Critics Sink Trump's Bonkers Battleship Plans: 'Got The Design From G.I. Joe'

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

President Donald Trump unveiled a new class of so-called “battleships” on Monday, but his plans are already hitting rough waters on social media.

In remarks from his Mar-a-Lago estate, the president claimed that the two “Trump Class” military vessels would be the “fastest, the biggest and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built.”

Trump described himself as a “very aesthetic person” while noting that he, along with the U.S. Navy, would work on the design of the vessels. Trump said the administration aims to make up to 25 of the ships, thus adding to its goal of creating a “Golden Fleet.”

Renderings of the “USS Defiant” showed a vessel firing what appeared to be a laser beam and launching missiles. The vessel featured an illustrated logo of Trump raising his fist, as he did in the moments after the assassination attempt on him in Butler, Penn., last year.

Trump Class battleship illustration, as released by the White House.

— Steve Herman (@newsguy.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T22:55:14.884Z

“WHOEVER DESIGNED THE TRUMP CLASS ‘BATTLESHIP’ GOT THE DESIGN FROM GI JOE,” Nance wrote.

Link to tweet

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/critics-sink-trumps-bonkers-battleship-033626717.html

[sop]

1. I'm shocked they're not gold.

[C_U_L8R]

2. It looks like a second-rate videogame knockoff

They could have at least hired some budding fan-artist.
This is hack work.

Golden Fleet? More like Golden Fleece.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

15. He can't even get fleece

Settles for fleas instead.

[marble falls]

3. Awfully small battleship. A good name for it would be USS Mushroom. It'd still have an apt TACO connection.

[C_U_L8R]

4. You know what they say

Small ship… tiny lighthouse.

[ProfessorGAC]

17. First Thing I Thought Too!

Looks more like a small cruiser or even a destroyer. Maybe a coast guard cutter.
Not surprised though, that he wouldn't know one ship from another.

[marble falls]

18. The illustration looked like the box of a model I may have assemble in the 60s. The US quit building battleships ...

... 1944. Big boat - big target. At least an aircraft carrier can release holy hell on an adversary. And we have three or four times as many as the rest of the world together.

[Woodwizard]

5. It did the trick.

Another histrionic reaction to something that will never happen.

EPSTEIN FILES.

[bucolic_frolic]

6. Elon Musk has leftover flat steel plates from Cybertruck

This is a scam to feed Billionaires.

[Irish_Dem]

7. Vanity and grift.

[PatSeg]

8. Brings to mind Reagan's "Star Wars" program

which apparently he got from a movie.

[Dave Bowman]

9. "Trump Class" is the perfect example of an oxymoron.

[Du916]

10. And I thought Hegseth was

Last edited Wed Jan 7, 2026, 05:37 AM - Edit history (1)

G.I. Joke.

[GP6971]

11. If it is ever built it will sink as soon as it comes off the ways.

[fujiyamasan]

12. He never grew up past middle school

Or whenever that degenerate punk ass was sent to “military” prep school. He’s still playing with Gi Joes (thr entire US military) but of course he always rooted for the Cobras.

I can’t believe people think, yeah that’s the guy I want with the nuclear football.

[Hassler]

13. Chump class ships will work as well as the elevators

In Chump buildings. Guaranteed

[UTUSN]

14. Hah

[LetMyPeopleVote]

16. MaddowBlog-Trump names battleship class after himself, advancing his personalization crusade

Sticking his name on everything is especially difficult to defend as it so plainly does little to meet the nation’s needs.

The personalization of government is advancing at ridiculous speeds:
- Trump-class battleships
- Trump’s name added to Kennedy Center, Institute for Peace
- legal-tender coin featuring Trump’s face (on both sides)
- Trump Gold Cards
- Trump Accounts
- F-47 fighter jets
- 47-day ICE training

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-12-23T14:04:44.654Z

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-names-battleship-class-after-himself-advancing-his-personalization-crusade

It’s hardly a secret that Donald Trump desperately wants to apply his name to things, but the president cares nearly as much about adding the word “gold” to assorted labels. Just in the course of the past year, for example, we’ve seen him emphasize everything from “Gold Cards” to a “Golden Dome” to a “Golden Age” for the nation. (Never mind the shiny curlicues he’s slapped up all over the Oval Office.)

Once in a great while, though, the Republican finds a way to check both boxes simultaneously. My MS NOW colleague Erum Salam reported:

The United States will build new ‘Trump-class’ battleships as part of a ‘Golden Fleet,’ President Donald Trump announced Monday. […]

‘They’ll be the fastest, the biggest and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,’ Trump said at a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. He was joined by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Navy Secretary John Phelan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

So, on the one hand, we’re talking about a fleet that joins the president’s “golden” list while, on the other, Trump is also naming a class of battleships after himself. The White House promoted illustrations of the unbuilt ships featuring an emblem that centers Trump with a raised fist — a detail that reinforces concerns that this is less about national security and more about self-aggrandizement and self-glorification on the part of the president.

Trump Class battleship illustration, as released by the White House.

— Steve Herman (@newsguy.bsky.social) 2025-12-22T22:55:14.884Z

For those keeping score, Trump and his allies have now applied his name to the Kennedy Center and the Institute of Peace, unveiled a commemorative legal-tender coin that that will feature his face on both sides and launched “Trump Gold Cards” and “Trump Accounts.” By some accounts, the president wants the upcoming White House ballroom to be named after him, too.

But wait, there’s more. Trump wants a football stadium in the nation’s capital to be named after him; the nation’s next-generation fighter jet will have an F-47 designation in honor of him (he is the nation’s 47th president); and training for incoming Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents was reduced from 50 days to 47 days for the same reason.

We are witnessing the personalization of the American government in real time, and it’s advancing at ridiculous speeds (and in ridiculous directions).....

Montgomery said the new frigate has “zero tactical use” and that officials appear to be “focused on the president’s visual that a battleship is a cool-looking ship.”

This isn’t how a global superpower is supposed to function. The administration’s plan is moving forward anyway.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

19. New battleships named after Trump are 'bomb magnets' -- and will never sail: expert

This battleship makes no sense and will never be built

New battleships named after Trump are 'bomb magnets' — and will never sail: expert

www.rawstory.com/alternet-pos...

— (@bobshaw-28.bsky.social) 2025-12-26T21:50:29.523Z

https://www.rawstory.com/alternet-posts/trump-battleship/

Donald Trump's much-hyped new battleship fleet, named after himself, "will never sail," a group of experts told CNBC in a new report, owing to the outdated design that will make them a "bomb magnet" in a real conflict.

Earlier this week, the president unveiled a new "Trump-class" of US Navy battleships, which he touted as "some of the most lethal surface warfare ships" and "the fastest, the biggest, and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built." Despite his enthusiasm from Trump about maintaining "American military supremacy," CNBC on Friday noted the "glaring problem" putting them at odds with reality: "battleships have been obsolete for decades."

"The last was built more than 80 years ago, and the U.S. Navy retired the last Iowa-class ships nearly 30 years ago," CNBC explained. "Once symbols of naval might with their massive guns, battleships have long since been eclipsed by aircraft carriers and modern destroyers armed with long-range missiles."

The outlet conceded that Trump's labeling of these new ships with the outdated model name could be a "misnomer," and the actual ships might be more in line with modern sensibilities. Speaking to several experts about the ships, however, CNBC found that the "Trump-class" fleet is still out of step with naval realities, with Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, arguing that they "would take too long to design, cost far too much and run counter to the Navy’s current strategy of distributed firepower."

"A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water," Cancian said, also adding that "there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail."

[jmowreader]

20. At the sea state in the stern painting, this boat would go straight to the bottom

The water is almost to the level of the flight deck.

Somewhere else on the Internet I pointed out these ships are named after Trump's perceived character traits...because if they were named after his real ones, the first few ships in class would be the USS Corrupt, USS Bankrupt, USS Sex Fiend, USS Liar...

The USS Sex Fiend might be fun to be embarked on as a Seaman, but the comm center would quickly tire of typing "FM USS SEX FIEND BBG-3" on all their outgoing traffic.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

21. USS Pedophile