, said, you need to make sure this Eddie Gallagher situation is resolved the way I want. And so he decided to do that. And as a part of that process, having discovered that there was this other line between Spencer and the White House, Esper said that Spencer had to go.

The president is the commander in chief. He has every right, authority and privilege to do what he wants to do. Order you to basically make sure he has a triumphant. Absolutely. But what message does that send to the troops that basically you're pulling the plug on a review board? The president is the commander in chief. And that was Secretary of Defense Mark Esper being questioned by NPR's Pentagon correspondent, Tom Bowman. So Esper says Spencer had to go. He serves at the pleasure of the president. And he did this back channel thing that I didn't support. And he was trying to affect

an outcome of a Navy process. Got to go. But Spencer Mara has a different take on what went down. Right. I mean, just to repeat again, the president is the commander in chief. He can remove anyone for any reason in the military. But in his resignation letter, where he accepted the fact that his service was being terminated, he said he couldn't in good conscience obey an order that I believe violates the sacred oath I took in the presence of my family, my flag, and my faith to support and defend the Constitution of the United States. And he went on to say, quote, unfortunately, it's become apparent that in this respect, I no longer share the same understanding with the commander in chief who appointed me in regards to the key principle of good order and discipline. So for Spencer, part of good order and discipline was having this military judicial system, which is supposed to have some amount of independence, operate

without political interference, run its course, even though he seems to have been negotiating an outcome that would also satisfy the president. This is a recurring theme in the Trump presidency. There is no law that says the president can't order his Justice Department to investigate his political opponents. It's a norm. The Justice Department to investigate his political opponents. It's a norm. The Justice Department is supposed to have some kind of independence. There's no law that says the president has to accept the findings of his own CIA and intelligence community. President Trump keeps on coming into conflict with all of these fact-based institutions. We hear a lot about norms. Norms are not laws, but norms at their very heart

mean that you show some restraint. Just because you can do something legally, you don't do it. And the president doesn't subscribe to that theory of leadership. All right. I think that's a good place to take a break. And when we get back, we'll talk about the political impacts of Spencer's firing. I know we'd all love the holidays to be this happy, stress-free, joyful time. But let's be real. That is not always the case. NPR's Life Kit is answering your holiday questions and helping you navigate family dynamics all season long. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.

Listen and subscribe to Life Kit. And we're back. And Phil, I want to start with you because you have reported a lot on the military. It doesn't seem very common for the commander in chief to have as many public confrontations with the senior brass as President Trump has had with his military leaders. Spencer seems like just the latest in a long line of people. James Mattis is another who comes to mind. That's right. As we heard Mara talking about before the break, Trump is his own man and he does his own thing. He's a total new kind of president in terms of dealing with national security and foreign policy at every level. At a macro level, he broke very strongly with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis about the question of Syria and supporting the Kurdish forces there. And at a micro level, he's breaking with the leaders of the Navy and the Defense Department over the case involving one individual person in this chief, Eddie Gallagher, because it's caught the president's attention.

But it's not taking place in a vacuum. The other reason the Gallagher case is important is that it's downstream of years and months of problems inside the naval special warfare community, the broader agency or institution in the Navy that runs the SEALs. And the Admiral we heard Gallagher talk about earlier in the show, Admiral Colin Greene, sent out a very rare open directive to the SEALs earlier this year in which he wrote this, we have a problem that's bold and underscored. Some of our substitute formations have failed to maintain good order and discipline. There's that phrase again. I don't know yet if we have a culture problem. I do know that we have a good order and discipline problem that must be addressed immediately.

Why was he saying this? A SEAL platoon was recalled from Iraq because it was boozing and carrying on and not doing its job. Oh, I remember that. SEALs in Virginia allegedly were in a cocaine drug ring. There have been this Gallagher case, and the Navy really wants to clamp down on this. They actually issued a directive separate from this banning SEALs from having cool facial hair. Special operations forces are unique in the military. They can often have cool guy patches, as they're called, or beards and long hair. That all went away because the Navy was trying to clamp

down. And so of all the things to happen at the end of this Gallagher process, it's possible to imagine it being very problematic for the Navy special warfare community to have Trump make the whole Gallagher situation go away with a wave of his wand, given that the Navy was trying so hard to impose good order and discipline for months. Good order and discipline also means that there actually is a military code of conduct, even in warfare, even in a combat zone, there are certain things that you can't do, like kill an unarmed captive. In other words, there's some kind of a standard that American warriors are supposed to uphold. And Trump has pushed back against that standard ever since he was a candidate. You know, he talked about torture being good, it works,

he would kill terrorists and their families. And he really has pushed back against this notion that there should be some restraints on what soldiers do when they're serving abroad. is it just a matter of good base politics? Gallagher is, you know, he's big on Fox News. I know a lot of conservative media has made him a hero. And I think that a lot of the president's supporters look at him as sort of doing the right thing. It's no doubt that it's good base politics. The question is, at what point do these cumulative conflicts with the military, whether it's this sense of General Mattis that the president was not respecting our allies or taking our alliances seriously or undercutting our allies in the case of Syria. You heard interview after interview anonymously with military officers when the president tweeted our removal from Syria that they felt sick, that we were abandoning the Kurds. And so I don't know if there's a cumulative effect

over time that he just undermines morale in the officer corps, but there's no doubt that in the short term, good base politics for President Trump. So Richard Spencer's out. What happens now to that job? The president has said that he intends to nominate Ken Braithwaite, who's the ambassador to Norway, who is a former admiral, to become the next secretary of the Navy. There'll be a Senate confirmation process the way there always is with these jobs. And we'll have to see in that confirmation process what kind of SECNAV, as we call them, Braithwaite will be, where he is on a lot of the big issues, which is what the Navy secretary does 99.9% of the other time, buying ships, buying airplanes, buying weapons, and running the machinery of the Navy Department. Wow, I learned something new. Phil,

you're our own second man. That's the fourth kindest compliment that I've ever received. Thank you. All right, that's it for today. We'll be back tomorrow. Until then, head to npr.org slash politics newsletter to subscribe to our weekly roundup of the best online analysis. I'm Phil Ewing, election security editor. And I'm Mara Liason, national political correspondent. And thank you for listening to the NPR Politics Podcast. Thank you.