Donald Trump went on a deranged rant about the power of water to destroy magnets during a rambling address to the U.S. Navy just off the coast of Japan.
Speaking aboard the USS George Washington aircraft carrier during his tour of East Asia, the president appeared to suggest—in a largely incoherent speech—that he is pushing for aircraft carriers to use “steam for the catapults” and hydraulics for elevators, while wrongly claiming that water can disable magnets.
The elderly president was talking about the magnetic catapults used to launch planes from the latest Navy super carriers, the USS Gerald R. Ford class, and the electromagnetic elevators used to move weaponry to the flight deck. Both systems double the speed with which planes can be armed and launched but slowed the delivery and commissioning of the $13 billion flagship of the class.
“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.”
The 79-year-old president then stumbled over his words and failed to complete a coherent sentence before moving on and asking the watching troops whether they preferred hydraulics or magnets.
Trump then called out to a “top-ranking general” in the crowd for his opinion before continuing his tirade against the 2,000-year-old technology.
“I’m going to sign an executive order. When we build aircraft carriers, it’s steam for the catapults and it’s hydraulic for the elevators. We’ll never have a problem,” Trump said. “He agrees. Everybody agrees. But, ahh, these people in Washington.”
Trump has labored under the misunderstanding that magnets are somehow destroyed by water for at least 18 months.
In August, Trump also suggested that the global reliance on magnets was some kind of conspiracy orchestrated by China.
“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 said. “There were many other ways that the world could have gone.”
Ironically, it was the Chinese who first made use of magnets as far back as 200 B.C.
Trump let slip on Monday that he underwent an MRI scan that the White House tried to keep quiet during his second medical exam earlier this year. The medical profession has used MRI, or Magnetic Resonance Imaging, since the 1970s. The scanners, which contain a large magnet, use a natural phenomenon identified by an American physicist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for the discovery in 1944.
The president, who has not said why he needed the scan, also complained about the use of magnets in elevators after swearing in Tulsi Gabbard as the director of national intelligence.
“They have all magnetic elevators to lift up 25 planes at a time, 20 planes at a time. And instead of using hydraulic, like on tractors that can handle anything from hurricanes to lightning to anything, they use magnets,” Trump said. “It’s a new theory. Magnets are going to lift the planes up, and it doesn’t work. And they had billions and billions of dollars of cost overruns.”
Trump’s hatred of magnets even dates back to at least January 2024, when he once again pushed the bizarre claim, “Give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that’s the end of the magnets,” during a campaign speech in Iowa.
The president returned to the topic of magnets during his so-called “weave” aboard the USS George Washington on Tuesday while also vowing to bring back the use of steam-powered catapult systems on aircraft carriers.
“They spent $993 million on the catapults trying to get them to work. And they had steam, which works so beautifully, and it has for 50 years,” Trump said. “I’m going to do an executive order. I’m not going to let them continue to do this. They’re trying to make it work. They’re trying so hard, and they have something that’s perfect, so we’re going to go back on that, and the magnets.”
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
