In a statement issued Friday morning, the Pentagon sought to alleviate fears that Trump’s positive Covid-19 diagnosis presented a potentially imminent threat to national security, emphasizing that the development did not warrant a change in defense alert levels or military posture.
“There’s no change to the readiness or capability of our armed forces. Our national command and control structure is in no way affected by this announcement,” said Jonathan Hoffman, assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs.
“The US military stands ready to defend our country and interests,” he added.
Secretary of Defense Mark Esper spoke with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Friday while both were abroad about the President’s positive test and other topics, according to a US defense official. The call took place before Trump went to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Esper is in Morocco, while Pompeo is in Croatia.
But while defense officials attempted to dispel fears of a looming national security crisis, the uncertainty surrounding Trump’s health presents a clear challenge for those charged with protecting the US from threats foreign and domestic.
Like the Pentagon, several current and former national security officials noted that there are mechanisms in place to deal with instability caused by harm or injury befalling a president.
But at the same time, Trump’s illness “only makes that already chaotic system more chaotic,” according to John Gans, a former Pentagon speechwriter and author of a book on the national security council who added that the President’s own actions while in office may increase the risks of a “total breakdown in government.”
“It is important to remember that most of the modern American national security infrastructure and processes were built because of the instability wrought by infirm or injured presidents,” Gans, who served under the Obama administration, told CNN. “Because of the way Trump’s runs government, his illness, like Roosevelt’s death and Reagan’s incapacitation, risks a total breakdown in decision making in government.
How bad is it?
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, also acknowledged that there are “security implications any time that a president falls ill,” but acknowledged that the urgency of those concerns is predicated, in part, on whether Trump’s health status deteriorates further.
Murphy told CNN’s Kylie Atwood at the Truman Center National Policy Conference that he took White House chief of staff Mark Meadows “at his word that the President has not been incapacitated, that he has mild symptoms, that he’s continuing to be able to function as the head of state.”
“I was glad that Mark Meadows came out and made that clear this morning, our allies and our adversaries need to know that and understand, because we still have many of those on the latter list that are probing at our vulnerabilities,” Murphy said.
That view was echoed by some former national security officials who urged caution when assessing the current level of concern but warned the threat landscape could shift depending on Trump’s condition.
“As long as the President just has mild to moderate symptoms, I wouldn’t expect any major shifts in either how our national security apparatus operates or the actions of our adversaries,” said Eric Brewer, a former NSC official during the Trump and Obama administrations.
However, Samantha Vinograd, a CNN national security analyst and former NSC official during the Obama administration, stressed the situation was much more urgent, calling this a “code red moment for the US government, on multiple levels.”
Read More: Trump’s illness raises national security concerns as Pentagon looks to reassure