John Phelan: “I canceled [the Constellation program], which was a frigate…”

“I am personally not a big proponent of having buying foreign combat ships in the United States Navy. There are others who believe we should. The cost of doing that is enormous. And I think one of the programs I canceled [the Constellation program], which was a frigate that was based on an Italian design. And by the time the Navy got done with it with all the requirements and everything, it became ridiculous. So I ended up turning a frigate into a multi mission ship.” (11:00–11:06)

This is an excerpt from a raw transcript. The assertions have not been audited or verified. Tap the video to view the source footage and understand the context.