The President announced approval of a major naval expansion, authorizing construction of two new, very large battleships. Speaking as commander-in-chief, he said the vessels will be the fastest and biggest ever built, claiming they will be up to 100 times more powerful than any previous battleship, marking a dramatic upgrade to U.S. naval strength.
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NewsTranscript
00:00It's beautiful. It's the first renderings of what we're doing.
00:05So I want to wish everybody a big hello and Merry Christmas and welcome to Mar-a-Lago for
00:11this exciting announcement of the new Golden Fleet. We're calling it the Golden Fleet
00:16that we're building for the United States Navy. As you know, we're desperately in need of ships.
00:21Our ships are, some of them have gotten old and tired and obsolete, and we're going to go the
00:27exact opposite direction. We're delighted to be joined by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth,
00:33who's doing a fantastic job, and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan. Marco Rubio is here,
00:40who gave a great few words toward the end of last week. He spoke for a couple of hours on
00:47what a good job we're doing, which is true. As Commander-in-Chief, it's my great honor to
00:53announce that I have approved a plan for the Navy to begin the construction of two brand new,
00:59very large, largest we've ever built, battleships. You know, you used to build the Iowa, the Missouri,
01:09the Wisconsin, the Alabama, and many others. We had big battleships. These are bigger,
01:14but they will have 100 times the, there'll be 100 times the force, the power. And there's never been
01:25anything like these ships. These have been under design consideration for a long time.
01:31And it started with me in my first term, because I said, why aren't we doing battleships like we used
01:37to? And the, these are the best in the world. They'll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far
01:45100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built. So if you look at the Iowa, the Missouri,
01:52Wisconsin, Alabama, and others, but they're, they were similar in size, some a little bit bigger than
01:58the others. But if you take the biggest one, it's 100 times more powerful. They're longer by
02:06a little bit. But the, and they're bigger, they're bigger ships, but they hold much more,
02:13they use the word, lethality. Battleships are the largest, sturdiest, and most heavily armed vessel
02:19built specifically for naval combat. While America has built many new warships over the years, they've
02:27been, they've tended to be smaller, much smaller, and not conducive to where we are.
02:36And where we're going, and peace through strength. But including, we've been building aircraft
02:42carriers. We're going to be upping that also. We're going to be going to a superior aircraft.
02:48We have the Ford class. We're going to be upping that to a different class of aircraft carrier.
02:55And we haven't built a battleship since 1994. These cutting-edge vessels will be some of the most
03:04lethal surface warfare ships. They will be actually the most ever built other than our submarines. We
03:11have submarines which will have, in many ways, even more lethality. And we have many of them under
03:18construction. Each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country,
03:26the largest battleship in the history of the world ever built. And again, it's 100 times more powerful
03:32than the previous Iowa class, it's called. Those are the big ones that you'd see on a show. Victory
03:38at Sea. I don't know if anyone's seen Victory at Sea, but it was a classic. They'll help maintain
03:44American military supremacy, revive the American shipbuilding industry, and inspire fear in
03:50America's enemies all over the world. We want respect. We're going to have it. We already have
03:55it. We're more respected now than we ever were. A year and a half ago, they laughed at us. Now
04:01they respect us again at levels that they've never respected us. We envision that these two ships,
04:07we're talking about 10, but we're going to start with two, and we're going to quickly morph into 10.
04:12And ultimately, we think it's going to be anywhere from 20 to 25 of these. But we're starting with
04:18the first two immediately, and we're going to then be very quickly involved with, I think,
04:24we're going to do another eight. And then we're going to ultimately and pretty quickly have a total
04:31of about 20 to 25. We'll make that determination. We envision that these ships will be the first of a
04:39a whole new class of battleships to be produced in the years to come. From Theodore Roosevelt,
04:45the great white fleet, you remember that, the great white fleet, to the legendary USS Missouri,
04:53whose massive guns helped win World War II. America's battleships have always been
04:59unmistakable symbols of national power. We stopped making them for whatever reason. I don't know.
05:06And I want to congratulate John Thelen, who is your secretary, secretary of the Navy. He came to me
05:14the first day we met. He talked about battleships. And I said, you're absolutely on the right track.
