GUARD ACTIVATED: President Trump announced last night the call-up of thousands of National Guard troops for the three states hardest hit by the COVID-19 epidemic: New York, California, and Washington. The forces are being activated under Title 32 authority, which means they will be federal employees but under the control of state governors.
“The federal government will be funding 100% of the cost of deploying National Guard units to carry out approved missions to stop the virus, while those governors remain in command,” said Trump at a White House coronavirus briefing last night. “This action will give them maximum flexibility to use the Guard against the virus without having to worry about costs or liability and freeing up state resources to protect the health and safety of the people in their state.”
‘NOT MARTIAL LAW’: In a follow-up conference call with reporters last night, Gen. Joseph Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau, tried to dispel persistent rumors on social media that Guard troops might be used to enforce a “lockdown” of American citizens. “No conspiring to use the National Guard in any case to do some sort of military action to enforce shelter in place and quarantine … as some of the social media is trying to portray.”
The message was echoed at the White House by FEMA Administrator Peter Gaynor. “This Title 32 activation does not federalize National Guard members. The National Guard is still under the authority of each governor,” he said. “We’ve had a lot of disinformation circling, and I want to make sure it is understood that this is not martial law,” he said.
HOSPITAL SHIPS DEPLOYED: Trump is also dispatching the hospital ships USNS Mercy to Los Angeles and USNS Comfort to New York Harbor. The Mercy departs Naval Station San Diego today and should arrive within the week, but Trump said the Comfort will take a bit longer to get to New York.
“That ship will be coming over the next three weeks, three or four weeks,” Trump said. “It was in the middle of maintenance. And we are moving the maintenance very, very quickly. And we’re also supplying the ship simultaneously.”
The hospital ships won’t be treating COVID-19 patients, Defense Secretary Mark Esper explained last week. “They are geared toward wartime trauma — think broken bones and head injuries and lacerations and things like that,” he told CNN.
“As I’ve spoken to some of the governors, what I said to them is, what we can do is provide a capability that we can deliver on-site, near sight of a civilian hospital, we could take care of your trauma patients so that you could open up more rooms for patients with the COVID-19 because what they require are special rooms that are sequestered that have other capabilities that we don’t necessarily have available to us in our field hospitals and on these ships.”
HEADS IN BEDS: Trump has also approved a plan for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to provide support to build out “alternate care sites,” such as college dorms or hotels. “The Army Corps of Engineers will go in, contract, renovate, and then turn them back over to the state,” Esper said on Fox and Friends Friday. “This is all about freeing up bed space for either patients who are identified as having coronavirus or are on the backend recovering from coronavirus.”
In addition, Trump has directed FEMA to supply four large federal medical stations with 1,000 beds for New York, eight large federal medical stations with 2,000 beds for California, and three large federal medical stations and four small federal medical stations with 1,000 beds for the state of Washington.
FIRST DoD DEATH REPORTED: Over the weekend, the Pentagon announced a civilian contractor, who worked at the Defense Security Cooperation Agency in nearby Crystal City, Arlington, died Saturday after being hospitalized for a COVID-19 infection.
In addition, the Air Force reported Friday that an active-duty member who works for the Defense Health Agency, Falls Church, Virginia, tested positive for the virus. “Although his duty station was in Falls Church, the individual was last in the Pentagon on March 16 for less than an hour and has since received medical treatment and self-quarantined at home.”
And an Air Force contractor who works in the Pentagon has also tested positive. “The last time the infected member was in the Pentagon was March 2,” the Air Force said in a statement. “The individual has received medical treatment and has been self-quarantined at home since March 7.”
The Air Force now reports 37 cases of COVID-19, with eight people hospitalized.
Good Monday morning and welcome to Jamie McIntyre’s Daily on Defense, written and compiled by Washington Examiner National Security Senior Writer Jamie McIntyre (@jamiejmcintyre) and edited by David Sivak. Email here with tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. Sign up or read current and back issues at DailyonDefense.com. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list. And be sure to follow us on Twitter: @dailyondefense.
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ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Loyal readers of Daily on Defense will have noted that I was off last week. I was originally scheduled for a week’s R&R in sunny Florida, where I planned to visit friends and take in some Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles spring training games.
But I cancelled the pleasure trip as government officials and medical experts urged Americans to avoid nonessential travel. Then I came down with what normally might be dismissed as a cold or allergies: a runny nose, watery eyes, and slightly more ominously — a mild cough. I decided, under the oft-cited “abundance of caution” protocol, to just stay home and rest for the week. Like many of my colleagues, I am teleworking from my home in the Washington suburbs, and avoiding as much contact with others as possible. As of today, my cough and cold seem to have cleared up. I never ran a temperature or exhibited any other symptoms of COVID-19 but am doing my part to “flatten the curve.”
On my one trip to the grocery store for some supplies, I encountered a checker who was complaining loudly about the “needless panic” among the customers. “What would they do if there was a real emergency?” he grumbled. “This is nothing.”
As I wiped down the PIN pad with a disinfectant wipe, I quietly told him, “This is not nothing. This is something, and in a week or two, you’ll realize that.” Before this is over, I fear, many of us will know someone personally whose life was in jeopardy because of the virus.
HAPPENING TODAY: Congressional leaders and the White House will continue negotiating the $1.8 trillion coronavirus rescue package, after Senate Democrats blocked the stimulus bill from moving forward.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has been trying to broker an agreement that will satisfy both Democrats and Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell accused Democrats of playing games with the American people.
