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Trump Makes an Announcement with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, Dec. 22, 2025

December 22, 2025 · The White House · 0:50:29

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

President Donald Trump unveiled the Golden Fleet at Mar-a-Lago on December 22, 2025, joined by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio also present. Standing before the first rendering, the President said the Navy’s ships had in part “gotten old and tired and obsolete and we’re going to go the exact opposite direction.”

“As commander-in-chief, it’s my great honor to announce that I have approved a plan for the Navy to begin the construction of two brand new, very large — the largest we’ve ever built — battleships,” he said, describing ships bigger than the Iowa class with “100 times the force, the power.” He said the construction would create thousands of American jobs, pointed to Hanwha’s recently agreed $5 billion investment in the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard as the yard reopens, and noted that the defense bill he signed the previous week authorized $26 billion to build new ships, as he stated the figures. Hegseth and Phelan each spoke after the President.

Why it matters

The Golden Fleet is the administration’s signature naval shipbuilding announcement: a new battleship program, a reopened Philadelphia yard, and the foreign-investment and defense-bill figures the President attached to it on camera. This chronicle files it on the Foreign Policy & Defense hub; the figures above are the President’s, as stated at the announcement.

Scoreboard watch

Scoreboard candidate: a dated program announcement with checkable figures as stated by the President — two battleships to begin construction, a $26 billion shipbuilding authorization in the signed defense bill, and Hanwha’s $5 billion Philadelphia shipyard investment. Flagged for the scoreboard editor; the entry itself stays review-gated.

Sources: The White House, “President Trump Makes an Announcement with the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy,” Mar-a-Lago, Palm Beach, FL, December 22, 2025 (official upload, embedded above). All figures and characterizations as stated by the President and the secretaries at the announcement.