The U.S. Senate voted 62-30 to confirm John Phelan as the next Secretary of the Navy, because apparently the best way to fix a branch of the military that cannot pass an audit is to hand it to a guy whose entire resume screams "private equity."
As Conservative Brief reported, Phelan is the founder and chair of Rugger Management LLC, a Florida-based private investment firm, and a major donor to former President Trump's campaign. He has never worn a military uniform, which he openly acknowledged during his confirmation hearing. Despite that rather conspicuous gap on the old CV, he managed to pull bipartisan support with 62 senators giving him the thumbs up.
Phelan's pitch to the Senate Armed Services Committee was essentially: the Navy is a dumpster fire, and who better to put it out than a Wall Street guy with a spreadsheet? To be fair, his list of the Navy's problems was pretty damning. "The U.S. Navy is at a crossroads, extended deployments, inadequate maintenance, huge cost overruns, delayed shipbuilding, failed audits, subpar housing, and sadly, record high suicide rates are systemic failures that have gone unaddressed for far too long, and frankly, this is unacceptable," he told the committee.
The Trump administration's top priority for the Department of the Navy is shipbuilding, which is years behind schedule and hemorrhaging money, particularly on submarines and aircraft carriers. Phelan made this abundantly clear during his hearing. "I don't think I could say shipbuilding enough times," he told the panel, according to USNI. Bold strategy: just keep saying the word until boats materialize.
He also promised to review every single Navy contract starting on day one, which sounds like the kind of thing a new boss says before realizing the filing cabinet is roughly the size of Rhode Island. "I intend to sit down day one, and we are going to go through every contract that we have and understand what exactly they say," he said. He made similar promises about figuring out why the Navy cannot pass an audit, which is a question taxpayers have been asking for decades.
Phelan took particular aim at the Constellation-class frigate program, calling it what everyone was already thinking. "This program is a mess from what it looks like," he told the panel. Retiring Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan, whose home state borders the Wisconsin shipyard building the frigate at Fincantieri Marinette Marine, pressed Phelan on the program's status.
On the question of why a businessman with no military background should lead the Navy, Phelan argued that the Navy and Marine Corps already have operational expertise in their ranks, and his job is to "step outside the status quo and take decisive action with a results-oriented approach," as The Hill noted.
So basically, the Navy is getting a management consultant. Good luck to everyone involved, especially the submarines that were supposed to be finished three years ago.
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