Former President Donald Trump complained repeatedly about how “ugly” he found U.S. Navy ships, his Defense Secretary Mark Esper revealed in his upcoming book, based on The Hill.
In his book, “A Sacred Oath,” Esper writes that Trump preferred the “sleek” lines of Russian and Italian ships. The book is due out Tuesday.
Esper needed to remind the then-commander-in-chief that the ships weren’t competing in a beauty contest (something Trump has experience with), but were made to powerfully and effectively engage in battle.
“On multiple occasions, the president complained that the U.S. Navy ships ‘look ugly,’ while the Russian and Italian ships, for instance, ‘look nicer, sleeker, like an actual ship,’” wrote Esper.
“Possibly so, but as I told the president in defense of the Navy, ‘Our ships are built to fight and win, not win beauty contests; we prize function over form,’” he said. “That didn’t satisfy him.”
While an odd preoccupation for a president, Trump’s gripes concerning the American ships were among the many more benign Oval Office issues Esper reveals in his book.
