Booker Bills Aim to Block Carrier Renaming for Trump
Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced three bills Thursday aimed at blocking the Trump administration from stripping a Black Pearl Harbor hero’s name off a future aircraft carrier and replacing it with the president’s own, according to NBC News. The legislation sets up a direct confrontation over military tradition, racial history, and the naming of the nation’s most powerful warships.
Two U.S. officials said Navy leadership has been discussing changing the proposed name of the aircraft carrier USS Doris Miller, currently under construction, so that it honors President Donald Trump instead. Doris Miller was an enlisted sailor who famously manned an anti-aircraft gun during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 despite having no gunnery training.
Who Doris Miller Was
Miller, a mess attendant aboard the battleship USS West Virginia, was barred from combat roles by the racial segregation policies of the era. During the Dec. 7, 1941, attack, he helped move his wounded captain to safety and then took over a .50-caliber gun, credited with shooting down at least one Japanese plane and dragging wounded sailors from the water. He was the first Black service member to receive the Navy Cross, the Navy’s second-highest honor, pinned on him by Admiral Chester W. Nimitz in May 1942. He was killed in action in November 1943 when his ship, the USS Liscome Bay, was torpedoed.
The USS Doris Miller would carry two historic distinctions: the first U.S. aircraft carrier named for a Black service member and the first named for an enlisted sailor, honored for actions performed in the enlisted ranks.
A Name Announced, Then Questioned
The decision to name the carrier after Miller was made during Trump’s first term, when acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly announced it at a Pearl Harbor ceremony on Jan. 20, 2020, with Miller’s family present. Trump praised the honor publicly at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event that year.
“Last month, the Navy announced that the next American aircraft carrier will bear the proud name of USS Doris Miller,” Trump said at the time, in an archived recording aired by NPR. “That’s pretty good. They won’t give me that honor. That’s a big boat. That’s a big ship.”
When a person in the room suggested “one day,” Trump replied, “All right. One day, maybe.” That day, NPR reported, now appears to be under serious consideration.
Steve Deal, a former deputy to Modly, recalled the moment the name was chosen. “He epitomized everything that we want to feel is honorable and virtuous about being American,” Deal told NPR. He added that sailors of “every background, race, creed, color” felt pride in the ship.
The Legislation
Booker’s three bills would prohibit federal funds from being used to rename the ship, bar future administrations from naming vessels after sitting presidents and vice presidents, and require more transparency from the Navy about its naming process. The effort follows reporting that the Navy has stopped referring to the carrier as USS Doris Miller internally, using only its hull number, CVN-81.
“Doris Miller didn’t wait for permission to be a hero,” Booker said in a statement. “He ran toward the fire at Pearl Harbor and fought for a country that wouldn’t even let him train on the gun he used to defend it.”
“This administration wants to erase him and slap the president’s name on a 100,000-ton warship,” Booker added. “That isn’t honoring the Navy. It’s vandalizing its history. No president should ever christen or rename a warship in his own honor, and no American hero should be erased to make room for one.”
Analysis: Tradition, Precedent, and a Political Signal
The naming fight carries unusual symbolic weight. Ship-naming authority formally rests with the Navy secretary, but defense secretaries are typically deeply involved in decisions about aircraft carriers. In this case, the decision would fall to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao.
One justification Pentagon leaders could use for changing the name is to upgrade Miller’s award, presenting him with the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest military decoration. Destroyers are often named after Medal of Honor recipients, while aircraft carriers are traditionally named after presidents. Two U.S. officials said Miller was under consideration for the Medal of Honor, though it had not been approved by the White House.
Naming an aircraft carrier after a sitting president would be unprecedented. Eight of the 11 current carriers honor presidents, but each was recognized after leaving office. Retired Brig. Gen. Ty Seidule, vice chair of a congressionally mandated 2023 commission that recommended removing Confederate names from U.S. bases and ships, saw a troubling pattern.
“I just think it’s really ironic that they want to take the name off the Doris Miller, who was a sailor who died in combat who saved his fellow sailors, and keep the name [of] the John Stennis, who was a segregationist who fought against the values that we cherish as Americans,” Seidule told NPR. “I see a pattern in the Trump administration, so I certainly think that Secretary Hegseth has ensured that we only name things after certain people and not everyone who makes up this great country.”
What’s Next
The USS Doris Miller is a Gerald R. Ford-class carrier under construction at Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and is not expected to be ready until the early 2030s. The ship could also be among the first fitted with a Trump-ordered steam catapult system instead of the Navy’s electromagnetic launch technology.
No final decision on the ship’s name has been announced. Miller’s great-nephew, Thomas Bledsoe, told CNN the family learned of the renaming discussions from news reports rather than from the Navy. With Booker’s bills now in play, the question of whose name the carrier will ultimately bear is headed from the shipyard into a politically charged congressional fight.