05:20He said, why are we doing other things? We have missiles, which are much more expensive. By the way,
05:26these battleships have tremendous numbers of missiles, but they also have guns. And in many ways,
05:31guns can do the trick just as well as missiles at a tiny fraction of the cost. Once completed,
05:39these new 30,000 to 40,000 ton plus vessels will be the flagships of the American naval fleet. And
05:48there'll be never — there has never been anything built like them. And I just want to — I want to be very clear
05:58that we're building them here. We're working with others, but we're building them here. We have great
06:05Navy yards. We'll be negotiating with some of the companies that are running those yards, taking over
06:11the yards. We used to build a ship a day during World War II. Now we don't do ships very much anymore.
06:17We do military ships. We do submarines. By the way, we're 15 to 20 years advanced in our submarines over
06:23anybody else. That was one of the things that I did in my first term. We make the best submarines
06:29by far in the world. We're at least 15 years advanced ahead of anybody else in submarine development.
06:36Most powerful — that's right — the most powerful weapon anywhere in the world. Undetectable.
06:43So the battleships are going to be armed just in terms of guns and missiles at the highest level.
06:50They'll also have hypersonic weapons — many hypersonic weapons — state-of-the-art electric
06:56rail guns, and even the high-powered lasers that you've been starting to read about. We have lasers
07:03where you aim the laser at a target, it just wipes it out. We're going to have — they'll be the most
07:09sophisticated lasers in the world, and the most sophisticated laser in the world will be on the
07:15battleships that we're building. They'll also carry the nuclear arms. She launched cruise missiles,
07:21currently under development, which will be instituted pretty quickly. But they're under
07:27development, and they've proven to be extremely lethal. The U.S. Navy will lead the design of these
07:33ships along with me, because I'm a very aesthetic person, alongside our partners in American industry. And
07:41we're going to have Pete Hegseth and Marco and a lot of very talented people involved. But a lot
07:47of it's already been done. We've been doing this for months. The construction will create thousands
07:53of American jobs. We're going to have the jobs be created. I mean, already we have factories being
07:59built unrelated to this, although AI will be a big factor when it comes to these ships. They'll be very
08:05AI-controlled. Today's announcement is yet another step in our mission to make the United States Navy
08:13stronger than ever before. Again, when you talk about 100 times the power of these massive ships
08:20that we had years ago, it's pretty amazing. And next week, I'm going to meet with the defense prime
08:27contractors. I'm going to meet with them here, Florida. And we're going to be talking about
08:33production schedules because they're too slow. We have many countries, allies that are wanting to buy.
08:41We make the greatest equipment in the world by far. Nobody's even close. But they don't produce them
08:46fast enough. So we're going to be meeting with them to talk about the production schedules. We're going
08:53to have strong production schedules. And the only way they're going to be able to do that is to build
08:58new plants. Even with the F-35. We have many people want the F-35 fighter jet. And it takes too long to
09:05deliver them to allies or to ourselves. It takes too long. The only way they're going to be able to
09:09deliver them is if they build new plants. They don't want to build new plants because that's expensive.
09:15So we're going to be discussing production schedules. We're going to be discussing capex spending. We'll be
09:21discussing the the pay to executives where they're making 45 and 50 million dollars a year and not
09:30being able to build quickly. They're going to make that kind of money they have to build quickly. Again, we
09:35make the best equipment in the world, but they don't make them fast enough. And we're going to be also
09:40discussing dividends. We want the dividends to go into the creation of production facilities.
09:47So we'll be talking about all capex dividends and the pay. We're also going to be talking about
09:56buybacks. They spend so much money on buybacks. They want to buy back their stock. I don't want
10:00them to buy back their stock. I want them to put the money in plant and equipment so they can build
10:07these planes fast rapidly, like immediately. I mean, I have sold more planes than any president
10:14by far times probably 20. So every time I go someplace, I sell 100 planes. That includes
10:23commercial planes, Boeing's, etc. But it also includes fighter jets. And I'm always having to
10:28say five years, six years, seven years, helicopters, Apache helicopters, many years. India bought them.
