Washington — GOP Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said on Sunday that Congress should conduct oversight following concerns about conditions aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, which is being replaced after a nearly nine-month deployment, while calling for testimony from top Navy officials.
“We should have oversight,” Bacon said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
The USS George Washington aircraft carrier is headed to the Middle East to replace the Lincoln, a U.S. official told CBS News on Friday, after some families have voiced concerns in recent weeks about conditions on the ship — like supply shortages and mental health issues. Media reports have quoted some family members who say they’ve heard of multiple sailors who have thought about jumping overboard amid the extended deployment.
Acting Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao said in a post on X on Friday that the Lincoln “will return home soon as part of a planned rotation.” Cao added that a “small number of mental health cases were treated with no loss of life.”
In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Thursday, Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal called for the Navy to account for conditions aboard the carrier, which he said “has been deployed more than 250 days” without coming ashore “in over 200 days, setting a record for consecutive days at sea.”
Bacon, a retired Air Force Brigadier General who’s set to leave Congress early next year, said the secretary of the Navy or its service chief should come before lawmakers and “explain to us the truth on that.” But he noted that during his time in the Air Force, he experienced “some of these incidences.”
The Nebraska Republican said in 1996, when the U.S. wasn’t at war, he served on an aircraft carrier, enforcing the southern no-fly zone over Iraq.
“We had a couple members jump overboard and commit suicide while I was on that deployment,” Bacon said. “So these incidences, they’re terrible, they’re sad, but it has happened previously and unfortunately, likely in the future as well.”
The comments came after President Trump on Friday downplayed the toll on American sailors, while refuting concerns expressed by family members about the deployment’s length.
Asked whether the deployment has gone on too long, Mr. Trump told reporters, “No. Not nearly long enough.”
