COVID-19 and military justice (U.S. Navy)

On Wednesday, Mr. [Donald J.] Trump was again sounding like an undecided voter on the issue, saying that he thought Captain [Brett E.] Crozier was a “very good man who had a very bad day.”

“And then he wanted to be Ernest Hemingway,” Mr. Trump said in remarks at the White House with the governor of Louisiana. He said the captain “started writing these long memos, and you can’t do that when you’re the captain of a ship.” Nonetheless, Mr. Trump said, he plans to see Captain Crozier soon — but did not elaborate.

These quotations from the Commander in Chief appear in this article

by Helene Cooper and Eric Schmitt in today's New York Times.

"[T]hese long memos"? Captain Crozier's letter (so far as we know, there's only one) was a little more than three pages in length. Anyone who has read it will confirm that the President's reference to Hemingway does an injustice to both Hemingway and Captain Crozier. And what can he possibly have meant when he said that commanding officers of warships "can't do that"?

Query: will Mr. Trump wear a mask when he meets Captain Crozier? Maybe he can borrow an unused one from the Vice President.