Three Bills Would Stop the Navy From Renaming the USS Doris Miller for Trump

Three bills now sitting in the Senate Armed Services Committee would block the Navy from stripping the name USS Doris Miller from aircraft carrier CVN-81 and replacing it with Donald Trump's. Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., introduced S. 5678, S. 5679 and S. 5680 on Sept. 30, 2026. The Senate referred each to committee the same day. None has a cosponsor, and none has a hearing scheduled.

What the three bills actually do

S. 5680 is the narrowest: it would prohibit federal funds from being used to rename, redesignate or otherwise change CVN-81's name away from USS Doris Miller. S. 5679 goes further, barring the naming or renaming of any Navy vessel for a person serving as president or vice president, a rule that would outlast this one ship and this one administration. S. 5678 is procedural: it would require the secretary of the Navy to establish a formal process for naming vessels, a process that, as of this writing, does not exist in statute. Right now, naming a warship is entirely the secretary's call.

A decision that hasn't been made, in public

CNN first reported the internal discussion in August 2026. NBC News confirmed it separately, citing two U.S. officials who said the Navy had been weighing the change for several months. Those officials put the decision in the hands of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao. Neither has announced one. Military.com reported that the Pentagon, the Navy and the White House all declined to respond to requests for comment on Booker's bills.

The sailor whose name is on the ship

Doris Miller was a messman, the Navy's lowest enlisted rank in 1941, aboard the USS West Virginia when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7. After the ship's anti-aircraft gun crew was killed or wounded, Miller, who had no weapons training, manned the gun himself. He is credited with downing at least one enemy aircraft and pulling wounded sailors to safety before the ship was abandoned.

Adm. Chester Nimitz awarded him the Navy Cross in 1942. He has never received the Medal of Honor, despite decades of advocacy for an upgrade. NBC News reported in August that Miller is now separately under consideration for the Medal of Honor, a decision the White House has not approved.

Why the bills probably stall anyway

Republicans control the Armed Services Committee, and none of the three bills has drawn a Republican cosponsor, or a Democratic one. Naming a Navy ship after a sitting president would be unprecedented; no U.S. warship has ever carried one's name while that person held office. That history is part of what Booker is arguing from.

“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.”

If the Navy moves to rename the carrier before any of the three bills clears committee, the dispute would shift to federal funding restrictions and litigation rather than legislation. If the bills stall, which is the more likely outcome for a single-sponsor package in a chamber the sponsor's party does not control, the decision stays exactly where it has sat for months: with Hegseth and Cao, neither of whom has said anything in public.