House Democrats expressed frustration with the U.S. military for seeking funding for a $17 billion battleship instead of investing more in cheaper autonomous weapons systems as warfare continues to change rapidly.
During a House Armed Services Committee markup of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act, lawmakers said that investing in Trump-class battleships would mean ignoring lessons learned from past Navy mistakes in which the service invested billions of dollars in ill-conceived procurement programs.
Instead, lawmakers wanted the military to invest in the future, incorporating lessons about the importance of uncrewed systems that other conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine, have laid bare.
“This is the most expensive sitting duck in world history,” said Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass. “This battleship is a boondoggle.”
Moulton referenced an op-ed by retired Navy Adm. James Stavridis in which he argued battleships are entirely obsolete in the face of hypersonic missiles, drone swarms and a litany of modern weapons systems.
The battleship was a “vanity project” that would inevitably fall by the wayside and vanish once Trump left office and Republicans came to their senses, Moulton said.
The discussion revolved around the allocation of $1 billion for the Trump-class battleship included in the House’s version of the NDAA. An amendment proposed by Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking Democrat on the committee, sought to void that allocation completely.
The amendment failed on a 26-30 vote, but lawmakers were defiant in their rejection of the Trump-class battleship program, and more broadly, of what it meant fiscally and strategically for the military.
President Donald Trump’s $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 Defense Department budget request listed the cost of the first Trump-class battleship at $17 billion, but a Congressional Budget Office report assessed that the ship could cost closer to $20 billion.
Construction on the first Trump-class battleship is slated to begin in 2028, with delivery scheduled for the 2030s, according to Navy budget estimates.
“Where we need to be going is smaller more attritable autonomous systems,” Smith said. “The capabilities of these systems are growing by leaps and bounds from one iteration to the next and they cost pennies compared to what something like this battleship would cost.”
Trump announced his desire in December 2025 to build several Trump-class battleships. It would mark the first time the Navy would pursue building a battleship since 1944, when the Iowa-class USS Missouri was launched.
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Rep. Joe Courtney, D-Conn., said he took umbrage with the fact that the president announced plans for the battleship without any proof of design or analysis, instead offering an AI-generated photo during a concept unveiling at his Florida resort over the holiday season.
The $1 billion included in the NDAA requested $390 million to go toward design and $610 million for fabricated parts and steel for the design of the ship.
Smith specifically cited previous instances in which the Navy put the cart before the horse, pointing toward the Zumwalt-class, littoral combat ship and the Next Generation Cruiser, or CG(X), program in which the shipbuilding process saw construction begin before design was complete, leading to ship failures — and a program cancellation in the case of the CG(X) program.
Other lawmakers piled on.
“Look to the present and then to the future and say, ‘Does this make any sense?’” said Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif. “This battleship makes absolutely no sense.”
Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., questioned the possibility for success of a battleship planned to be outfitted with weapons systems that hadn’t even been built yet.
The president’s namesake vessel would rely on hypersonic missiles, electromagnetic railguns and high-powered lasers, Trump said in December.
But the hypersonic missile program was only in its testing phase, and the Navy’s electromagnetic railgun program was paused in 2021 after never fielding the weapon. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Daryl Caudle recently admitted that high-energy laser weapons were necessary but would require more funding and research to implement widely across the Navy fleet.
“The necessity of this Trump-class battleship … comes from the name and name alone,” Vindman said. “The real need on the modern battlefield is cheaper, smaller, distributed and, in some cases, unmanned systems.”
The $17 billion price tag of the battleship would enable the military to buy roughly 3.5 million of $5,000 drones, Vindman said.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.