“While American families can’t even keep their heads above water, Donald Trump is spending his time building himself a “Golden Fleet” of battleships the Navy doesn’t want.
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CBO Puts Trump’s "Golden Fleet" of Trump-Class Battleships at $275 Billion — $23.4 Billion for the First Ship Alone — and the Senate’s Top Budget Democrat Says Congress Should Refuse to Fund It
August 24, 2026
On August 5, 2026, the Congressional Budget Office released an estimate, requested by Senate Budget Committee Ranking Member Jeff Merkley, of what President Trump's proposed new class of nuclear-powered battleships would cost. CBO put the 15-ship program at about $275 billion through 2056: roughly $23.4 billion for the lead ship, the future USS Defiant, and about $18 billion each for the 14 that would follow. If the design grows to 41,000 tons, CBO put the worst case at $528 billion. The Senate Budget Committee separately estimated that the 20-to-25-ship fleet Trump has described would run about $455 billion. Trump announced the "Golden Fleet" at Mar-a-Lago on December 22, 2025, alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan, describing a battleship armed with hypersonic missiles, nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles, an electromagnetic railgun and high-powered lasers — several of which remain undeveloped. It would be the largest U.S. surface combatant since World War II. CBO cautioned that its numbers are "highly uncertain," resting on assessments of a design that does not yet exist, and questioned whether American shipyards have the capacity to build nuclear-powered vessels of this size at all. The Navy has asked for roughly $1 billion in advance procurement and about $837 million in research and development in fiscal 2027, with a planned $17 billion request for the first ship's procurement in fiscal 2028 — which is where the fight over whether the fleet gets built will land.
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“He’d rather feed his own ego than feed the American people by putting his name on a $275 billion 15-battleship outlay.
“At a time when families are struggling to afford groceries, gas, healthcare, and childcare, Congress cannot throw hundreds of billions of dollars at Trump’s “Golden Fleet,” including plastering his name across a new battleship.
“While we continue to see too many Pentagon programs burdened by cost overruns, delays, and unrealistic promises that fail to meet reality, Congress cannot afford to commit to another massive military boondoggle that will only succeed in filling the coffers of the military-industrial complex.
Background (2)— earlier statements that set the stage▸
“the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built
“The future Trump-class battleship – the USS Defiant – will be the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans.