Trump visits new aircraft carrier
President touts ‘great rebuilding of our military might’
NEWPORT NEWS, VA. President Donald Trump visited a new aircraft carrier in eastern Virginia on Thursday, promoting his plan to embark on what he called “a great rebuilding of our military might.”
Wearing an olive green military jacket and blue ball cap, Trump addressed sailors aboard the soon-to-be-commissioned USS Gerald R. Ford, calling it “4.5 acres of combat power and sovereign U.S. territory, the likes of which there is nothing to compete.”
“It is a monument to American might that will provide the strength necessary to ensure peace,” he said. “Hopefully, it’s power we don’t have to use. But if we do, they’re in big, big trouble.”
The visit to the carrier highlights a theme of his address Tuesday to Congress, in which he proposed “one of the largest increases in national defense spending in American history.”
Trump’s speech Thursday hewed tightly to prepared remarks, and he stayed focused on defense issues even as questions swirled around Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ contacts with the Russian ambassador during the campaign.
The USS Gerald R. Ford, named after the nation’s 38th president, is expected to be commissioned later this year after a series of cost overruns and delays that added up to $12.9 billion. It’s set to be the prototype for a new Ford class of “supercarriers” that will eventually replace today’s Nimitz-class carriers.
During the campaign, Trump pledged to build up the Navy fleet from 272 ships to 350.
A draft budget plan released earlier this week by the White House would add $54 billion to the Pentagon’s projected budget, a 10 percent increase. The U.S. currently spends more than a half-trillion dollars on defense, more than the next seven countries combined.