Trump's New Battleships: $65B Plan Hits Leadership Crisis

Trump's $65B Battleship Plan Faces Turmoil After Navy Secretary's Ouster

WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump wanted one thing, more than anything else, from his Secretary of the Navy, John Phelan: a new class of battleships.

"They'll be the fastest, the biggest and by far - 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built," Trump boasted at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate and resort in Florida a few days before Christmas. Phelan, a billionaire investor who has a home near the club, stood next to the president as he made the announcement.

Phelan's job was to deliver the first of Trump's battleships by 2028.

On Wednesday, Trump fired Phelan, who had struggled to come up with a plan to deliver the ships on the nearly impossible timeline that Trump has demanded, senior defense and administration officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive personnel matters.

Phelan is the first service secretary to be forced from the Defense Department during this administration, though he is far from the only senior Pentagon official to be dismissed. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has fired or sidelined more than two dozen generals and admirals over the past year, including the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Randy George, this month. Hegseth has also butted heads with the Secretary of the Army, Daniel P. Driscoll, over promotions and a host of other issues.

The churn of senior Pentagon officials at a time when the U.S. military is engaged in war with Iran has alarmed top Republican and Democratic members of Congress.

The Pentagon did not respond to questions regarding the circumstances surrounding Phelan's dismissal. Phelan could not immediately be reached for comment.

The breaking point for Phelan, who often said that he and Trump texted and talked on the phone regularly, came in the past two weeks as the president's frustration over Phelan's management of his prized battleship program grew and Phelan's enemies in the Pentagon, including Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen A. Feinberg, mounted a campaign to force him out.

This month, Hegseth and Feinberg told Trump that the Navy secretary was not a team player and needed to go, military officials said. Trump called Phelan to talk about his poor relationship with other leaders in the Pentagon.

Feinberg and Hegseth had recently seized some decision-making authority from Phelan, tapping a three-star admiral to oversee the Navy's submarine portfolio and having him report directly to Feinberg.

That left Phelan with oversight of a major investment in new ships that Trump has called a "golden fleet," built around the president's beloved battleship program.

Presidents rarely pay close attention to military procurement, but Trump has spoken repeatedly about his plans for a new "Trump-class" battleship. In a February speech to soldiers at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, Trump insisted that he had helped design the new class of ships that bear his name.

"I put a little more spirit in the hull," Trump told the troops. "I want that ship to look gorgeous, you know."

For Trump, the ships recalled "Victory at Sea," a documentary television series that ran in the 1950s and touted the role that battleships and other Navy vessels played in World War II.

"Did you ever see 'Victory at Sea?'" he mused to reporters in January when talking about the new battleships. "What a great thing that is to watch!"

Phelan played a prominent role in selling Trump on the new ships and his ambitious plans for revitalizing the U.S. Navy's fleet and the U.S. shipbuilding industry.

In his confirmation hearing last year, Phelan said that the president often texted him late at night to ask him about "rusty ships or ships in a yard" and what Phelan was going to do about them. Before the Navy settled on its plans for the Trump-class battleship, Phelan wooed the president to the idea by showing oil paintings of some of the service's great battleships from earlier eras, defense officials said.

In its $1.5 trillion defense budget, released this week, the Trump administration is asking for $65.8 billion for shipbuilding, the second-largest shipbuilding budget proposal since 1955, according to Congressional Budget Office data.

The Navy is also projecting that it will be asking for $17 billion in fiscal year 2028 to start construction on the first of the Trump class, Navy officials said.

But senior defense officials said the program, along with Trump's ambitious plans for his golden fleet, was marred by problems. The U.S. shipbuilding industry has nowhere near the capacity to build a technologically advanced battleship of the sort Trump is envisioning in the next few years, senior military officials said.

The Trump administration has failed over the past 16 months to nominate anyone to serve as assistant secretary for research, development and acquisition - who is supposed to oversee the Navy's weapons programs. And the Navy's civilian workforce, which plays a critical role in developing and testing new warships, has been devastated by cuts and early retirements, military officials said.

In the days after Trump announced his plans for the new battleships, defense experts raised questions about whether they would ever be built.

"The ship's purported characteristics are so extraordinary that the announcement will surely spark immense discussion," wrote Mark F. Cancian, an expert on military budgeting with the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "However, there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail."

The ship would take "years to design," Cancian noted. "A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water."

In Trump's imagination, the new warship would be massive, weighing as much as 40,000 tons, and would be packed with new high-tech weapons, including lasers, hypersonic missiles and electric rail guns, most of which are still in development and years from being deployed.

In recent weeks, it had become clear to Phelan that the Navy and the U.S. shipbuilding industry did not have the ability to deliver on Trump's vision. Phelan recently suggested to Trump that the Navy might have to rely on European shipyards to deliver the battleships on the ambitious timeline Trump was demanding, senior military and administration officials said.

Trump rejected the suggestion.

In his December news conference, announcing his plans for the battleships, Trump had vowed that the vessels - "the largest battleship in the history of the world ever built" - would be made in the United States with U.S. steel.

"We're going to restore America as a major shipbuilding power," he said.

Trump and Hegseth agreed that the Navy needed new leadership, officials said, and the president asked Hegseth to handle the resignation.

On Wednesday, Phelan heard he was being fired and went to the White House to see Trump, the officials said. He never saw him, but the president later phoned him to confirm the news, the officials added.

On Thursday, Trump wrote a message on social media that seemed designed to salve his fellow billionaire's feelings.

"John Phelan is a long time friend, and very successful businessman, who did an outstanding job serving as my Secretary Of The Navy for the last year," Trump wrote. "I very much appreciate the job that he has done, and would certainly like to have him back within the Trump Administration sometime in the future."

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.