ON THE DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT: Trump explained last night why he’s reluctant to use the Defense Production Act, which he invoked over the weekend, to force companies to produce urgently needed medical supplies.
“The fact that I signed it, it’s in effect,” Trump said. “But you know, we’re a country not based on nationalizing our business.” Trump said many companies are stepping up and voluntarily offering to switch production to things such as masks and ventilators: “We may have to use it some place along the chain, but we’re getting calls,” he said. “For instance, General Motors spoke to us about doing ventilators. The beauty is, they’re calling us.”
US FORCES IN IRAQ REDEPLOYED: The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is consolidating its forces and sending some troops home in the wake of the coronavirus, citing two reasons: “long-planned adjustments to the force” to reflect success against the Islamic State and “short-term moves to protect the force during the coronavirus pandemic.”
“To prevent potential spread of COVID-19, the Iraqi Security Forces have suspended all training. As a result, the Coalition will temporarily return some of its training-focused forces to their own countries in the coming days and weeks,” said a statement from Operation Inherent Resolve.
MUCH FASTER THAN A SPEEDING BULLET: The Pentagon announced Friday the successful test of an experimental hypersonic glide body from the Pacific Missile Range Facility, Kauai, Hawaii.
The successful flight is a big deal, writes Riki Ellison, head of the private Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance. “Developed in less than a year,” the land-based common hypersonic glide body is “a powerful combination of the U.S. Navy’s submarine booster rocket and the U.S. Army’s land launcher with their C-HGB that bounces between the upper atmosphere and space to further increase its speed and choosing an entry point to come in at the target at 20 times the speed of sound (Mach 20) and greater.”
“There is no missile defense system from sensor to interceptor in the world, including the United States, that has been developed and is capable of defeating hypersonic glide vehicles like the C-HGB,” Ellison says.
SASC ADVANCES NOMINATIONS: The Senate Armed Services Committee voted last week to report out the nominations of Matthew Donovan to be undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness and William Jordan Gillis to be assistant secretary of defense for sustainment, as well as a list of 15 pending military nominations in the Navy.
INDUSTRY WATCH: Trump voiced support last night for bailout money for Boeing, as long as the money goes to workers, not shareholders. Noting that the aviation giant makes up “a big percentage of GDP,” Trump said, “we have to be able to work with Boeing. Boeing is, was, a great company, and will be a great company again, I think, shortly.”
“I do not want stock buybacks. I don’t want to give a bailout to a company and then have somebody go out and use that money to buy back stock in the company and raise the price and then get a bonus,” Trump said. “So, I may be Republican, but I don’t like that. I want them to use the money for the workers.”
The Rundown
Washington Examiner: Trump writes Kim Jong Un about coronavirus as North Korea fires rockets
Washington Examiner: ‘No one left alive’: Taliban kills 24 in attack with insider help
Washington Examiner: Army Corps of Engineers plans ‘ICU-like’ facilities across 13 states, including 10,000 beds in New York
Washington Examiner: Military coronavirus cases increase to 69 as testing ramps up
Washington Examiner: US European Command reports 2,600 troops ‘of concern’ and 35 coronavirus cases
USNI News: DoD Reports 128 Coronavirus Cases
USNI News: Naval Special Warfare Reports Four Coronavirus Cases
Stars and Stripes: Navy Deploys Medical Teams Aboard Ships At Sea To Batch-Test For Coronavirus
CNN.com: Millions Of Americans Are Suddenly Working From Home. That’s A Huge Security Risk
Military Times: Joint Base Andrews, Others In NCR, Go To HPCON Charlie Over COVID-19 Concerns
Bloomberg: Putin Flies Help to Virus-Stricken Italy, Exploiting EU Fumble
Bloomberg: Pentagon Raises Contractor Payments to Keep Cash Flowing
AP: Pompeo rushes to Kabul to jumpstart flagging peace process
Just the News: De Blasio’s move to commandeer VA during pandemic could endanger vets, experts warn
AP: US raps France for prisoner swap with Iran
Washington Post: Opinion: William McRaven: The coronavirus has thrown us all in the mud
Task & Purpose: Here’s your Pentagon work-from-home survival guide
Calendar
NOTE: Most events in Washington have been canceled in the wake of the coronavirus crisis, but the Pentagon has been conducting almost daily pop-up briefings.
Check https://www.defense.gov/Newsroom/Today-in-DoD/ for updates to the Pentagon’s schedule.
THURSDAY | MARCH 26
2 p.m. — Woodrow Wilson Center conference call briefing on “Russia’s Military Posture in the European Arctic,” with Mathieu Boulegue, research fellow in the Chatham House Russia and Eurasia Program; Katarina Kertysova, policy fellow at the European Leadership Network; Michael Sfraga, director of the WWC Polar Institute; and Matthew Rojansky, director of the WWC Kennan Institute. https://www.wilsoncenter.org/event
3 p.m. — Jewish Democratic Council of America holds a conference call briefing on the international response to the COVID-19 pandemic, with Jeremy Bash, former chief of staff to the CIA director and defense secretary; and former Special Assistant to the President Ned Price. https://myaccount.maestroconference.com
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“We need those ventilators. The ventilators are to this war what missiles were to World War II? Right? Rosie the Riveter? We need ventilators. That is a key piece of equipment. We can get the beds. We’ll get the supplies. But a ventilator is a specific piece of equipment. These are people with a respiratory illness. We need the ventilators.”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, at Friday’s state coronavirus briefing.
