President Trump’s push for a high-tech “Trump-class” battleship has claimed another administration casualty. Navy Secretary John Phelan was ousted on Wednesday after failing to produce a viable plan for delivering the president’s dream warship on the aggressive timeline Trump desired, according to senior defense and administration officials who spoke with the New York Times. Phelan, a billionaire investor who’d been in the role for just over a year, had been tasked with producing the first ship by 2028, despite major industrial and technological hurdles. “This ship will never sail,” military budget expert Mark F. Cancian predicts, noting that the vessel would take years just to design.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg reportedly told Trump that Phelan wasn’t a “team player,” then moved to strip him of key responsibilities before urging his removal. The Wall Street Journal reports that Phelan refused to accept his dismissal until he heard it from Trump himself, even heading to the White House on Wednesday evening. “Once the president had a spare minute … Phelan asked to keep his job, but the commander in chief backed Hegseth’s decision,” the Journal notes, citing a senior administration official.
The firing comes amid significant turnover at the Pentagon while the US is at war with Iran, worrying lawmakers in both parties. Experts had already cast doubt on the battleship concept, envisioned as a huge, heavily armed vessel loaded with cutting-edge weapons like electric rail guns and hypersonic missiles. Trump, who has tied the project to a broader bid to revive US shipbuilding, praised Phelan on social media and left the door open to bringing him back in another role.
