You see Captain Brett Crows.

You're being cheered by his sailors as he leaves USS Theodore Roosevelt after being relieved of his command for sending a letter warning of the situation on board to his superiors.

And we're joined now by one of those superiors.

The Defense Secretary, Mark Casper.

Mr.

Secretary, Thank you for joining us this morning.

Thank you, George.

Good morning.

You know, we just heard from former Vice President Brian saying the treatment of Captain Crozier is close to criminal and he was removed from his command before investigation.

Is that appropriate?

Well, George, before answer question, let me step back and say a few things about the broader issue we have facing us.

And that is the Corona virus from beginning.

Going back to January D o.

D has been all in in terms of helping the American people and protecting our people with regard to this.

And we've been ahead of the curve every step of the way.

Second, I've laid out three priorities for our commanders.

For all of the A.

D.

First protect our people second and sure, we retain our national mission capabilities.

And then number three provide full support the president Trump's hold a nation hold government response.

It's the last point like to say is I'm very proud of the 50,000 plus Americans in the military are out on the streets of America today helping their fellow Americans.

Many of our service members are deployed from home.

Many are risking their own, their own well being to help their fellow Americans.

I'm very proud of them with regard to Ah, with regard to your question about the captain that Teddy Roosevelt look, Secretary Moly made a tough decision, a tough call.

I have full faith and confidence in him and the Navy leadership, and I supported their decision, and the president said you were involved in that decision as well.

David Ignatius is reporting this morning that Secretary Mobley said the president wanted Captain Crozier fired.

Is that true?

But this was Secretary Mo.

Please call.

He came and briefed me the night before the morning off.

He sat down and talked me.

I listened to the recommendations of of the CNO, the chief of naval operations, and General Miller, the chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff.

It was Secretary Molly's call, and I told him I would support it.

Did the military leaders agree with Secretary Mobley?

I'm not gonna comment on our private conversations.

You can talk them separately.

This is a chain of command issue.

It's an issue of trust and confidence in the captain of the ship.

So what happens to captain to the captain now?

Well, George, I can't talk too much about it.

And because I'm in the chain of commanders, there is also an investigation ongoing, and it may fall on my desk at some point in time.

But it really like to do is talk about this global pandemic facing the country, maybe the greatest since 1918 and tell you about how d o.

D.

Is really weighing in and helping the American people.

I do want to ask about that, and I know that the president said yesterday the 1000 medical personnel have been sent to New York.

What exactly are they going to be doing?

And is the Pentagon now prepared to allow Cove in 19 patients suffering from Cove in 19 to be treated on the USS Comfort in New York?

Sure.

Well, first of all, we have well over 1000 medical professionals deployed around the country, principally in New York, Seattle, New Orleans, Dallas and elsewhere.

In New York alone, we have over 1000.

We will be sending up over 1000 medical professionals today, tomorrow, the next day in a in a late change.

As of yesterday, we decided a few 100 of those would would be deployed in New York City.

Hospitals augment the hospitals there.

And so what you're gonna find is the Javits Center will become a 25 100 bed hospital.

It will be the largest hospital in United States and that we run by the United States military.

So we're all in on this ahead of need with regard to that.

And as you asked with regard to the comfort of mercy, we sent those ships up several days a week ago.

They also arrived ahead of need.

We're prepared to open up them up to Cove in 19 patients is necessary.

I've already delegate that authority to the northcom commander who's responsible for the operations in the United States.

We've been keeping those and reserve, if you will, because we know this will move around the country.

This virus and these ships are a large 1000 bed medical capacity that is deployable, that is mobile, and we want to make sure we can continue to deploy them as necessary.

But but if again, if the virus gets so bad, New York City or L.

A.

We need to will certainly be prepared.

Open him up to Corona virus patients.

We just don't want trauma patients to become Corona virus patients, too.

Yeah, that's a real concern.

And if you sent out all the respirators you have access to, we offered up weeks ago up to 2000 respirators.

Many of those were deployed with our hospital ships.

They're deployed with the field hospitals we've sent to New York, Seattle and elsewhere.

We have prepositioned several 100 outside of New York, and we have others that we're prepared to ship wherever told to ship him.

You said at the top of this interview that the Pentagon has been ahead of the curve every day and you mentioned in January.

But did the Pentagon receive an intelligence assessment on covert in China last November from the National Center for Medical Intelligence?

Of D.

I.

A.

I can't recall George, but are we have many people watch this closely.

We have the premiere Infectious Disease Research Institute in America within the United States Army.

So are people who work these issues directly.

Watch this all the time.

As you know, the first patient in the United States was discovered in late January.

We activated our global pandemic response plans on 1 February, I issued guidance to force for force protection on 3 February and we didn't see our first casualty.

United States and God, God, God rest her soul until 29 February.

So you can see we were weeks ahead of this in terms of preparing our own force and opening up our stockpile to the rest of the government.

But But that's in January because, reportedly, this this assessment was done in November and it was brief to the NSC in early December to assess the impact on military readiness, which, of course, would make it important to you and the possible spread in the United States.

So you would have known if this were briefed to the National Security Council in December, wouldn't you?

I'm not aware that I will tell you again.

Our folks work this all the time.

That's why we have a global pandemic response plan that I initiated on February 1st.

That's why we have stockpiles of strategic supplies, whether it's mass gowns, peopIe, ventilators, all those things we need.

We gotta be prepared for any type of contingency or any type of war fight environment that we may be operating.

And that's why we've been poised and ready to support the whole of government effort.

And the real question said, You want to think you're most focused on right now The impact of Copan 19 on the readiness of the U.

S.

Military Right now some 1200 service members have been infected.

I seen that number could go up and now you have one of your aircraft carriers out in Guam.

How concerned are you about its impact on readiness?

Well, we watch it very closely, but you're right.

We don't have large numbers right now reporting being infected by the virus of those that are only 35.

Thank goodness or hospitalized nun over active component members have have died, but out of a force of two million, we're in pretty good shape right now, But we've taken extent, extensive measures.

I have issued four sets of guidance now going back to 13 February with regard to how to protect our force.

We've done a lot of social media.

I've done Tom halls with our forces just to make sure we're taking very good care of our service members of our civilians and their families.

And you expect all those service members and civilians now to follow the CDC guidance, calling for the wearing of face coverings and mask in public?

And will you?

We will have a ah directive coming out on that today.

Again, we want to take every measure to protect our troops.

You know, I said priority to George is making sure we can conduct our national security missions.

And to do that, we can't always do.

Ah, six feet distancing with urine attack, submarine, a bomber in a tank.

So we have to take other measures on.

And I trust the commanders on our senior and CEOs to do that, but we want to provide him all the guidance they need to adjust it in whatever is unique to their situation, their circumstance, or their mission set.

But we should expect more widespread use of mass than inside the Pentagon and with service members.

Now we're We're going to move toward face coverings.

Secretary Esper, Thanks for your time this morning.

Thank you, George.

Hi, everyone.

George Stephanopoulos Here.

Thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel.

If you'd like to get more video show highlights and watch live event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel.

And don't forget to download the ABC News after breaking news alerts.

Thanks for watching.