Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) accused President Donald Trump of pushing a multibillion-dollar redesign of the Navy’s newest aircraft carriers to satisfy his personal aesthetic preferences, telling his followers on Saturday that the plan “will never happen” and that House Democrats would kill the effort if they retake the chamber in the November midterms. The statement, posted to X on the war and defense news website’s ongoing coverage of the story, came hours after The Washington Post reported that Navy officials are evaluating whether to move the command tower on its Ford-class carriers to resemble the layout of World War II-era ships, a change driven by the president’s stated dislike of the current design.
Lieu’s Full Statement
Lieu posted his statement on X at 1:22 p.m. ET on Saturday, August 15, 2026, directly responding to the Washington Post’s reporting on the proposed redesign. His post read in full:
“The ship redesign costing billions based on trump’s whims will never happen.
Dems will flip the House. We will stop the waste of taxpayer dollars from trump.
Instead, the Navy will draw pretty pictures of ships that will never be built to soothe the ego of an 80 year old fool.”
The Washington Post Report That Sparked The Backlash
According to the Washington Post, seven current and former U.S. officials said the Navy is considering a major redesign of its new aircraft carriers to better match President Trump’s preferred aesthetic for the warships, with the service evaluating whether to move the multistory tower that serves as the carrier’s command center farther forward, toward the middle of the ship, so it resembles older vessels. The review, described as not having been previously reported, was said to stem directly from Trump’s concerns about the “look” of the current Ford-class ships, where the tower sits near the rear of the vessel.
Mediaite, which also covered the report, noted that if the change were enacted, it would push the ship’s “island” — the tower housing the command center — into a position resembling the layout used during World War II. The outlet reported that current and former officials cautioned the alteration would require significant time and money, with costs described as running into the billions of dollars.
Officials Warn The Change Would Be Costly And Disruptive
Mediaite’s report cited a former official who was directly involved in a similar discussion during Trump’s first term, saying at the time that “it came back that the cost and time to do so would just be extraordinary.” Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute think tank, told the Washington Post the shift was technically possible but far from simple, saying, “You could change it but it’s very disruptive.” Officials also noted that this is not the first time Trump’s preference for an older carrier silhouette has come up inside the Navy, with a similar proposal surfacing and stalling during his first term in office.
Background: The Ford-Class Program And Its Price Tag
The Navy currently has three carriers in its Gerald R. Ford class either in service or under construction, with plans for as many as ten vessels in the class over the coming decades. The Post reported that each ship could cost as much as $22 billion over a 40-year span, factoring in construction, maintenance, and lifecycle costs. The USS John F. Kennedy is closest to entering the fleet, while the USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller remain under construction. The USS Gerald R. Ford itself recently completed an extended deployment in the Middle East in support of Operation Epic Fury, the ongoing U.S.-Iran military conflict.
Part Of A Broader Pattern: The Steam Catapult Order
The reported redesign discussion follows a separate directive from Trump earlier in the month, in which he ordered the Navy to abandon the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, or EMALS, in favor of the steam-powered catapults and hydraulic elevators used on the Navy’s older Nimitz-class carriers. Trump has criticized EMALS for years, telling sailors in 2019 that steam-powered systems work “much better” and, more recently, telling a defense summit audience that the Navy had spent “billions of dollars more” on electric catapults that “are not good.” The order would apply to future Ford-class carriers still in development, including the USS Doris Miller, which is already slated to use EMALS.
Sen. Mark Kelly’s Response To The Catapult Order
The catapult directive drew sharp criticism from Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former Navy combat pilot, NASA astronaut, and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Kelly said the switch would likely force the Navy to redesign ships already well into development and would “probably going to cost billions of dollars.” Pointing to his own background flying off carriers, Kelly said, “I’ve launched off the front of aircraft carriers hundreds of times, have a Master’s degree in aeronautical engineering, and am a test pilot and even I wouldn’t suggest to the Navy how to engineer specific systems on its ships.” Kelly went further in a separate post, telling Trump to “stick to what he knows best — ballrooms, bankruptcy, and bulls—.”
Lieu’s Long History Of Targeting Trump Over Wasteful Spending
Lieu’s criticism of the reported carrier redesign fits a pattern the congressman has followed since Trump’s first term, when he introduced the Stop Waste and Misuse by the President (SWAMP) Act, a bill aimed at requiring reimbursement for the cost of presidential visits to Trump-owned properties, which Lieu’s office estimated at roughly $3.7 million per visit at the time. Lieu has also repeatedly highlighted the amount of time Trump has spent at golf courses while in office, framing it as a taxpayer cost issue rather than a personal one.
A Pattern Of Public Mockery
Lieu has also used sharp, mocking language to criticize Trump on other occasions dating back nearly a decade. In 2017, after a televised Cabinet meeting in which department secretaries each took turns praising the president, Lieu posted a parody message reading, “Dear Great Leader [Donald Trump]: Your golf game is godlike, your wit, Shakespearean and your tweets nourish people like manna from heaven,” followed by a mock thank-you “for taking out Bin Laden; defeating the Soviet Union and getting us to the moon.” Saturday’s post describing Trump as “an 80 year old fool” whose ego needs to be soothed by ship renderings continues that same style of pointed, sarcastic criticism.
Reaction To Lieu’s Post
Lieu’s statement drew immediate pushback in the replies to his post, with one user writing, “What do you know about Naval needs and why in the hell would you meddle in America broadcasting strength?” and dismissing his prediction of a Democratic House takeover as “ha-larious.” Another commenter accused Lieu and Democrats generally of not wanting the Navy to have new ships at all. Lieu did not respond further to the criticism as of Saturday afternoon.
Broader Defense Budget Context
The redesign report and the earlier catapult order both come amid a significant expansion of Navy spending under the Trump administration. The president’s fiscal year 2027 budget request sought a 23 percent increase for the Navy, totaling $377.5 billion, as part of a broader $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal. Separately, the Congressional Budget Office estimated in early August that Trump’s planned fleet of 15 nuclear-powered “Trump-class” battleships, first announced in December 2025, could cost taxpayers as much as $275 billion through 2056, with the lead ship alone priced at $23.4 billion.
Lieu’s Role In House Democratic Leadership
Lieu currently represents California’s 36th Congressional District and serves as Vice Chair of the House Democratic Caucus, making him the highest-ranking Asian American to serve in House leadership. He sits on the House Judiciary and Foreign Affairs committees and is a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, having retired from the Air Force Reserve in 2021 with the rank of Colonel. His leadership position gives added weight to his prediction that Democrats will retake the House majority in the upcoming midterm elections, a shift that would give the party subpoena and appropriations power over defense spending decisions like the reported carrier redesign.
What Comes Next
Neither the Navy nor the White House had issued a formal response to the redesign report as of Saturday afternoon. The Post reported that the timing and scope of any Navy evaluation remains unclear, with officials cautioning that any change would require significant additional time and funding on top of the Ford-class program’s already substantial cost overruns. The Senate has not yet passed its version of the annual defense policy bill, and lawmakers are not expected to reconcile a final version with the House until after the November midterms, leaving the ultimate fate of both the reported redesign and the steam catapult order tied closely to the outcome of the elections Lieu referenced in his post.