Trump uses Thanksgiving call to Navy officer to voice a weird grudge about aircraft carriers

Associated Press/Alex Brandon

President Donald Trump speaks on the phone with Prime Minister of Australia Malcolm Turnbull in the Oval Office of the White House, Saturday, Jan. 28, 2017 in Washington.

• President Donald Trump returned to one of his more bizarre concerns about the US military on a call with US servicemembers overseas on Thanksgiving day.
• Trump quizzed a US Navy officer on the phone about whether or not he thought the new plane-launching mechanism the Navy was set to include on aircraft carriers was any good.
• The officer's answer satisfied Trump, but Trump has a long and weird history of hating on this one type of carrier-aircraft launching mechanism in particular.

President Donald Trump returned to one of his more bizarre concerns about the US military on a call with US servicemembers overseas on Thanksgiving Day.

Talking to a US Navy officer on the phone from Mar-a-Lago in Florida, Trump asked about a pet peeve of his: the catapults aircraft carriers use to launch aircraft.

US aircraft carriers only have a short distance to launch heavy, bomb and fuel-laden planes, so they hook the planes up to a system called a catapult that accelerates them up to more than 150 miles per hour to get them airborne from the ship's deck.

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The US is working on a new aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and like any new ship, has been struggling to field all the new systems. A chief problem for the Ford has been getting the electromagnetic catapults to work.

Older carriers use steam-powered catapults, a technology that the US has long mastered but can now be improved upon.

"So when you do the new carriers as we do and as we're thinking about doing, would you go with steam or would you go with electromagnetic?" Trump quizzed the sailor, putting him in the awkward position of either disagreeing with the president or disagreeing with his superior officers.

"Because steam is very reliable, and the electromagnetic, unfortunately you have to be Albert Einstein to really work it properly. What would you do?" asked Trump.

"Yes sir. You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plant that we have here as well, but we're doing that very well," replied the officer. "Mr. President, I would go electromagnetic cats (catapults). We do pay a heavy cost to transit the steam around the ship."

"Ok good, I'm actually happy about that answer," replied Trump. "They're doing what they're doing, but that's actually a good answer."

US Navy planners say the electromagnetic catapults can provide a more consistent and powerful boost for launching aircraft, and that the catapult shot can be adjusted for individual aircraft, reducing wear and tear.

But Trump, for some reason, hates the idea of electromagnetic catapults.

From Trump's 2017 interview with TIME:

You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, we're going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you don't use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, "Ah, how is it working?" "Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn't have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam's going all over the place, there's planes thrown in the air."

It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it's very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said-and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be-"Sir, we're staying with digital." I said no you're not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it's no good.