10:34They want to get them. They don't want to wait a long time. So we don't want to have executives making
10:3950 million dollars a year issuing big dividends to everybody and also doing buybacks. And then they
10:48say, well, we don't have the money to build the plant. They got to build plants, plans to make F-35s,
10:53plans to make helicopters, plans to make the F-47 new jet. And that's it. And that's what I'm going to be
11:01talking to them about. They're going to start spending money on building airplanes and ships
11:06and the things that we need, not in 10 years, in 15 years. We need them now.
11:12And we're strong about it. Last week, the Navy announced a brand new class of frigate.
11:19And they're going to be working with the South Korean company. Hanwha, a good company,
11:23recently agreed to invest $5 billion in Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. We're opening up the Philadelphia
11:28Shipyard, once a great yard. Now it was, it was a long time ago, decommissioned, but now it's reopening.
11:35Working with the Navy and working with private companies. The record-setting defense bill I
11:41signed last week authorized $26 billion to build new ships, including destroyers and various others.
11:49We already have a lot of submarines, as you know, under construction. We're building a lot
11:55of submarines, I tell you. To be exact, we have right now 15 submarines under construction or ready to
12:04start. And we have, again, the greatest submarine in the world with our technology, like they talk
12:09about chips. Well, I would say submarines are a bigger deal than chips. We have, we're at least,
12:19at least 15 years ahead of any other competitor. China, Russia, nobody can come close.
12:25We're also building right now three large aircraft carriers, in addition to the ones we have.
12:31And we have actually, interestingly, we have a lot of submarines. How many submarines do we have now
12:37all together? Approximately?
12:40I'm sorry, over 30.
12:42What? Over 30.
12:44We have over 30. But these are the super-duper subs, and these, and there's nothing like them. So we're
12:49going to be doing from 12 to 15 brand new submarines.
12:54We have a couple of other things going on. We'll be building other elements of Navy. We'll be fixing up
13:07headquarters. We'll be fixing up places for our great sailors to live. And we're going to be working
13:14very hard with companies, but we're also going to be penalizing companies that aren't doing a good job.
13:19For instance, when they built the fort, Gerald Ford, the cost overruns were ridiculous.
13:24That was done in Norfolk, Virginia. We're going to be talking about that with that company. The
13:29cost overruns were out of control. In World War II, the United States built upwards of four ships
13:35per day. Can you believe it? Four ships a day, on average. And it's, now they weren't all big warships,
13:42but there were ships, freighters, tankers. And it's a tragedy that we allowed this
13:49incredible capability to just go astray. We don't
13:53do that much anymore. We do build our warships, but that's about it. But that's a lot.
13:58We're going to restore America as a major shipbuilding power. We're going to
14:02ensure the USA is the most powerful fleet anywhere in the world. And long into the future,
14:08with battleships helping lead the way and the submarines. And again,
14:12nobody competes with us on submarines. So, I just want to thank everybody. And I'd like to ask
14:18Secretary Hegseth to say a few words, followed by the secretary. But if you, if you would,
14:25Secretary of the Navy. But Pete's doing a fantastic job.
