Trump on outs with some military brass after firing head of Navy

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump used to lavish praise on what he called “my generals” — his term for military men such as former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and former Homeland Security Secretary and chief of staff John Kelly, who traded their uniforms for a seat on his Cabinet.

But now, that love may have gone to the dogs.

On Monday, Trump appeared in the Rose Garden with Conan, the military dog injured in the fatal take-down of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last month. Conan, the commander-in-chief said, was the “ultimate fighter.”

It was a day after the firing of Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer in a dispute over a whether a former Navy SEAL, Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, would be allowed to keep his trident pin upon retirement.

Defense Secretary Mark Esper told reporters Monday that Trump had ordered him to stop a disciplinary review favored by himself and Spencer, and he accused the former Navy secretary of going around him to cut a deal with the White House that would have allowed Gallagher to remain in the SEALs until his retirement.

Through a Navy spokesman, Spencer declined requests for comments on the allegations, the Associated Press reported.

Trump has said Gallagher was treated unfairly by the Navy.

“I think what I’m doing is sticking up for our armed forces,” he said Monday. “There’s never been a president who is going to stick up for them, and has, like I have.”

While Gallagher learned he would not lose the hard-won emblem of the elite special warfare community, Washington insiders tried to modulate their alarm as to what Spencer’s ouster could mean for the national security establishment.

Trump jolted the military establishment when he considered issuing a presidential pardon for Gallagher before his court-martial in the stabbing death of an Islamic State militant captive in 2017. Advisers dissuaded him from issuing a pardon.

The court-martial proceeded, and a jury found Gallagher not guilty, but convicted him for the lesser charge of posing for a photo with the militant’s corpse. The jury demoted the much-decorated SEAL to petty officer 1st class, but Trump restored his rank.

Then came the trident dispute.

As the Navy weighed ejecting Gallagher from the SEALs, Trump tweeted that the Navy would not do so.

Spencer tried to dissuade Trump, but on Sunday, he released a letter in which he acknowledged he had been fired and maintained that Trump deserved a secretary whose views on military discipline were in line with the president’s.

Similar resignations

Spencer’s letter was highly reminiscent of the resignation Mattis released in December, the day after Trump announced he wanted to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria. Mattis, too, offered that the president deserved a defense secretary whose views more aligned with his own.

Kathryn Dunn Tenpas, who keeps track of Trump staffing for the Brookings Institution, said that Trump’s turnover is unprecedented. Two recent presidents — Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — had more than one secretary of state in their first terms. If you include acting Secretary of State John J. Sullivan — who served one month between Rex Tillerson and Mike Pompeo — Trump is now on his third.

If Pompeo resigns to run for the U.S. Senate in his home state of Kansas — and Trump has said Pompeo should run if the seat could fall to Democrats — Trump would hire his fourth secretary of state. Tenpas noted that Trump is on his fourth national security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, and sixth deputy national security adviser, Matt Pottinger.

When a principal employee leaves, deputies follow and national security’s upper management remains short staffed.

New secretary

Trump and Esper have decided on U.S. Ambassador to Norway Ken Braithwaite to replace Spencer. A former Navy rear admiral, Braithwaite is a smart pick in that he has been and likely will be confirmed in the Senate again. But, Tenpas noted, that creates another vacancy on the thinned-out Trump foreign policy team.

Brookings foreign policy senior fellow Michael O’Hanlon thinks the change is bad for the bureaucracy, but not necessarily for troops on the ground.

“As much as I find Trump’s behavior here very wrong, and a major distraction from pressing policy questions, and as much as I regret losing Secretary Spencer at a time when the Navy hasn’t had many leaders to fall back on in these turbulent times — which, in fairness, for the Navy preceded Trump — I don’t know if the rank and file of the military are going to start to see this as a major threat to morale or license to kill or anything of the sort,” O’Hanlon said. “I think our institutions, traditions and values are stronger than that.”

Upholding standards

But Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow specializing in military affairs for the left-leaning Center for American Progress, took a dimmer view on personal grounds.

“I was a naval flight officer and I can tell you one of the proudest days of my life was when I got my wings,” Korb recalled. It is very difficult to become a SEAL, and there are standards for those who want to remain in that community, he added.

U.S. troops fighting in the Middle East and Afghanistan can’t kill all their enemies, he noted, but if they behave in way that gains trust, they might undermine militants’ narrative, Korb said.

Korb has a positive view of Braithwaite, but sees the possibility that Democrats in the Senate will make confirmation difficult because of Trump’s treatment of Spencer.

On Sunday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said that he had talked to Spencer and, “I told him he’s a patriot, that he served the Navy and the nation well and he will be missed. Secretary Spencer did the right thing and he should be proud of standing up to President Trump when he was wrong, something too many in this administration and the Republican Party are scared to do.”

Contact Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com or 202-662-7391. Follow @DebraJSaunders on Twitter.