Trump jokes that he helped design US Navy's newest 'yacht with missiles'

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Trump jokes that he helped design US Navy's newest 'yacht with missiles'
An artist rendering of the guided-missile frigate FFG(X).Marinette Marine Corp.
  • President Donald Trump jokingly accepted responsibility for the aesthetic design of the US Navy's latest series of guided-missile ships.
  • "The ships that they were building, they look terrible," Trump said. "I would change designs, I looked at it. I said, 'That's a terrible-looking ship, let's make it beautiful. It'll cost you the same, and maybe less.'"
  • "It's like a yacht with missiles on it," he added.
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President Donald Trump jokingly accepted responsibility for the aesthetic design of the US Navy's latest series of guided-missile ships.

"The ships that they were building, they look terrible," Trump said in a Thursday speech at the shipyard in Wisconsin where these warships are built. "I would change designs, I looked at it. I said, 'That's a terrible-looking ship, let's make it beautiful. It'll cost you the same, and maybe less.'"

"You know, sometimes, you can make it look great for less money," Trump added. "I said, 'This is not a good-looking ship. Let's change the design of it.' And I got people in, and we looked at different designs, and as long as we're going to do it and ... how beautiful it is, they gave me a beautiful model that's absolutely, it's like a yacht with missiles on it."

The Navy's Guided Missile Frigate (FFG) program calls for 20 of the ships — the first two costing a little over $1 billion and subsequent ships costing $940 million each, according to a government report in June. These less-expensive, small surface combatants are designed to support larger Navy groups and operate independently; and are equipped with anti-air, anti-surface, and anti-submarine capabilities.

Wisconsin-based shipbuilding firm Marinette Marine Corporation, whose parent company is based in Italy, was awarded a $5.5 billion initial contract for the design and construction of the first 10 frigates by 2035. The frigate's design is based off of an Italy's Fregata Europea Multi-Missione frigate.

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"The Navy's Guided-Missile Frigate ... will be an important part of our future fleet," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday said in April, adding that it was "the evolution of the Navy's Small Surface Combatant with increased lethality, survivability, and improved capability to support the National Defense Strategy across the full range of military operations.

"It will no doubt help us conduct distributed maritime operations more effectively, and improve our ability to fight both in contested blue-water and littoral environments," Gilday added.

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