The abrupt dismissal of Navy Secretary John Phelan marks the latest high-profile departure in Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's embattled Pentagon and underscores President Trump's deepening impatience with the pace of his ambitious shipbuilding plans.
Phelan, a billionaire and major Trump donor, was ousted Wednesday after just 13 months on the job, becoming the first service secretary fired in Trump's second term. His removal — which caught many officials and lawmakers off guard — comes as Trump has made revitalizing U.S. naval construction a centerpiece of his strategy to compete with China's industrial and military expansion.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, a senior director at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said Thursday he was not disappointed by Phelan's exit, but criticized what he described as a flawed joint venture between the secretary and the president: the Trump-class battleship. "He and the president cooked up an extremely bad idea, which is a very large target known as a battleship. That's going to cost $24 to $26 billion minimum for the first one — the cost of like 12 destroyers," Montgomery told reporters.
In late December, Trump unveiled plans for a new class of battleships as part of a so-called "Golden Fleet," intended to upgrade the Navy's aging destroyer force. He set a 2028 deadline for construction, a timeline experts have dismissed as unrealistic, noting the vessels would require billions more and far longer to complete. The Navy's proposed $377 billion budget for next year includes over $65.8 billion for shipbuilding to procure 18 warships, including destroyers and submarines.
According to CNN, Phelan was asked to resign after a meeting between Hegseth and Trump on shipbuilding, during which Trump concluded that Phelan was not moving fast enough. Hegseth pledged to find a replacement who could accelerate progress. A former U.S. official confirmed to The Hill that the firing was tied to shipbuilding delays. Fox News reported that tensions between Hegseth and Phelan had been mounting for months, partly over the Navy secretary's execution of shipbuilding plans; Hegseth had already fired Phelan's chief of staff, John Harrison, in October.
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao, a retired Navy captain and Naval Academy graduate who previously served as undersecretary of the Navy, will step in temporarily. Trump, when asked Thursday about Phelan's removal, praised him as a "very good" man who had conflicts "mostly as to building and buying new ships." The president added, "I'm very aggressive in the new shipbuilding, and somehow he just didn't get along with them." In a Truth Social post, Trump left the door open for Phelan — who donated nearly $1 million to Trump's 2024 fundraising committee — to rejoin the administration in the future.
One of Phelan's most controversial moves was canceling the Constellation-class frigate program in favor of a new Future Frigate, the FF(X), derived from the Coast Guard's Legend-class cutter. The shift, announced alongside Trump's "Golden Fleet," drew criticism from retired Navy Capt. Kevin Eyer, who questioned whether job creation was overriding military needs. "The Navy needs a leaner, mission-focused small surface combatant that multiplies force through clarity of purpose rather than gold-plated excess," Eyer wrote for the U.S. Naval Institute.
Montgomery of FDD said he did not oppose scrapping the Constellation frigate, but argued the replacement "was the exact opposite of the requirements the Navy would have given him for a frigate," lacking anti-submarine warfare systems, air defense, vertical launch capability, and being "extremely noisy." He added, "He figured out on his own, talking to friends somewhere — I am not sure where."
Earlier this week, Phelan suggested he was open to building U.S. warships abroad, telling Navy Times, "Everything's on the table." That stance likely deepened his rift with Trump. Hunter Stires, a maritime strategist who served in both the Biden and Trump administrations, said Phelan's openness to outsourcing production was a critical mistake, given Trump's aggressive domestic shipbuilding push.
The firing comes amid a broader Pentagon purge under Hegseth, with more than 30 senior military officers removed. It also echoes a pattern of Trump sidelining officials who clash with his priorities, as seen in other administration shakeups. As the Trump administration continues to escalate tensions with adversaries — including recent charges of AI theft against China — the pressure on Pentagon leadership to deliver rapid results shows no sign of easing.
