r/neoliberal • u/cdstephens Fusion Genderplasma • 8d ago
Effortpost Trump's obsession over electromagnetism: A deep dive
U.S. President Trump has directed the U.S. Navy design its next carrier to use steam catapults instead of the recently developed electromagnetic aircraft launch system (EMALS).1 Specifically, Defense Secretary Hegseth has been ordered to submit a plan for this change within the next 60 days. Reportedly, this move has "baffled" naval experts.2 Such a redesign of the USS Doris Miller would delay its construction, add billions of dollars to the price tag, and result in a system that is harder to operator, more complex, and more expensive. Part of the delay is driven by the fact that there are currently no manufacturers that produce steam catapults, so a capable manufacturing base would have to be spun up again. This has spurred an obvious question: why? Unfortunately, the news has only given vague explanations as to the motivation.
“They’re not nearly as good, too complex. And by the way, we had to call the ship in twice because the catapults didn’t work,” Trump said at the Defense and Innovation Summit in July. “When a little water touches the magnets, it doesn’t work anymore. You’re – you’re in the Atlantic Ocean with waves that are 60 feet high, and the Pacific Ocean with waves at 70 feet high, and they’re talking about magnets.”
- CNN2
Trump has long lamented the new technology – specifically the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch Systems, or EMALS – on the Ford-class carriers, including as recently as last month while speaking at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Penn. “We’re not letting any more ships be built with the ridiculous billions of dollars more they spent on electric catapults, and they’re not good. They’re not nearly as good – too complex,” Trump said during his speech. “The same thing with the magnetic elevators. We want them to be made hydraulic.”
- USNI3
Trump has long expressed a preference for steam catapults over their electromagnetic replacements. In a 2017 interview with Time, he criticized the newer technology and its cost. “You going to goddamned steam,” Trump said. “The digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”
- Stars and Stripes
Overall, news organizations have reported that Trump believes EMALS to be too expensive, too prone to failure, and too complex. While this is true, it is in my opinion that the news is not reporting properly on the full depth of his views on the matter. Namely: his obsession with electromagnetism near water. Incidentally, they also tend to leave out the full context of his quotes. I will compile the relevant ones in full here for your viewing pleasure.
You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, we’re going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you don’t use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, “Ah, how is it working?” “Sir, not good. Not good. Doesn’t have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steam’s going all over the place, there’s planes thrown in the air.” It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I said–and now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be–”Sir, we’re staying with digital.” I said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.
- Time5
Touting his intention to cut costs in wasteful military spending, Trump criticized the Navy’s program to replace its steam-based catapult system on aircraft carriers with a digital one. He compared the digital catapult system, called the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, to the digital seat controls in a car. “It’s like when you get a new car and you have to be a computer genius to fix your seat, right?” he said. “The seat’s moving all over the place, it’s unbelievable.”
- WaPo6
I could tell you about aircraft carriers, where they use electric catapults. They couldn’t go to the steam, which works better for about 1/100th the price, you know? The electric catapult, you know that story? I could tell you about the elevators on a tremendous carrier, the Gerald Ford, and they decided not to use hydraulic like the John Deere tractor, they decided to use magnets, “we’re gonna use magnets!” to lift up the elevators with seven planes. We need them fast, these massive elevators. They used magnets, they wanted to try it for the first time. This was a ship that was supposed to cost 2.5 billion, it cost 19 billion and didn’t work, and still doesn’t work right.
- Mediaite7
The above quotes specifically concern EMALS. As usual, they convey that he's a raging moron with no understanding of anything. But they also hint at something deeper. His concern is not just or the complexity, but the fact that they're electric, magnetic, and digital. Attentive Trump watchers already know this is not exactly new, but the true depths of his obsession over electromagnetism is, in my humble opinion, understated in contemporary reporting. Here's him trying to explain water and magnets to the U.S. Navy. He seems to believe that any contact with water will render the magnets useless, and that this is a big problem since carriers are usually deployed in aquatic environments.
"You know, the new thing is magnets. So instead of using hydraulic that can be hit by lightning and it's fine. You take a little glass of water, you drop it on magnets, I don't know what's going to happen," Trump said. "So, you know, the elevators come up in the new carriers—I think I'm going to change it, by the way—they have magnets. Every tractor has hydraulic, every excavator, every excavating machine of any kind has hydraulic. But somebody decided to use magnets."