14:29Secretary of Commerce, for the lieutenant president of your United States to get
14:34As
14:56every time we knock out one of those boats with the drugs pouring in and you
15:00just have to see it means people say oh gee do you think do you think it was
15:04really drugs well just take a look bags all over the place that's not fishing
15:09equipment there's no fishing rods on those boats they move fast when you see
15:13a boat with four engines or five engines and you know going 40 50 miles an hour
15:19well they get hit we save 25,000 lives every single time we knock out a boat
15:26and it's over 96 percent stopped by sea we're trying to figure out who the
15:31other four percent are frankly and we're gonna have the same success but even
15:37quicker because it's much easier on land if they want to come by land they're
15:42gonna end up having a big problem they're gonna get blown to pieces because we
15:46don't want our people poisoned 300,000 people died probably last year 300,000
15:53a lot of people say it was 200 somebody said last night it was only 175,000
15:58people that's like three stadiums big football stadiums filled up with people
16:03died but I think the real number is 300,000 we're not going to have that
16:07anymore so we're we're doing a great job and we enjoy doing it our border is
16:13secure our country is strong trillions of dollars is coming into our country from
16:18other countries and companies they're building factories and plants including
16:23auto plants all over the United States of America without tariffs they wouldn't
16:27be doing anything although they were very happy with the November 5th election but
16:32it's only because they want to avoid paying tariffs that they're all coming in and
16:35again the biggest number was three trillion dollars in history that was China
16:39many years ago now it's 18 trillion dollars and that's just in 10 months we
16:45think we could hit 20 trillion dollars that's investment in the United States
16:49including plant and equipment so thank you very much and I'll ask Pete to say a
16:54few words and then John and if you have any questions we'll take them thank you
17:01well Mr. President you're exactly right there are no fishing poles no fishermen and
17:07no fishing boats just drug dealers and narco terrorists and with every strike we're
17:13saving American lives no other president was willing to do real deterrence that's
17:18exactly what's happening it's an honor to be here Mr. President Mr. Secretary
17:23Secretary Rubio to talk about what peace through strength really looks like you
17:28can talk about it or you can invest in it and you can build it and that's
17:32exactly what President Trump is doing at the Department of War we're restoring the
17:36warrior ethos in fact the President mentioned the NDAA we put into law
17:39merit-based we put into law getting rid of DEI and political correctness that's
17:44now part of how our military operates and you've seen it in record recruiting in
17:48the spirit of the Department of War we're rebuilding the military President Trump
17:52did it once he's doing again with historic investments today in shipbuilding and
17:57we're reestablishing deterrence whether that's at the border whether it's
18:00through Golden Dome what happened with Midnight Hammer and what Iran found out
18:04those drug boats and of course the Houthis opening up the shipping lanes American
18:08strength is back on the world stage and the announcement of the Golden Fleet
18:13anchored by new battleships the biggest and most lethal ever accomplishes all
18:18three of those things and marks a generational commitment to American sea power
18:23across the entire department we are developing new operational concepts deploying
18:28cutting-edge technologies and making major investments including in our
18:33Navy this is all this is happening in all domains including space as the
18:38president has talked about before anyone else so it's the highest of domains and
18:43the lowest of domains undersea and especially today in sea power that always
18:48has to be decisive has been in the history of America and will continue to be
18:53under the leadership of President Trump we will make sure that anything that
18:57flows from our country and with our allies allies for flows freely and
19:01uncontested new and better ships will provide that deterrent today and for
19:07generations to come this new class these new investments will be the types of
19:12things that for decades for for centuries the American people will look back and
19:16thank President Trump for having the vision and the willingness to invest right
19:19now in capabilities we need today tomorrow and long into the future so mr.
19:24president thank you for this investment and I'll hand it over now to the Navy
19:27secretary
19:30mr. president the Secretary Hague says Secretary Rubio thank you for being here on a very
19:39consequential day from my very first conversation with President Trump about
19:45serving as a secretary of the Navy he's talked about the great Iowa class
19:49battleship and why America doesn't build ships anymore with that kind of offensive
19:54firepower that takes the fight to the enemy during my time in the job I've talked
20:00extensively with our combatant commanders like Admiral Paparo and Admiral Cooper
20:05and our CNO Admiral Cottle what I've learned is is that not only is the
20:10president's idea good one it's something that Navy desperately needs and now has a
20:15formal requirement for the future Trump class battleship the USS defiant will be
20:22the largest deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the
20:28world's oceans I want to thank the president for his vision to make this
20:33game-changing capability for the United States Navy the Iowa was designed to go on
20:39the attack with the biggest guns and that's exactly what will define the Trump
20:44class battleships offensive firepower from the biggest guns of our era this ship
20:50isn't just to swat the arrows it is going to reach out and kill the archers and for
20:56the first time in generations we'll have a new leg in America's nuclear
21:00deterrence because the Trump class battleship will carry the nuclear armed
