President Biden Orders the Navy to Rip the Magnets Out of a New Aircraft Carrier and Put the Steam Back In
The directive gives the Pentagon 60 days to plan a redesign experts price 'into the billions' and schedule for the late 2030s; the president has cited waves
Ink = the flip (fiction). Red = real Republican · Blue = real Democrat.
WASHINGTON — President Biden has directed the Navy to scrap the electromagnetic launch system on an aircraft carrier already under construction and revert to steam catapults, a technology the fleet last had to build new around the time the first smartphone shipped. The White House memo gives the defense secretary 60 days to submit a plan; naval experts gave reporters roughly 60 seconds to describe it as 'very outdated,' 'very old thinking,' and likely to cost 'into the billions' while pushing the ship's arrival toward the end of the next decade.
The president's objection to the modern system, laid out at a July summit and now converted into policy, is that it involves magnets, and that magnets do not like water, and that the ocean contains waves 'sixty feet high' and 'seventy feet high' — a meteorological survey the Press's science desk was unable to reconcile with the observation that the magnets in question have been launching aircraft from a carrier at sea for years, in the ocean, where the water is.
Experts note the electromagnetic system is simpler, smoother on the airframe, and saves roughly $100 million a year in personnel and maintenance, and that the Navy no longer has a manufacturer of steam catapults, having stopped needing one when the last steam carrier was delivered in 2009. The redesign would therefore require the government to reopen a supply chain in order to install the older, more complicated equipment on a newer, less complicated ship, a sequence aides describe as fixing 'critical long-term issues' and everyone else describes as the plot of a cartoon.
Biden has been fixated on catapults for years, and the Press's archive desk confirms this is the first time the fixation has been forwarded to a shipyard with a deadline.
Reaction followed the standing choreography. Voters aligned with the president praised a commander in chief who trusts proven hardware over gadgets; voters opposed saw a man redesigning a warship from a lectern based on a feeling about magnets. The Press archives confirm both parties own the vocabulary — 'common sense' and 'micromanaging the military' — and swap it, at full steam, whenever the other party is holding the memo.
The carrier, currently a hull, had no comment, and is expected to be finished, one way or another, by a president not yet elected.
📜 The Receipts
What actually happened: A White House memo directs Defense Secretary Hegseth to submit a plan within 60 days to replace the electromagnetic launch system on the under-construction USS Doris Miller with steam catapults; experts told CNN the redesign would likely cost billions and delay the carrier into the late 2030s, that the Navy no longer builds steam catapults, and that Trump has cited magnets not liking water and 60- and 70-foot waves.