White House all at sea over fears President would be upset to see battleship
The White House’s directive to hide a US Navy destroyer named after Senator John McCain during President Donald Trump’s recent visit to a naval base in Japan was driven, Administration officials said yesterday, by a fear of bad visuals — the name of the President’s nemesis clearly visible in photographs of him.
In truth, it would have been a bad visual for only one person: Trump.
Yet an effort to airbrush a US warship by covering its name with a giant tarp and then hiding it with a barge demonstrates how anxious the Trump Administration has become about the grudges of the President. It also shows the extraordinary lengths officials in the bureaucracy are willing to go to avoid provoking Trump.
Sailors from the USS John S. McCain were not invited to Trump’s speech on another ship, the USS Wasp, at the Yokosuka Naval Base, although crew members from most other US ships at the base were, a navy service member based at Yokosuka said.
When several sailors from the McCain — wearing uniforms that bore the ship’s name and insignia — turned up anyway at the Wasp to hear Trump’s speech, they were turned away, the service member said. The service member, who requested anonymity because he was not allowed to speak publicly, said that a gate guard told the two sailors they were not allowed on the Wasp because they were from the McCain.
The hide-the-ship scheme, which Trump insisted he knew nothing about but called a “well-meaning” gesture, drew a torrent of criticism yesterday from retired military officers. They said it was an egregious attempt to politicise the armed forces, while Democratic lawmakers termed it petty vindictiveness against a dead war hero.
The episode came at the end of a visit in which Trump had already sided with a foreign dictator against his national security adviser over the threat posed by North Korean missiles, and the North Korean regime in heaping ridicule on former Vice-President Joe Biden.
The email instructing the navy to obscure the ship came from the White House military operations office, after consultation with a White House advance team working in Japan, according to an administration official.
The navy initially complied with the order by hanging a tarp over the ship’s name. But higher-level officers got wind of the plan and ordered the tarp removed and the barge moved before Trump arrived.
“It sounds like someone in the chain of command made a boneheaded mistake in judgment,” said retired Army General Jack Keane, who advises Trump and said he once tried to broker a reconciliation between him and McCain.
It is not clear, in any event, if Trump even saw the McCain during his brief visit. He arrived in Yokosuka on Marine One, and addressed the sailors in a hangar bay below decks on the Wasp.
Acting Defence Secretary Patrick Shanahan has denied knowing about the White House directive. But questions about why the navy has acquiesced to it are likely to dog Shanahan when he goes before the Senate for his confirmation hearing in the coming weeks.
Critics said Trump’s animus for McCain set off a cascade of decisions by lower-level officials that not only dishonoured the Senator’s memory but also disrespected the sailors who serve on the McCain. In addition to McCain, the ship is named after his grandfather, John S. McCain snr, a navy admiral during World War II, and his father, John S. McCain jnr, an admiral in the Vietnam War era.
“It’s beyond petty,” said Democratic Senator Jack Reed, the ranking minority member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, in a statement. “It’s disgraceful, and the White House should be embarrassed.”
Trump said he would not have ordered the ship to be hidden, but he declined to apologise to the sailors who had been kept out of his speech. And he expressed sympathy for the motivations of his staff.
“Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn’t like him, okay?” Trump told reporters. “They were well meaning, I will say. I didn’t know anything about it. I would never have done that.
“So, I wasn’t a fan of John McCain — I never will be,” he added. “But certainly, I couldn’t care less whether or not there’s a boat named after his father.”
Trump repeated his reasons for why he disliked McCain.
“John McCain killed healthcare for the Republican Party, and he killed healthcare for the nation,” Trump said, a reference to the late Senator’s critical vote against the President’s healthcare proposal in July 2017.
Critics faulted Trump for what they said was a petty war of words against McCain, who died in August of brain cancer. They also derided him for what they said were his attempts to divide the military.
“We have a long history of keeping our military apolitical,” said Democratic Representative Elissa Slotkin, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and is a former Pentagon official. “The President’s team felt it was appropriate to politicise this event.”
The email from the White House urging the navy to move the McCain or make sure it was out of sight put officials in a difficult position. The McCain is still undergoing repairs, and moving it from its berth would be tremendously difficult, time consuming and set back the repair schedule.
Navy officials struggled to explain why a tarp was hung over the ship’s name, and later, where the President was scheduled to visit. The tarp, they said, was part of efforts to repair the hull; the barge was a painting barge.
But other officials offered a different account. They said the initial decisions were made by mid-level officers in Japan, working with the White House advance team. The tarp and barge were removed after more senior navy officials, in Japan and at the Indo-Pacific Command headquarters in Hawaii, thought better of complying with the White House request.
Now, somebody did it because they thought I didn’t like him, okay? They were well meaning, I will say.
Donald Trump
It’s beyond petty. It’s disgraceful, and the White House should be embarrassed.
Jack Reed