21:05sea-launched cruise missile striking dominance isn't all that the Trump
21:10class battleship brings to the fight at sea it has the size and capacity to serve
21:16as a flagship for our fleet commanders so that they can command and control naval
21:21forces far out to sea as shown in the series and the president mentioned it
21:26victory at sea Admirals Bull Halsey and Raymond Spurance commanded the war in the
21:32Pacific from their battleship flagships during World War two now this new
21:37battleship will command everything from warships to drones and everything in
21:42between we're going to make battle battle groups great again and this is
21:47just one piece of the president's golden fleet that we're going to build with the
21:51investments he talked about a new frigate the right frigate the one our
21:56warfighters have told us they need more amphibious power for our Marines with new
22:02capabilities like medium landing ship as part of the Navy's high-low mix we're
22:07moving out aggressively on unmanned vessels with funding from the president's
22:12one big beautiful bill to bring options to the fight and pull new non-traditional
22:18defense partners into the American shipbuilding ecosystem and we're making a
22:23generational investment in support ships logistics wins wars and that kind of
22:29shipbuilding is the spark that will ignite the industrial base and help power the
22:34commercial shipbuilding that the president has called for under your
22:39leadership mr. president we will have more tonnage and firepower under
22:43construction than ever before in our history building the president's golden
22:48fleet means jobs across the United States now there'll be work for shipyards
22:53everywhere from Philadelphia to San Diego from Maine to Mississippi from the Great
22:59Lakes to the Gulf Coast coast and for manufacturers that will build components
23:04for this battleship in every state the president has been clear we must bring
23:09back our American maritime industrial might and he has told me many times that as
23:15Secretary of the Navy is my job to equip our sailors to win the fight at sea with the
23:20finest ships in our history to conclude the USS defiant battleship will inspire awe and
23:27reverence for the American flag whenever it pulls into a foreign port it will be a
23:33source of pride for every American when it brings home our brave sailors who will
23:37sail defiant raise their fists and say we are peace through strength and our
23:44adversaries will know when the Trump class USS defiant appears on the horizon American
23:50victory at sea is inevitable thank you mr. president now when a conflict arises you
23:57are going to ask not one but two questions where are the carriers and where are the battleships thank
24:04you I just want to mention that John Phelan is one of the most successful businessmen in
24:11the country in the country in our country been a tremendous success and he wanted to do this
24:16and for nothing he's taken probably the largest salary cut in history but he wanted to do he wants to
24:25rebuild our Navy and you needed that kind of a brain to to do it properly so I just want to give you a
24:30little information on him which is probably enough but one of the most successful men in the country and he's that because he understands it and he understand finance in addition to what we're talking about
24:33somebody who's doing a fantastic job is marco rubio secretary of state and marco maybe say a few words and then we'll answer some questions thank you
24:40thank you mr. president and I don't have much to add this is a phenomenal presentation thank you mr. president this is American industrial power returning this is the ability once again to rebuild to have industry
24:48in the United States this is generational and the change not just in terms of applying American war power increasing our ability to protect the seas the u.s. navy is the single biggest source of peace in the world of all of our forces because it gives us a global footprint in the world of all of our forces because it gives us a global footprint in the world of our
25:17global footprint but it rebuilds American industrial capacity the ability to make things again in our country has been critical to what the president's agenda has been all about and this is a tangible reminder of it and I know the country is grateful for it and generations of Americans will be grateful for it so thank you thank you
25:33by the way I think I'd just like to point out that these ships are made of steel as opposed to aluminum it's a big difference as you know battleships the great battleships at six and seven inch steel hulls
25:46and these are going to be likewise made out of very powerful steel our steel industry is coming back very strongly by the way it's coming back at record numbers and we're going to be using them for the steel but as opposed to an aluminum side which in all fairness is not the same so John we're going with all steel I understand then that's going to be something that people are surprised more expensive but
26:12not even comparable in terms of the importance and the strength yeah please
26:19what's your timetable for these first two ships and do you see them as a counter to China we'll start almost immediately and we'll probably talk in about two and a half years and in terms of the mission do you see it as a counter to China
26:31it's a counter to everybody it's not China we get along great with China have a great relationship with President Xi and not China it's just everybody you don't know who comes along but we just wanted peace through strength hopefully we never have to use them but there will never be anything built like these think of it those battleships are incredible these have 100 times the power think of that to me and they were big and they were powerful you know I'm
27:00you know I thought about taking some that are in dry dock and changing them and then when I said that you know if we did would be about we could increase if we doubled them they'd be at like just a tiny fraction of what one of these this is the new technology which is incredible so we decided pretty early on not to do that
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