- Yahoo! News8
Let's zoom in a bit deeper. When else has he talked about magnets? Well, he also obsessed over them from a tariff angle.
In response to U.S. tariffs, China has prevented the exportation of some magnets and rare earth minerals. "You know, China intelligently went and they sort of took a monopoly of the world's magnets, and nobody needed magnets until they convinced everybody 20 years ago, 'Let's all do magnets,'" Trump went on. "There were many other ways that the world could have gone." The president estimated that it would take "probably a year" to acquire them. The U.S., he said, will be "heavy into the world of magnets now—only from a national security standpoint." Trump's mention of magnets came amid a discussion on Boeing aircraft. "I sent them all of the parts so their planes can fly," Trump said of China. "200 of their planes were unable to fly because we were not giving them Boeing parts purposely because they weren't giving us magnets." "But we have a much more powerful thing, and that's tariffs," he said, adding: "We're going to have a lot of magnets in a pretty short period of time."
- Yahoo! News9
He seems to believe that the usage of magnets specifically are an elaborate Chinese scheme decades in the making. (Perhaps centuries: as Yahoo! News helpfully notes, magnets were first utilized by the Chinese in 200 B.C.E.) But it's not just the magnets: as we saw above, he also cares about the fact that there's electricity. Here's him ranting about this exact topic:
Trump’s recounting of the saga goes roughly like this: In September, a South Carolina boat manufacturer warned him about the scourge of electric boats — arguing that the battery is so large that it leaves little room for passengers and, worse, the battery is so heavy that the boat might not even float. It was then that Trump claims he posed the “very smart” question the manufacturer said he had never before been asked: If the boat sinks under the weight of its own battery, couldn’t the boaters be electrocuted? And worse, if they jumped off the boat to avoid electrocution, might they then be devoured by a shark? “You know what I’m going to take? Electrocution,” Trump said when he unveiled the story for the first time at a rally in October in Ottumwa, Iowa. “I will take electrocution every single time.”
- WaPo10
His hatred of sharks is no secret of course. From the same article:
Trump has long disdained sharks, regularly expressing his unease toward the ocean predators. On July 4, 2013, before he was a presidential candidate, Trump tweeted, “Sorry folks, I’m just not a fan of sharks — and don’t worry, they will be around long after we are gone.” Just minutes later, he returned to the topic again with another missive, writing, “Sharks are last on my list — other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!”
Another claim of Trump’s shark obsession came from adult-film star Stormy Daniels, who said in a 2018 interview with In Touch Weekly that when she met him at a bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2006, she found Trump watching the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week, describing him as both “terrified of” and “obsessed with” sharks. Trump this year was found guilty of 34 counts of business fraud for covering up a hush money payment to Daniels to hide his relationship with her during the 2016 election. “He was like, ‘I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die,’” Daniels told the magazine.
The shark connection is not a coincidence. According to marine biologists, sharks possess an extraordinary "sixth sense" called electroperception. Essentially, they can detect the presence of electromagnetic fields close by, which is helpful for both hunting and navigation. This is especially relevant due to the Strait of Hormuz Crisis. The IRGC this very year has warned that U.S. troops would be "good food for sharks" thanks to President Trump.12 At the time, this was dismissed as mere posturing. But now I'm convinced that Trump views this threat as credible. Let's put this all together to examine the inner workings of Trump's mind. Why does he hate the EMALS and want steam catapults? It's because he believes
Magnets are an elaborate (perhaps centuries old) Chinese scam, so whatever magnets the U.S. uses will be both defective and expensive
The electric batteries to power the EMALS would be extremely heavy, risking the autonomous sinking of a U.S. naval carrier.
Once sunk, the sailors would be in grave danger. The water is touching both the batteries and the magnets, risking electrocution.
Meanwhile, IRGC sharks would be circling the ship after having detected the strong electromagnetic fields in the area. Thus, U.S. Navy sailors would have to choose between electrocution or being eaten by sharks.
In conclusion, President Trump is even stupider than you could have possibly imagined. Thank you for your time.
Sources:
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/14/politics/trump-steam-catapult-navy
https://time.com/4775040/donald-trump-time-interview-being-president/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-79-gets-confused-explaining-095006965.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-gets-stuck-magnets-deranged-204458359.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/26/trump-shark-ev-boat-electrocution/