Navy Weighs Stripping Pearl Harbor Hero's Name Off Carrier, Putting Trump's On It Instead

The Navy has been quietly discussing whether to strip Doris Miller's name off an aircraft carrier still under construction and replace it with Donald Trump's, according to CNN, which first reported the internal talks Thursday, August 20. NBC News corroborated the reporting the same day, citing two U.S. officials.

Doris Miller was a mess attendant aboard the USS West Virginia during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. Black sailors at the time were largely confined to service roles under a segregated military. Miller carried wounded sailors to safety, including his mortally wounded commanding officer, Captain Mervyn Bennion, then manned a .50-caliber anti-aircraft gun he had never been trained on and fired until he ran out of ammunition, according to Navy accounts cited by Newsweek. He's credited with shooting down at least one Japanese plane.

Admiral Chester Nimitz presented Miller with the Navy Cross in May 1942, the first ever awarded to a Black service member. Miller was killed in action in November 1943 when the USS Liscome Bay was torpedoed. He was 24.

Then-Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced in January 2020, during Trump's first term, that the new Ford-class carrier would be named the USS Doris Miller, calling it recognition of sailors "of every race, religion and background." It would have been the first carrier named after both an enlisted sailor and a Black American.

What's changed, and who's deciding

CNN reported the renaming effort has been underway since earlier this year, and NBC News's sources said the discussions have gone on for "several months." Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao has reportedly been reviewing Navy guidance on who ships can be named after, including sitting presidents, according to two sources cited by CNN.

Under existing Navy tradition, aircraft carriers are typically named after presidents, not sitting ones. Naming a carrier after a president still in office, as CNN and Forbes both note, would be unprecedented.

Formal ship-naming authority rests with the Navy secretary, but NBC News reports that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to be closely involved, alongside acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao.

The signs the switch is already happening are piling up. CNN reported the Navy has stopped calling the ship the USS Doris Miller internally, using only its hull number, CVN-81. A White House executive order on shipbuilding, which directs the Pentagon to swap the carrier's electromagnetic catapult system back to steam and hydraulics, also refers to it only as CVN-81, according to CNN and Forbes.

The Navy faces a deadline of sorts: the ship's keel-laying ceremony, a milestone event in construction, is expected by the end of 2026, per CNN. The carrier itself isn't expected to be delivered until 2034, according to USNI News reporting cited by Forbes, due to shipbuilding delays.

Miller could get another ship, and possibly the Medal of Honor

The Navy is reportedly planning to name a different, unspecified warship after Miller instead, and to recommend him for the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for battlefield valor, according to CNN's sourcing. That would require congressional authorization and presidential approval, which has not been granted.

Miller's great-nephew, Thomas Bledsoe, told CNN the family had not been informed of either the renaming plan or the Medal of Honor push before the story broke. Bledsoe said the family has pushed for the Medal of Honor "for years" and called the Navy's move to recommend it "very positive."

Miller's own family is calling the Medal of Honor recommendation a genuine win, even while learning about a carrier renaming from reporters instead of the Pentagon. Both things can be true: the honor could be real progress, and the way the family found out about the ship name change was clumsy.

What the Pentagon has and hasn't said

The Department of Defense has repeatedly said it has "nothing to announce at this time" when asked by CNN, KESQ and the Daily Beast. The Navy itself did not respond to NBC News's request for comment. Newsweek reported the same non-answer from the Pentagon.

No final decision has been made public. No name change has been officially announced. This is, as of today, an internal discussion reported by multiple outlets citing unnamed officials familiar with it, not a completed action.

Where coverage diverges

The Daily Beast's writeup goes further than the sourcing supports, framing the story under the headline "Trump Plots Seizing Black Navy Hero's Honor for Himself" and asserting Trump is personally driving the decision. None of the CNN, NBC News or Forbes reporting establishes that Trump ordered or is personally directing the renaming; the sourcing points to internal Navy leadership discussions involving Hegseth and Cao. The Daily Beast also pivots into unrelated reporting about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, conflating two separate Navy controversies into one narrative.

The open question is simple: does the Navy go through with it. The keel-laying ceremony deadline at the end of 2026 means an answer is coming within months, whether the Pentagon wants to announce it or not.