Nick Schifrin:

Yes, Judy, that conference call is ongoing.

But the head of the U.S. Navy in the Pacific Ocean, Admiral John Aquilino, was discussing the Theodore Roosevelt, and he says that they're taking extraordinary action to try to isolate soldiers on that ship, testing them while in quarantine.

But I have to say what he just announced is not what the captain of the ship has been asking for. Some number of hundreds, perhaps in the thousands, of sailors from USS Theodore Roosevelt are leaving that ship right now, but the admiral specifically said that they wouldn't accede to the request by the captain of the ship, which was really an extraordinary one, to take 90 percent of the ship off and keep 10 percent on the ship in order to clean the ship and maintain the nuclear reactor on that ship.

And what the captain said was basically, we needed to do this because everyone on this ship was working too closely together, and that we couldn't keep the sailors safe. There have been dozens of cases of COVID-19 on that ship.

And he wrote a real plea to the Pentagon in a letter yesterday, Judy.

And let me read just part of it — quote — "Decisive action is required. Removing the majority of personnel from a deployed U.S. nuclear aircraft carrier and isolating them for two weeks may well seem like an extraordinary measure, but keeping over 4,000 young men and women aboard the Theodore Roosevelt is an unnecessary risk and breaks faith with those sailors entrusted to our care."

Judy, Admiral Aquilino from the U.S. Navy in the Pacific said that that wasn't going to happen, that he said — quote — "There has never been an intent — an intent to take all the sailors off that ship."