The dismissal of US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan was not just a passing administrative change, but rather the culmination of a tangled story of personal ambitions, conflicts within the Pentagon, and a controversial presidential vision.
According to a report published by the American website The Hill, the sudden decision revealed President Donald Trump’s growing concern about his most prominent project: rebuilding naval power through what he described as the “Golden Fleet.”
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The beginning of the dream
The roots of the story go back to December 2025, when Trump announced his plan to create a new class of massive battleships bearing his name.
These ships, according to what was reported by the New York Times, were a personal dream of the president, who wanted to produce battleships that were “faster, larger, and 100 times more powerful than any previous battleship.”
The project was not necessarily based on military considerations, but rather was a product of Trump’s dreams brought to life by the documentary series “Victory at Sea” that was shown in the 1950s, the newspaper explains.
It is a documentary television series that aired in the 1950s and reviewed the heroic role of battleships and other Navy ships in World War II, according to the New York Times.
Phelan played a pivotal role in fueling this enthusiasm, as he would show Trump oil paintings of historic battleships, and exchange text messages with him at night about “rusty American ships” and ways to revive them, according to the newspaper.
This personal closeness made Phelan the executive face of the project in Trump’s eyes, away from the Pentagon bureaucracy, according to the report.
Tensions increased when Phelan bypassed the Pentagon’s chain of command and reached out directly to Trump to present his ideas, including the new battleship project, which Hegseth saw as a challenge to his authority.
Mission impossible
But the dream quickly collided with reality. Trump assigned Phelan to produce the first ship by 2028, which many experts considered “almost impossible.”
The American maritime industry lacks the ability to build ships of this size and technological advancement within a few years, especially since Trump wants the ships to contain technologies that are still under development, such as laser weapons and hypersonic missiles.
The newspaper quoted expert Mark Cancian – from the Center for Strategic and International Studies – as saying that the project’s distinctive specifications “will spark widespread discussion,” but he added that this discussion may be futile because “this ship will never sail,” suggesting that future administrations will likely cancel the project before it is completed.
In turn, the American Hill website points out that Mark Montgomery – a retired admiral in the US Navy – criticized the entire Phelan and Trump project, as the cost of one ship will reach a minimum of 24 to 26 billion dollars, which is equivalent to the cost of building 12 destroyers.
“Enemies in the Pentagon”
The project’s faltering coincided with escalating tensions between Phelan and US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. According to the Wall Street Journal, the dispute between the two men was not the result of the moment, but rather accumulated over months of friction.
Phelan was sometimes not invited to important meetings with senior shipbuilding company officials, a clear indication of his marginalization
The tension increased when Phelan bypassed the Pentagon’s chain of command and communicated directly with Trump to present his ideas, including the new battleship project, which Hegseth considered a challenge to his authority, and sowed the seeds of a personal and professional conflict at the same time, according to the newspaper.
Consequently, Hegseth and his deputy, Steven Feinberg – whom the New York Times described as “Phelan’s enemies in the Pentagon” – took advantage of the faltering battleship file to sideline Phelan and launched a campaign to force him from office.
Dismantling Phelan’s influence
Over the following weeks, Hegseth began to gradually reduce Phelan’s influence. He and Feinberg took the US submarine file away from the former Navy secretary and appointed a three-star admiral to oversee the file, reporting directly to Feinberg, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Phelan was sometimes not invited to important meetings with senior shipbuilding company officials, a clear indication of his marginalization, according to reports.
Hegseth and Feinberg convinced Trump that Phelan did not fit in with the Pentagon staff and was slow in implementing the project.
In the end, the New York Times confirmed that Phelan was responsible for one main file, the “Golden Fleet,” which was the most complex and dangerous file.
Turning against the neighbor
In recent weeks, Phelan realized that implementing the project according to Trump’s terms was not possible, according to the New York Times, and one of his biggest mistakes was proposing to resort to European or Asian shipyards to speed up the work.
This was met with a categorical rejection by Trump, who stressed that the project must be implemented within the United States, as part of his vision to revive American industry.
While the New York Times confirmed Trump’s dissatisfaction with Phelan’s proposal, the Hill website went further and confirmed – according to Hunter Stairs, a veteran naval strategist – that Phelan’s dismissal sent a “clear signal” to all leaders in the Navy and the administration that even hinting at exporting the project abroad could end their careers.
Hegseth and Feinberg took advantage of this moment, according to the Wall Street Journal, and convinced Trump that Phelan was not compatible with the Pentagon staff and was slow in implementing the project.
The moment of falling
Last Tuesday, Phelan received a call from his manager, Hegseth, asking him to resign, while the Secretary of the Navy was in Congress discussing the budget.
Phelan did not understand the decision, as he had been one of Trump’s main supporters for a long time, and financed the president’s election campaign with millions of dollars, so the secretary immediately went to the White House, where he waited for more than an hour in the West Wing lobby in the hope of meeting his old friend.
Retired Captain Hong Kao was appointed acting Secretary of the Navy, whom the White House considers “the embodiment of the American dream.”
But, as the Wall Street Journal recounts in its exclusive report, the president did not devote himself to him at the time, and when Phelan spoke with Trump on Wednesday and asked him to remain in his position, the president told him that he was an “excellent man” but that he did not get along with others in the shipbuilding file, and supported the decision to dismiss him.
Chaos at the Pentagon
The American Hill website says that this dismissal came as part of a broader wave of changes within the Ministry of Defense, as more than 30 senior officers were dismissed within a short period under Hegseth’s supervision.
These changes raised political concern, especially as they coincided with the war on Iran and the United States’ military expansion, according to the site.
According to the website, retired Captain Hong Kao was appointed acting Secretary of the Navy. He is a military expert who participated in the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia, and the White House considers him “the embodiment of the American dream” and the person capable of restoring maritime dominance.
The fate of the “Golden Fleet” remains mysterious, and the ship did not actually sail, but it succeeded in sinking its captain.
Source: New York Times + cardamom + Wall Street Journal
