SECNAV nominee says he’ll bring ‘urgency’ to Navy’s shipbuilding
“We’re just going along and everybody — it’s Kumbaya,” Phelan said of the Navy’s shipbuilding record. “It’s almost as if you’re waiting for a crisis to happen to ignite things. And I think in the business of warfare, that’s a dangerous place to be.”
President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of the Navy John Phelan listens during a Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on February 27, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The nominee for Navy secretary pledged to lawmakers he’d be focused on correcting the course of problematic shipbuilding programs as well as replenishing dwindling munitions stockpiles, while largely avoiding any significant controversy.
John Phelan, a prominent financier and GOP campaign donor who was tapped to become Navy secretary a few weeks after President Donald Trump won the election, testified today before the Senate Armed Services Committee and appeared poised for an easy confirmation.
“I think what is missing from what I can see is a sense of urgency,” Phelan said of the Navy’s shipbuilding record. “We’re just going along and everybody — it’s Kumbaya. It’s almost as if you’re waiting for a crisis to happen to ignite things. And I think in the business of warfare, that’s a dangerous place to be. So I think why the president selected me is I will bring a sense of urgency to this. I will bring a sense of accountability to this.”
Asked about the Constellation-class frigate — one of the most delayed shipbuilding programs, according to a review by the previous administration — Phelan called the program a “mess” and said the service is producing a frigate that “looks more like a carrier, or a battleship or a destroyer.”
RELATED: Trump slams Navy’s frigate program over cost increases
At one point, Phelan said Trump has texted him multiple times complaining about the state of the Navy’s ships and shipbuilding, and asked what he was doing to fix it. The nominee said he responded by reminding Trump that he had not yet been confirmed.
Phelan’s hearing was largely uneventful in the sense that most questions focused on the standard cast of Navy-oriented topics, from investment in the service’s Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launcher Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) to the dwindling stockpile of munitions the Defense Department has been facing since the start of the war in Ukraine.
As for SLCM-N, a weapons program the Biden administration had advocated canceling, Phelan said it is a “critical component” to the nation’s defense. On the subject of dwindling munitions, the nominee said the stockpiles were “dangerously low” and pledged to focus on the issue “very quickly.”
One of the few contentious moments of the hearing came when Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., repeatedly asked Phelan about what the senator characterized as a broad, topline cut to the Pentagon’s budget ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. (The Defense Department has denied Hegseth is cutting the budget and has said it intends to shift monies towards the new administration’s priorities.)
Phelan responded by saying he was not privy to discussions around that choice and therefore couldn’t comment on its efficacy.
Following the hearing, Blumenthal told reporters Phelan “clearly dodged” the senator’s questions. That “should leave all of us wondering whether he has the guts and grit to lead the greatest Navy in the history of the world in a time of greater challenges than ever before,” the senator said.
Unlike most service secretaries, Phelan, whose career has centered on private investment, does not have experience serving in uniform or as a civilian at the Pentagon, a fact he briefly addressed in his opening remarks.
“I understand that some may question why a businessman who did not wear the uniform should lead the Navy. I respect that concern,” he said. “The Navy and the Marine Corps already possess extraordinary operational expertise within their ranks. My role is to utilize that expertise and strengthen it to step outside the status quo and take decisive action with a results-oriented approach.”
Trump’s first confirmed Navy secretary, Richard Spencer, also came from a business and financial background prior to being tapped to lead the Navy and Marine Corps. However, Spencer did serve as a Marine Corps aviator in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Kenneth Braithwaite, Trump’s second confirmed Navy secretary, was a career naval officer in both the active service and reserves, but only served as its chief civilian for several months at the end of Trump’s first term in office.
Valerie Insinna contributed to this story.
