Trump orders reduced drills with South Korea

Let's bring in CBS News Pentagon Reporter Eleanor Watson. So, Ellee, North Korea is actually a nuclear power. How is the Pentagon responding to this call to scale back joint exercises with South Korea? Well, this ask came the day before the exercises actually started. So the Pentagon is saying they're going to work to execute the commander in chief's orders, but South Korea is saying that the exercises are going on as planned. They began today. They're set to last 11 days. And this is the latest iteration of an exercise the US and South Korea have been doing together for about 50 years. More recently, the exercise has really frustrated the dictator, Kim Jong Un, and North Korea, which is likely why President Trump made the announcement on Truth Social that he did yesterday, asking the Pentagon to scale them back, citing, as you mentioned, that good relationship he says he has with Kim Jong Un. This is not the first time he has pushed to cancel these exercises. During his first term, he also made a similar push and, back then, criticized South Korea for doing what he calls ripping off the US for not paying more for the 28,000 US service members based there. Since then, South Korea has paid more for those US service members, but that didn't stop President Trump from reiterating that complaint today, injecting some uncertainty into these relationships in the Pacific at the same time hardware is moving out. As we've reported, the USS George Washington is headed to the Middle East to replace the Lincoln, leaving the US without a carrier in the Pacific. All right, let's shift then and talk about the Lincoln. What more are you learning? First of all, the president is down claiming-- downplaying, rather, these claims from some of the family members who say that there are poor conditions and deteriorating mental health on board. What more are we learning about the morale and if we're learning anything yet about the impact of the president's comments and the timeline of events surrounding the Lincoln's return? While President Trump downplays the concerns, Admiral Brad Cooper did visit the Lincoln. He's the head of US forces in the Middle East. He did pay a visit to the Lincoln over the weekend, where he acknowledged that the issues of food supply, of mail not getting there were long resolved. So that's the admiral acknowledging that there were some issues, but they've been resolved. He also said of the mental health concerns that of all of the 11 carriers, the USS Lincolnhas the lowest number of mental health cases.

But that statement struck me because it's like, how bad is it that on the other carriers? That's not exactly saying there's no problem. That's exactly right, and there should be a baseline for how many cases there are if they're going to issue a statement like that. But what we've heard from Admiral Cooper and from sailors/former officials on those deployments is that every deployment is really hard, and that's what they're stressing, and there are certain times when there are mental health cases. The USS George Washingtonis on the way. It's already passed through the Strait of Malacca. So it could be arriving in the Middle East in the next few days. But then, Lindsey, as we've talked about, the USS Lincolncould take two to three weeks to get back to San Diego.

Eleanor Watson, thank you.