Donald Trump dismissed growing concern about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, despite a surge of troubling accounts from a record-length deployment tied to the Iran war, including reports of sailors in crisis attempting to enter the sea.
The aircraft carrier, carrying more than 5,000 service members, has been at sea for over 250 days since departing San Diego last November after being diverted to support operations in the war with Iran.
Relatives of sailors have described a sharp decline in morale and fears about suicidal thoughts on board. One sailor’s wife told Navy Times that her husband, exhausted and severely burned out, tried to jump overboard.
Another incident occurred on August 3, when a sailor attached to the carrier’s air wing entered rough waters while wearing a life vest in what the Navy characterized as a mental health episode, CNN reported. A search-and-rescue helicopter recovered him within an hour.
Pressed about military families’ worries over the situation on the carrier, the president rejected the premise outright, saying: “Well, no, that ship is moving. No, they’re not.”
“That ship is moving right now, or very shortly, and it’s being replaced with another very similar ship,” Trump added. The USS George Washington is now heading toward the Middle East to take over from the Lincoln, in a handoff officials say had already been scheduled.
When asked whether the deployment had dragged on too long, Trump responded bluntly: “No. Not nearly long enough.”
Since the start of Trump’s war, the Lincoln has also been the subject of reports describing food shortages and rationing, along with bleak images said to show meals served to sailors aboard the ship.
Donald Trump brushed aside mounting alarm over conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, even as accounts pile up of desperate sailors trying to go overboard during a record-shattering Iran war deployment
The Lincoln and its more than 5,000 sailors and Marines have spent over 250 days at sea
Since the start of Trump’s war, reports have surfaced of food shortages and rationing aboard the Lincoln, accompanied by grim images of sailors’ meals. These photos leaked earlier this year
Asked whether the deployment had simply gone on too long, the President shot back: ‘No. Not nearly long enough’
Anxious family members also vented their anger to Navy leaders in San Diego last Thursday, according to Stars and Stripes.
One spouse reportedly said conditions aboard were so bad that her husband texted her saying, ‘he hopes he doesn’t wake up tomorrow.’
Another woman accused naval officials of breaking the ‘trust between us and the leadership’ by failing to be more transparent about their loved ones’ living conditions.
Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and other lawmakers are demanding answers from Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth.
Lawmakers want a bipartisan congressional visit to the ship, while Hegseth has waved off the reporting as a complete mischaracterization.
‘Listen, we make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment,’ Hegseth told Newsmax on Thursday.
Eighteen US service members have died in Iranian strikes across the region since the war began in February, with hundreds more wounded.
US Central Command has pushed back hard, calling the reports of dire conditions aboard the carrier ‘false’ and insisting its crews ‘remain resilient and resolved.’
Retired Vice Admiral Robert Murrett, now a professor at Syracuse University, told Newsweek that extended Navy deployments can certainly lead to an increase in mental health challenges.
Most carrier deployments run about six months with port calls along the way to refuel and let crews rest on land.
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Pete Hegseth has waved off concerns about the USS Lincoln’s living conditions for troops as a complete mischaracterization
Amid these alleged conditions, the wife of the sailor who jumped off the aircraft carrier told MS Now that she was kept in the dark about what happened.
She said her husband was in the water for an hour before he was rescued from what she described as a suicide attempt.
‘I think that it was handled very poorly because they didn’t inform me and they didn’t want me to know, and they’re just trying to cover this up,’ she said.
She shared her last text with her husband on July 21, in which he said life on the ship was getting to him.
‘I’m really trying to not feel negative or hopeless but between the wifi and not knowing when I will come home and not knowing what is happening back at home, it’s really getting me,’ he wrote in the message, noting that he had been due to leave on July 15 but the plan was canceled.
‘I don’t think I can do another deployment after this and i don’t even know if i can finish this deployment,’ the sailor added.
