President Donald Trump is making matters worse for already embattled Navy sailors with his latest demand for steam catapults, per Politico.
According to reporting on Friday, Trump's costly order for aircraft carriers to ditch their electromagnetic catapults for steam-powered systems is "compounding" pressures as the Navy deals with poor conditions on the USS Abraham Lincoln.
"The Navy is really coming under the gun now," a U.S. official told Politico. "We have ships pushing their limits in the Middle East and the Caribbean with no end in sight."
On Friday, Trump brushed off concerns from sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln, where sailors have reportedly been jumping overboard and attempting suicide. He said that their nine-month deployment has been "not nearly long enough." Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth similarly downplayed the concerns, saying, "Some deployments are longer than others."
Trump and Hegseth "both owe these sailors and their families an apology," Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), the Senate Democrats' top defense appropriator, told Politico. "If they can't take care of the troops under their watch, they should step aside for leaders who can."
Trump's demand to switch the catapult systems on future aircraft carriers to steam threatens to put the Navy under more financial and logistical strain, as a government report estimated that the new battleships are already expected to cost billions more than anticipated, Politico reported.
The modifications ordered by Trump are "highly unusual and disruptive for the Navy," Todd Harrison, an Air Force veteran and longtime defense budget analyst at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told Politico. "Especially since these are changes the Navy did not request."
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao said on Friday that the USS Abraham Lincoln would return to port, but he agreed, "There is no question our young men and women have been pushed to their limits," adding, "But they have never broken."