President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the next Navy secretary Thursday criticized the service for a “failure of leadership” and its many recent missteps, arguing to senators that he’s prepared to help right the ship.
Testifying before a Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing, Kenneth Braithwaite said the service has hit “rough waters.” He called the culture of the Navy “tarnished” and didn’t shy away from calling out several notable failures.
The retired rear admiral and ambassador to Norway named several recent debacles, including the service’s handling of the spread of coronavirus aboard the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt — which cost acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly his job last month — as well as a pair of deadly ship collisions and the Fat Leonard scandal that has racked the Navy’s upper ranks for years.
“As a child of the Midwest, I was taught to be frank,” Braithwaite said in his opening statement. “It saddens me to say that the Department of the Navy is in rough waters, due to many factors, but primarily the failure of leadership.”
“Whether Glenn Marine Defense, the ship collisions in 2017, judicial missteps or the crisis recently aboard USS Roosevelt, they’re all indicative of a breakdown in the trust of those leading the service,” he said.
Braithwaite, who was tapped for the post after the ouster of former Navy Secretary Richard Spencer, referenced his experience aboard the aircraft carrier USS America when it sailed alongside the battleship USS Iowa during a deadly explosion in 1989, as well as serving amid the Navy’s Tailhook sexual assault scandal in the early 1990s. He said the events shaped his outlook.
“It all starts with culture. I have learned this repeatedly in my career,” Braithwaite said. “Successful organizations have a strong culture which always starts with leadership.
“While I recognize the challenges for all they are, I am ready,” he added. “I have been preparing my entire life for this moment.”
Senators may have pointed questions for Braithwaite about how he’ll cope with the spread of coronavirus in the fleet, how to grow the number of ships and concerns about reports he had an undisclosed relationship with shuttered consulting firm Cambridge Analytica — though Braithwaite contends he never had a formal contract with the company.
Prodded early in the hearing by Chairman Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) about the Navy’s goal to grow the fleet, Braithwaite said the service should be “minimally 355 ships,” but added he’d prefer an even larger fleet.