Former President Donald Trump complained repeatedly about how “ugly” he found U.S. Navy ships, former Defense Secretary Mark Esper revealed in his upcoming book, according to The Hill.
In “A Sacred Oath,” Esper writes that Trump preferred the “sleek” lines of Russian and Italian ships. The Hill reported on excerpts of the book, which is due out Tuesday.
Esper reportedly writes in the book that he had to remind the 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 example, ‘look nicer, sleeker, like a real ship,’” Esper wrote, according to the excerpts.
“Maybe 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 about the American ships were among the more benign Oval Office issues Esper reportedly reveals in his book.
He also divulged that Trump astonishingly suggested sending missiles into Mexico to target drug labs. “No one would know it was us,” Trump explained, according to Esper.
(Donald Trump Jr. tweeted last week that he couldn’t figure out what was “so bad” about launching missiles into a foreign country. He was schooled on Twitter that it’s never a good idea to bomb allies.)
Esper also reportedly recounts in his book that Trump asked him if his top military officials could order troops to shoot protesters after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Trump fired Esper in November 2020 after Esper said publicly he did not support using military troops against the wave of Black Lives Matter demonstrators.