The U.S. Navy's Plan to Build ‘Trump-class’ Battleships

WSJ Opinion: Potomac Watch

The Wall Street Journal

Society & Culture, News

4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2025

⏱️ 23 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Donald Trump announces the construction of new U.S. battleships that the Pentagon says will be armed with nuclear cruise missiles, railguns, and lasers. Is this a smart use of naval resources? How does it fit into Trump's security strategy? And can such ships be launched fast enough to fill America's deterrence gap? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	As companies seek to close growing gaps in skills and talent,
0:04.0	Deloitte US CEO Jason Garzatus believes it's important for organizations to understand their baseline of skills.
0:10.0	There's so many organizations that can't ask and answer the fundamental questions about how much computer science or data management skills do I have or AI development skills in a given domain. By performing a skills inventory, leaders can truly understand where their efforts should be focused.
0:25.7	Being blind to those gaps is the real miss.
0:28.4	Visit Deloitte.com to learn how your enterprise can help successfully cultivate talent.
0:35.6	From the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
0:41.9	President Trump announces a new class of battleship for the United States Navy,
0:47.5	starting with the USS Defiant, which the Pentagon is calling the most lethal warship ever to be built. Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson
0:56.3	with the Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleague on the editorial page,
1:02.0	editorial board member Kate O'Dell. Christmas comes early for the United States Navy as President
1:07.8	Trump on Monday joined Defense Secretary Pete Hageceth and Navy Secretary John Phelan to announce a new Trump class of American battleship.
1:17.6	A fact sheet from the Pentagon says this class may include anywhere from 20 to 25 ships eventually, each roughly 850 feet long, with a crew of 650 to 850 and mounted with such
1:31.5	armaments as surface launch cruise missiles, rail guns, ram launchers, lasers.
1:38.2	Let's listen to President Trump at this announcement on Monday.
1:41.6	As Commander-in-Chief, it is my great honor to announce that I have
1:45.0	approved a plan for the Navy to begin the construction of two brand new, very large, largest
1:51.3	we've ever built battleships. You know, you used to build the Iowa, the Missouri, the Wisconsin,
2:00.5	the Alabama, many others.
2:01.9	We had big battleships.
2:03.9	These are bigger, but they will have 100 times the, there will be 100 times the force, the power.
2:12.8	And there's never been anything like these ships.
2:17.4	These have been under design consideration for a long time.
	...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 13 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from The Wall Street Journal, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of The Wall Street Journal and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.