Hegseth calls Lincoln conditions reports ‘completely misrepresented’
A Navy official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed the USS George Washington was in the Strait of Malacca on a course for the Indian Ocean, beginning a transit to replace the USS Abraham Lincoln in the Middle East. The Washington left port in Da Nang, Vietnam, last week, and the carrier, along with a cruiser and a destroyer, has since been spotted crossing the Singapore Strait, a Navy statement said. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier that the Washington would replace the Lincoln as one of the two aircraft carriers now stationed in the Middle East.
The Lincoln has now spent more than 260 continuous days at sea, a record for uninterrupted deployment. It deployed Nov. 21 from San Diego, arrived in the Middle East in January ahead of the launch of the Iran war on Feb. 28, and was originally set to return home in May.
The Navy conceded in a statement that the conflict created a “highly contested environment where traditional supply hubs in the Middle East were disrupted by combat actions,” leading to shortages and loss of mail aboard the carrier. “Leadership prioritized mission-critical supplies: first food, then hygiene items, then mail,” the Navy said, adding that sailors aboard the ship now have access to clean water and “healthy meal options.”
Reports have emerged that sailors on the Lincoln are struggling with mental health concerns. The Navy said it has “not observed an increase in suicidal ideations or attempts aboard the ship,” but officials declined to provide data, citing operational security and patient privacy concerns. The anonymous Navy official said a sailor aboard the Lincoln went overboard in early August but was quickly recovered, treated by the ship’s medical department and transferred off the ship for follow-on care. The official would not say whether the incident was being considered a suicide attempt.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, during a visit to Panama, told reporters the reports of poor conditions aboard the Lincoln were “completely misrepresented.” He said he wants the Lincoln’s sailors home and crews rotated as quickly as possible. “We make sure that every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas in those austere conditions with less port calls — it’s incredible,” Hegseth said.
U.S. Central Command, which oversees military operations in the Middle East, also pushed back on the reports. “The Sailors and Marines of the Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group remain resilient and resolved after more than 260 days at sea, 10,000 aircraft flights, and 1.5 million pounds of ordnance expended,” the command said on social media.
Democratic lawmakers have pressed for investigations, more information and greater visibility into conditions aboard the ship. Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, wrote in a letter to Navy leadership that “the Lincoln’s prolonged deployment is especially significant because it is occurring in the context of continuing military operations against Iran and the possibility that substantial US naval forces will be required in the region for an extended period.” Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego, a Marine Corps veteran, said on social media that he is looking to take a bipartisan delegation on an official oversight visit to the ship and that the way sailors are being treated is “not just disgusting; it’s dangerous.”
Navy leaders, including acting Secretary Hung Cao, held a tense town hall last week for families of troops aboard the Lincoln, at which the commanders of the Navy’s air and surface forces promised to do everything they could to relieve the aircraft carrier, MS NOW reported.
The move would leave the waters of the Pacific without a U.S. carrier presence for an unknown period of time. The Trump administration, which regards China as the dominant power in the region, sees it as “a settled force” that only needs to be deterred from dominating the U.S. or its allies, not as the top global adversary that it was under the Biden administration.
While renewed hostilities between the U.S. and Iran have calmed in recent weeks, the Navy has reimposed a blockade on Iranian ports in the crucial Strait of Hormuz, and the Trump administration has offered no clarity on how it intends to wind down the war. Hegseth told reporters that the U.S. can maintain the blockade “indefinitely.”
Other carriers also have had long runs that have raised concerns about morale. The USS Gerald R. Ford returned home in mid-May after an 11-month deployment, the longest since the Vietnam War, during which it supported the U.S. war with Iran and the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. During its deployment, the Ford experienced a fire in a laundry space that forced the carrier to turn around and return to the Mediterranean Sea for repairs and left hundreds of sailors without places to sleep.
Concerns about the demands of battle and the dangers of overextending ships and their crews predate the Iran war, with a number of mishaps on ships battling Houthi rebels in Yemen in 2024 and 2025, including the aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman on a longer-than-expected deployment. When reports of food shortages aboard the Lincoln first surfaced in April, the Navy pushed back, calling those reports “false.”