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John Phelan: “The government cannot deliver the Golden Fleet alone, fast…”

Featuring: John Phelan, Secretary of the Navy | National

Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan

Published January 29, 2026 | Video Starts at 37:45

This is how we move from demonstrations to dominance. Even with unmanned systems and AI, there is a hard truth. The government cannot deliver the Golden Fleet alone, fast enough or at scale. That is why private sector partnership is not optional. It is foundational and it must be extended. Accelerated industry brings capital. Industry brings speed. Industry brings innovation. (37:45–37:51)

CLAIM

Asserts that government alone cannot achieve the necessary scale and speed for naval development.

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.

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John Phelan

“US GDP has surged 5.6%.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 19:30-19:34
“Between fiscal year 20 and 24, the prior administration consistently underfunded Navy shipbuilding, requesting a cumulative $127 billion.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 26:21-26:33
“Congress recognized the shortfall and enacted $142 billion, a $15 billion gap that would have represented ships not built and capabilities…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 26:32-26:44
“In fiscal year 21, the administration requested a 19.9 billion, a 16% cut from the previous year.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 26:45-26:54
“The President has significantly increased the defense budget top line to 1.5 trillion.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 27:48-27:55
“When I first reviewed the Don's unmanned programs, there were over 200 unmanned system efforts previously dispersed across six program…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 31:38-31:51
“The US Navy announced the $100 million prize challenge for Platform Agnostic Command and Control autonomy.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 39:09-39:17
“The fact is, I can't, and no one can tell you what it costs to run the United States Navy.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 47:48-47:55
“The Marine Corps attack drone team in Quantico got a drone working in 14 months, which should have taken one week.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 50:52-51:03
“If you put VLS tubes, that's an extra $600 million. That's an extra nine months to do it.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 1:01:53-1:01:59
“American companies are bringing their production lines back home.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 19:16-19:21
“Our manufacturing sector is surging forward with unprecedented momentum, unveiling multibillion dollar investments to onshore production.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 19:20-19:30
“The latest job report yesterday showed the largest increase in more than a year.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 19:34-19:39
“Even the beleaguered manufacturing industry added jobs for the first time since November of 2024.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 19:38-19:46
“The Golden Fleet is America's shipbuilding renaissance.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 20:41-20:45
“Restoring American industrial power, integrating unmanned and AI enabled systems and partnering with the private sector to deliver…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 20:44-20:57
“Congress had to add $3.4 billion just to keep critical programs afloat.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 26:58-27:03
“President Trump has correctly identified this as unacceptable.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 27:03-27:08
“The One Big Beautiful bill Act provides $29.2 billion for U.S. navy shipbuilding program and other efforts to bolster U.S. shipbuilding…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 27:09-27:21
“Fiscal year 26 appropriations that includes 27.2 billion for 19 vessels and 2.6 billion in maritime industrial based supplier capacity…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 27:22-27:38
“This is a cumulative $59 billion since President Trump took Office almost double the annual spend of the Biden administration.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 27:37-27:47
“Unmanned systems are not a side project of the Golden Fleet. They are a core element in the foundation of the maritime industrial base…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 29:36-29:46
“The Ukraine war has revealed a fundamental the cumbersome nature of how we buy and build weapons.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 30:19-30:27
“RAS allows us to harness the ingenuity of a much broader industrial base and to do it faster than traditional acquisition pathways ever…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 32:46-32:57
“Medium unmanned service vessels are becoming the strategic lay down trucks of the fleet.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 33:48-33:54
“Today, there is no policy decision classifying them as combatants. They are designated as other combatants, which gives us the flexibility…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 34:02-34:17
“Platforms alone do not deliver advantage; integration does.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 35:27-35:32
“Ship OS is the connective tissue of the Golden Fleet.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 35:49-35:53
“AI gives us decision advantage in contested environments.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 36:19-36:24
“The Navy is deploying DEC, the Data Edge Collection Kit.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 37:10-37:15
“Private sector partnership is not optional; it is foundational.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 37:51-37:55
“Large surface combatants, a requirement defined by the U.S. navy, are designed to deliver long range, high speed, sustained fires, robust…”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 39:58-40:13
“The Trump class battleship will serve as an unambiguous statement of American resolve.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 40:13-40:20
“Small surface combatants are affordable, producible and lethal at scale.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 41:38-41:45
“The Navy is rapidly adopting AI and digital capabilities to increase the lethality and survivability of the fleet.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 42:07-42:15
“There's no incentive to cut costs in the Navy.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 47:48-47:55
“Until we get an audit done, until we really look at numbers and how to understand things, that's a hard question to answer.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 47:59-48:07
“We've gotten way too fragmented. And I think that's just a growth in bureaucracy not having enough accountability.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 48:13-48:25
“We have underinvested in our infrastructure for 20, probably 30 years.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 52:32-52:39
“One of the piers is so degraded that the cranes can't sit on them and handle submarine Load or ship load.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 53:23-53:32
“The payback on fixing the other half of the pier is like within a year.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 53:48-53:53
“I still don't have an org chart of the Navy and what everybody does.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 55:42-55:47
“We have to be clearer about our requirements [for subsea drones].”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 57:21-57:26
“We get this budget, and you either spend it or lose it, and that leads to some of the inefficiency.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 57:46-57:52
“If you look at the 26 budget, we had 17 or 19 ships in there.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 58:24-58:29
“You should expect that's at least more than double [the number of ships] in the new budget.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 58:30-58:35
“There is a pretty big contingent of auxiliary and support ships [in the new budget].”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 58:36-58:42
“The President has correctly addressed [the need for upgrading the maritime industrial base] in the budget.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 59:04-59:04
“We are challenged in every program.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 1:00:26-1:00:29
“Why can't we get ships out? I went to Rota and those guys crank it out.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 1:00:59-1:01:05
“Labor looks at our backlog and our building very different than we do as C suite executives.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 1:03:06-1:03:13
“Those are the people we need to get to, and that's who we need to attract into industry and make them want to do these jobs.”
Morning Keynote: The Honorary John Phelan | Uploaded January 29, 2026 | 1:03:14-1:03:20