Trump remains desperate for distractions. From Epstein. From getting spanked by SCOTUS. From news about his abysmal approval (non-approval is more accurate) ratings. Even speculation about how AWFUL he will come across at Tuesday’s SOTU address. So Trumpstein has turned to a familiar tool – Greenland! A U.S. sailor needing acute medical care was airlifted from his sub and flown seven miles by helicopter to Nuuk. Trump’s reaction is to deploy one of the Navy’s two hospital ships to Greenland!
I wish I was kidding, that you were reading a piece in The Onion but yep, Trump made a BFD publicly about deploying one of our hospital ships. There’s been no news about the sick sailor since his being airlifted on Saturday from sea to shore/hospital was first announced. I assume he’s doing okay because Greenland has an excellent health care system. Any resident there that needs certain specialized care is taken to Denmark. For our sailor, an evac flight from Nuuk to the U.S. would be simple. And far more cost efficient than sending a huge Navy ship.
Naturally, Don-OLD talks about providing ‘needed health care’ to Greenlanders as if they aren’t already well served. More so than huge numbers of Americans, particularly in those big swaths of red, rural/small town ‘Real America.” As for Greenland and Denmark too AFP reports Trump’s ‘offer’ got a more polite than deserved ‘No Thanks’:
Denmark on Sunday rejected a US claim that Greenland needs healthcare help, on the same day its forces evacuate a US sailor from a submarine off the coast of the Arctic island for medical treatment.
A day earlier, US President Donald Trump said he was sending a hospital ship to the autonomous Danish territory that he covets.
Trump simply can’t believe other countries can provide quality health care. Since he doesn’t know dick, he probably doesn’t know that on submarines, space even for a sick-bay, is quite limited and cramped. The facilities and staff of even a small town hospital simply aren’t available on subs. If a badly stricken sailor is lucky he can be evacuated by helicopter to shore, or a larger ship with actual full medical capabilities including doctors. I for one would be the least bit surprised to learn Trump doesn’t know any of this, and was embarrassed our sailor was airlifted and by DANISH military forces to Nuuk.
That would explain Trump’s dumbass reaction and since Greenland has proven to be an effective distraction he tried to wave around this particular shiny bauble. Hardly anyone it seems took much notice. I DO however hope that journalists follow-up. We currently have two hospital ships in the US Navy fleet. The Mercy is based out of San Diego and the Comfort out of Norfolk. Both are, for the first time in decades sitting side-by-side in the Mobile, Alabama shipyard undergoing regular maintenance. (Which prompts the question of why in one bit of news Trump was talking about a U.S. Senator from Louisiana in conjunction with this)
Just so you know. These are bigass ships. Almost eight hundred feet long and displacing nearly seventy thousand tons. Size wise they hold their own in pictures of them near an aircraft carrier! Each has a thousand hospital beds, a dozen surgical suites and 80 ICU beds. Most actual hospitals don’t have the capacity, equipment/facilities and staff these ships have. However like all ships they need regular maintenance. One of them could be deployed but it would take about five days to get her (probably the Comfort) out to sea. Then there’s the time to sail all the way around Florida and up to Greenland. I’m betting that long before the ship could get there the sailor (who’s deployment is likely done) will have been treated and back at his home port!
So hell yes I want journalists and our Democratic Congress Critters to follow up on this. By now it’s probably been explained to Trump that even if our sailor needs super specialized treatment he can be stabilized and flown home on a plane equipped for medical evac. And it would COST a helluva lot less than pulling a ship (that might be needed soon over in the Persian Gulf) out of maintenance and sailing it all the way to Greenland even if it weren’t fully staffed.
No, this is an embarrassing thing Trump announced trying to distract from Epstein and other problems and I’m betting Susie Wiles is trying and with desperation of her own hoping will be forgotten. I say don’t let them try to pretend it never happened. Trump shot off his fat mouth and this is the kind of thing that, if turned into a ‘thing’ here in the U.S. is something even MAGA goobers would wonder about! People are seeing their local hospitals and medical practices close, their healthcare costs have shot up and Trump is spending a fortune to send a Navy Hospital Ship to freaking Greenland? Not exactly the ‘America First’ they thought they’d be getting.
As for Greenland’s take on all this I’ll leave you with this:
But Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen told Danish broadcaster DR: “The Greenlandic population receives the healthcare it needs. They receive it either in Greenland, or, if they require specialised treatment, they receive it in Denmark.”
He added: “It’s not as if there’s a need for a special healthcare initiative in greenland.”
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The story gets even better; included in tRump’s statement was the ship was “on it’s way”. Reports are that the US has 2 hospital ships, the USS Comfort and USS Mercy. Apparently they are both down for maintenance. One of them is even in dry dock. So much for “on it’s way”. Dementia Donny strikes again!
I thought I mentioned in the article that both were in Mobile for regular maintenance. I didn’t know about one of them being in dry dock at the moment. Assuming the shipyard didn’t cut into the hull for some reason (engine/turbine replacement for example) the dry dock could be flooded but for a ship that size it would take the better part of three days. Of course as I noted absent major problems a ship undergoing routine maintenance can be made ready for sea in as little as five days.
Piling on the irony, Trump’s ‘Greenland Guy’ is the Governor of Louisiana , one of the states with the worst healthcare. How much better would it be if the money spent doing this stunt was actually spent on healthcare in Louisiana?
Or is that just being too sensible?
I’m thinking Trump/Hegseth Chaos: I don’t know how many of these behemoth hospital ships the Department of Defense has at its disposal but to have 2 out of commission, side by side, sounds odd in terms of placement (they appear to be stationed in the Atlantic and Pacific) and availability. The availability is a potential issue given that his other brain cell is steaming towards events blowing up around the Middle East.
PS you have to love the Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen: “Troels” sounding suspiciously like “Trolls”
They have just the two – the Mercy and the Comfort. A contract for new hospital ships, that will be a new class of smaller ships was recently awarded. They will have every capability of the current ships but far fewer beds, operating theaters etc. However they will be capable of moving at 30 knots (the Mercy & Comfort can only manage 17 knots) and with a much shallower draft (four and a half meters) be able to get into much smaller ports and areas. My initial take is it seems like a pretty sound strategy. I wish Gene (a long story about how he became a second dad after my father died) was still around. He served on the Repose during Korea includling the Inchon landing.
Trump doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘logistics’. He also has no critical thinking skills. The article clearly lists 5 days for remaining maintenance and then Travel time around Florida. The sailor could be dead by that time. ETTD.