Trump talks tough on defense spending aboard the world’s most advanced combat ship

President Trump on Thursday addressed Newport News shipbuilders and US Navy sailors on the deck of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the Navy’s next-generation aircraft carrier.

Trump’s speech paid tribute to the great history of the US’s unparalleled force of aircraft carriers while pushing his proposed unprecedented increase in defense spending.

In his speech, Trump did not address the firestorm engulfing his attorney general’s reported contacts with the Russian ambassador.

Trump praised the USS Ford as “American craftsmanship at its biggest, its best, its finest” and “a monument of American might” while promising that “we’re going to soon have more coming,” referring to the Navy’s new Ford-class aircraft carriers.

The USS Ford, the first of its kind, represents a major improvement over the US’s current Nimitz-class carriers, which came into production in the 1970s.

However, like the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program that Trump has often criticized, the Ford has run into a series of cost and schedule overruns, none of which were mentioned by the president Thursday.

“We will have the finest equipment in the world, planes, ships, everything else … very soon,” Trump said.

 

 

Read the whole story from Business Insider.

Featured image courtesy of AP.