Former President Donald Trump has repeatedly complained about how “ugly” he found U.S. naval ships, his Secretary of Defense Mark Esper revealed in his forthcoming book, according to The Hill.
In his book “A Sacred Oath”, Esper writes that Trump preferred the “sleek” lines of Russian and Italian ships. The book will be published on Tuesday.
Esper had to remind the then commander-in-chief that the ships did not compete in a beauty contest (something Trump has experience with), but were made to powerfully and effectively participate in combat.
“On several occasions, the president complained that the ships of the US Navy ‘look ugly’, while the Russian and Italian ships, for example, ‘look nicer, slimmer like a real ship,'” Esper wrote.
“Maybe so, but as I said to the President in defense of the Navy: ‘Our ships are built to fight and win, not to win beauty pageants; we put function rather than form,'” he said. “It did not satisfy him.”
While it was a strange concern for a president, Trump’s grip on American ships was among the more benign Oval Office issues that Esper reveals in his book.