Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln reflect “very poor planning” by President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in an interview on CNN’s “The Arena” that came one day after Trump dismissed similar reports as fake. Reed also posted about the issue on X.
Reed: “This Is an Outrage to the Men and Women Who Are Serving Aboard That Ship”
“This is an outrage to the men and women who are serving aboard that ship. Broken toilets, poor water supply, poor meals. The morale is… very, very low,” Reed said on CNN. “They deserve much more than that. They’re defending this nation. And I think this is all a result of the very poor planning of this White House and Department of Defense, their lack of a real goal.”
Reed Says Sailors Don’t Know “How This Is Gonna End”
Reed said the uncertainty facing the crew compounds the strain of the deployment itself. “The feeling right now among those sailors [is] that they don’t know how this is gonna end, whether they’ll have to come back, whether they’ll stay longer,” he said, adding that he believes the administration’s muted public response reflects an effort to minimize the story rather than address it: “I think these points are so not only embarrassing, but so revealing of the insensitivity of the administration to the troops in the field that they wanna cover them up.”
Reed’s X Post Ties Ship’s Conditions to Broader Iran War Criticism
In his post on X, Reed wrote: “Trump & Sec. Hegseth’s dangerous lack of strategy is weakening our national security & threatening the health and well-being of our servicemembers. Look no further than the USS Lincoln. I’m fighting for accountability, answers, & an end to Trump’s disastrous Iran war.”
Trump Called Reports a “CNN Fake Report” the Day Before
Reed’s comments followed a tense Oval Office exchange the previous day, captured on C-SPAN, in which Trump dismissed the same conditions reports. Asked by a reporter whether there was enough food aboard the Lincoln, Trump said, “Yeah, it was a CNN fake report. The Lincoln has been out there for a period of time — a good period of time — but over the years, we’ve had them out there much longer.” Trump said a retired admiral had told him the ship was “beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of,” adding, “other people went out, and they found out to be true. It was fake news reporting from CNN.”
Trump Also Clashed With a Separate CNN Reporter Over North Korea
Moments earlier in the same appearance, Trump had sharply rebuked CNN’s Kristen Holmes after she asked a follow-up question about his relationship with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, telling her, “Quiet, quiet. You’re very disrespectful,” in front of a 10-year-old guest he was honoring in the Oval Office. The White House subsequently criticized Holmes directly in a post on X, calling her “a disgraceful, humiliating embarrassment to her alleged profession.”
CENTCOM Commander Acknowledged Food and Water Issues Had Been Raised
Adm. Brad Cooper, commander of U.S. Central Command, visited the Lincoln on Saturday and acknowledged that food and hot water problems had been raised by the crew “months ago” and said they had since been addressed, according to reporting on his visit. His account offered a measure of confirmation that the underlying supply issues were real, even as Trump publicly denied them days later.
CNN Reporter’s Embed Found Both Hardship and Resilience Aboard the Ship
A CNN journalist who spent three days aboard the Lincoln and conducted dozens of interviews with officers and enlisted sailors described a more mixed picture than either administration denials or the most severe outside reports. The account noted the crew was serving roughly 17,000 to 18,000 meals a day on a 14-day rotation, with young sailors sometimes waiting up to an hour in line, and that morale-boosting events such as ice cream socials had been organized. Most sailors interviewed said they had not been closely following the national coverage of their own deployment.
Retired General Defended Crew’s Treatment Amid Coverage Debate
Retired Gen. Jack Keane pushed back publicly on the framing of recent coverage, saying, “I’ve never seen such misrepresentation in the media of the actual facts that took place… It’s insulting to these troops.” Separately, the father of a sailor serving aboard the Lincoln wrote in a public post that his son, who works one of the ship’s most physically demanding roles, was “not suffering” and that “his morale and resolve are strong.”
Deployment Has Stretched Past 265 Days as Replacement Carrier Deploys
The Lincoln has been at sea more than 265 days, including over 200 consecutive days without a port call, as of Reed’s comments, a modern-day record for a U.S. aircraft carrier. The Navy has said the USS George Washington will relieve the Lincoln as part of a previously planned rotation.
House Democrats Circulated Photo of Onboard Meal
Following Trump’s remarks, Democratic members of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform shared a photo, originally published by USA Today, showing a meal reportedly served aboard the Lincoln consisting of diced carrots, a hamburger patty and what the photo’s caption described as “a gray slab of processed meat.”
Reed Has Led Repeated Senate Democratic Inquiries Into the Deployment
As ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Reed was among 15 senators who signed an Aug. 15 letter to Hegseth demanding a timeline for the Lincoln’s return, details on mental health resources available to the crew, and whether the Pentagon would authorize a bipartisan congressional delegation to visit the ship. The Navy has not publicly released a detailed response to that letter.