Secretary Of The Navy And SEALs Admiral Threaten To Resign If President Trump Interferes Trial Of SEAL Commando In War Crimes Case.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This is CNN breaking news. This is CNN breaking news.</s>SAVIDGE: We're following breaking news. "The New York Times" reporting today that the Secretary of the Navy and the admiral who leads the SEALs have threatened to resign or be fired if Trump interferes with plans to expel a commando from the elite unit in a war crimes case. CNN Military Analyst, Retired Lieutenant General Mark Hertling joins me now. And General, this is of course the disciplinary review of Chief Edward Gallagher. It would seem like you're dealing with one individual here, yet you're talking about the head of the Navy and an admiral willing to quit on this. How is it so significant? LT. GEN. MARK HERTLING</s>CNN MILITARY ANALYST: It's significant because it isn't really a disciplinary review. It's a certification of the SEAL Trident, Martin. And that's important because we depend upon the commander of the SEAL unit, in this case Admiral Green, to set the standards. He sees Chief Gallagher as having violated those standards as part of that trial. So this is different from the pardon from the criminal action that the president gave. This is actually the president attempting to interfere in the command structure between Admiral Green and his SEALs in setting the certification standards for the members of his team. Now the Secretary of the Navy is standing behind Admiral Green on this, and they've notified the White House that they're not going to do something based on just a tweet. They want a direct order. And if that direct order comes, it will be interesting to see what happens with the Secretary of the Navy and Admiral Green.</s>SAVIDGE: The president is the commander in chief, though, here. Doesn't he have the final say?</s>HERTLING: Yes, he certainly does. He can do this. He can certainly do this, but I think the message that the Secretary to the Navy and Admiral Green are sending is if you don't trust us to run our unit, to establish the discipline and the standards within our units, then we have to resign because you've lost trust in us to do the things that we need to do to make sure the SEALs are the ultimate fighting force. The interesting thing about this, Martin, you remember, the SEALs have been having some challenges with discipline and standards-keeping within the last several months. They've had multiple issues of people going rogue. They've had to pull forces out of Iraq. So this is Admiral Green who's kind of the new kid in town saying, hey, you either trust me to command the unit the way I'm supposed to trust and make decisions like this, or replace me, and I'm going to resign. And truthfully, this rumor has been going around the Pentagon for the last couple of days. And Martin, I'll tell you, I'm not sure what I would do if I were in Admiral Green's position. I think I would be thinking the same thing. And the Secretary of the Navy is, in my view, honorably supporting one of his admirals.</s>SAVIDGE: Yes. As I was watching and reading about this, I felt I was worried it might come to this. We'll see. Lieutenant Mark Hertling, General, thank you very for being with us. We'll have more in a moment right after this.