Democrats Plan to Block War Department Name and Trump-Class Ships

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that incoming Democratic majorities will go after two of President Donald Trump’s signature Pentagon initiatives while the fiscal 2027 defense policy bill is still being negotiated in a lame-duck Congress.

Democrats won both chambers in last week’s midterm elections. They do not take formal control until January, but they already have new leverage over the unfinished annual defense authorization.

Cost of the Trump-Class Fleet

The proposed warships are one of the Democrats’ prime targets in Trump’s $1.5 trillion Pentagon budget request, the Journal said.

Trump unveiled the class at Mar-a-Lago last December, standing between renderings that the newspaper described as “nuclear-armed” warships. He said the vessels would carry lasers, electromagnetic railguns and hypersonic missiles and would be built in “about 2½ years.”

The Navy has said the proposed battleship would be the most expensive in its fleet. The Journal reported that the Navy estimated the first ship at more than $17 billion, while the Congressional Budget Office put the cost at about $23 billion.

A CBO assessment published in August found that a 15-ship, nuclear-powered program would cost about $275 billion, with later ships averaging $18 billion each. The office also noted that the Navy has said the ships would be equipped to carry a small number of nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missiles.

Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the likely House Armed Services Committee chairman next year, said Congress needs “an appropriate mix of high-end survivable systems and lower-cost attritable capabilities, not a fleet of nuclear-powered battleships as proposed by the president.”

Fight Over the Pentagon’s Name

Democrats also aim to strip language from the annual defense policy bill that would formally rename the Defense Department as the Department of War, according to the Journal.

That provision is included in both the House and Senate versions of the fiscal 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. The House passed its bill in July. The Senate Armed Services Committee advanced a draft with the same language, but the measure later stalled on the Senate floor.

A Sept. 5, 2025, executive order already authorizes “Department of War” as a secondary title in specified official communications. Statutory references to the Department of Defense remain controlling until Congress changes the law.

Leverage Before January Control

Lawmakers will also take aim at the rebrand and other defense priorities when they take control of Congress next year, the Journal said.

Military funding is currently running under a stopgap that expires on Dec. 11. Democrats have already signaled they will resist the administration’s full $1.5 trillion request rather than lock in a long-term deal before January.