{"id":1983,"date":"2026-07-29T18:57:52","date_gmt":"2026-07-29T18:57:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/?p=1983"},"modified":"2026-07-29T18:59:28","modified_gmt":"2026-07-29T18:59:28","slug":"news-senate-confirms-another-top-trump-nominee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/?p=1983","title":{"rendered":"(-) Senate Confirms Another Top Trump Nominee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Senate voted to confirm John Phelan as the next Secretary of the Navy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Phelan, the founder of a private investment firm and a major donor to former President Trump\u2019s campaign, was confirmed by a 62-30 vote in the full Senate.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Despite having no prior military experience, Phelan secured bipartisan support for the role.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

While Phelan did not face direct opposition during his nomination hearing, some lawmakers voiced concerns over his lack of military service or experience managing any civilian branch of the Pentagon.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Phelan, however, contended that his private-sector background uniquely positions him to address the Navy\u2019s persistent challenges, including failed audits, workforce issues, cost overruns, and delays in shipbuilding.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He is the founder and chair of Rugger Management LLC, a Florida-based private investment firm, and previously served as managing partner of MSD Capital, a private equity firm.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

During his confirmation hearing, Phelan stated that his outside business experience would aid the Navy in urgent need of reform.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe 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,\u201d he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Phelan told the panel the Trump administration\u2019s top priority for the Department of the Navy was shipbuilding, which is years behind schedule and experiencing major cost overruns, especially for submarines and large capital warships like aircraft carriers.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think I could say shipbuilding enough times,\u201d he told the panel during his confirmation hearing when asked about President Donald Trump\u2019s priorities, USNI noted.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He committed to reviewing the Navy\u2019s current contracts and ensuring a clean audit for the Department of the Navy.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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\u201cI intend to sit down day one, and we are going to go through every contract that we have and understand what exactly they say and what flexibility they do or do not give us, what contract needs to change or not change, and why,\u201d he told the panel.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cI intend to do the same thing as it relates to an audit. I need to understand why the Navy cannot pass an audit,\u201d he added.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

He also told the committee that while he respects and appreciates \u201cstability and tradition,\u201d when it \u201csuffocates adaptability, innovation, collaboration and trust, it erodes an organization\u2019s ability to win.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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Phelan went on to argue that he understands \u201cthat some may question why a businessman who did not wear the uniform should lead the Navy,\u201d and he respected that concern.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Navy and the Marine Corps already possess extraordinary operational expertise within their ranks. My role is to utilize that expertise and strengthen it to step outside the status quo and take decisive action with a results-oriented approach,\u201d he said, The Hill noted.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

During his confirmation hearing, Phelan honed in on the much-delayed Constellation-class frigate program, vowing to quickly evaluate the program\u2019s problems.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThis program is a mess from what it looks like,\u201d Phelan told the panel. \u201cIf confirmed, I plan to dig into this very quickly and understand the issues. And we\u2019ll come back to this committee very fast with the knowledge that we have as soon as we get to the root cause of the problem.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

During the hearing, retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), whose home state borders the Wisconsin shipyard building the frigate, pressed John Phelan on the ongoing program at Fincantieri Marinette Marine.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

The confirmation is another significant victory for President Trump and his administration as they prepare for a productive second year in office with many items on the agenda to accomplish.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Senate voted to confirm John Phelan as the next Secretary of the Navy. Phelan, the founder of a private investment firm and a major donor to former President … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1984,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1983"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1986,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1983\/revisions\/1986"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchthenews.store\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}