the event starts in a few minutes. we will bring those remarks to you live right here. >> log on to fox & friends.com for our after the show show. >> we're going to send our college associate down the water slide. >> we will see you tomorrow, everyone. >> see you tomorrow. the commissioning, the cost of freedom, welcome, everybody. i'm david asman in for neil cavuto. you are looking live at the uss gerald r. ford in norfolk, virginia. brand new aircraft carrier. this is the largest aircraft carrier in the world. there is no other like it. and it belongs to america. president donald trump and defense secretary james mattis about to take part in the commissioning. we will hear from both of them. first, though, to leland who is there on what is an incredible ship. and you have details, leland? >> david, good afternoon. good morning from norfolk,

virginia. you are watching the landing here on the gerald ford. it will become the uss gerald ford once the president commissions it here in just about an hour or so, as this ceremony goes on. the ship itself is 1,092 feet in length and cost 12.9 billion dollars. like so many military projects, it has been overbudget and there's been a lot of controversy surrounding the cost. we broke it down, that's 113 million dollars per foot. that includes a lot of new technology here on this ship. new what they call dual band radar that will allow it to see over the horizon for threats. we know the chinese have been trying to come up with carrier missiles. that radar will help with that. pretty loud as you hear these helicopters come in. we're told they have been doing touch and goes on the flight deck. the flight deck is so new that

in the past when they land it, there's been a spraying of what they call the nonskid paint just blown off. they had to get that off for the past 48 hours or so, they have been landing here that carry the presidential support staff. this is not yet marine one coming in. they have been trying to land them to blow off the no skid paint. get rid of the new paint smell, if you will. you get a sense of just how loud it is out here on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier, thisn't even -- this isn't even an f-18 or other planes that will be landing here on the gerald ford next week when they take it out for trials. everything about the gerald ford are new. the catapults are electromagnetic. even president trump has weighed in about the cost of the electromagnetic catapults and says will they work? i talked to the chief of operations just a little while ago inside the hangar bay here and he said it is not an if.

it is a promise. they will work. and they've been showing videos of some of the test runs with those electromagnetic catapults. those are really important because in past carriers have used steam catapults. the electromagnetic ones work much faster so they can launch about twice as many planes. the other thing that these catapults do is they can launch much heavier aircraft and then also lighter unmanned aircraft. that's one thing the navy has been looking at for the gerald ford and some of the other carriers is the idea of an unmanned aircraft. these are now landing on the gerald ford. they carry some of the presidential support staff. we have yet to see marine one in sight. they are coming from an airport about 2 or 3 miles away here. another thing about the ship they have done is they have reworked all the engineering. there's no steam driving this. it is all an electric system to help with everything from pumping water to pumping the gas into the aircraft.

two nuclear reactors here power this ship. about 400 sailors and -- 4500 sailors and marines will eventually be on board. everything, david, they have had to work on including better air-conditioning buzz they figured -- because they figured out over time the heat and the humidity in the hangar bay break down the airplanes. they think they have save money on maintenance by having better air-conditioning. this may be the beginning of the commissioning ceremony. once it is commissioned it is the uss gerald ford. you note behind the super structure that comes up from the flight deck there. you see the bridge where the red, white and blue -- that's a lot smaller. they have redesigned the flight deck to be able to accommodate more aircraft and different kinds of aircraft here on the gerald ford. again, trying to be able to do more with less. they only have now with the ford coming on-line 11 aircraft carriers. the navy says they would really

like 12 to be able to project the kind of power they want all over the world. and the united states is really the only navy in the world that can project power in what they call blue water. far far away, and the chief of naval operations was talking about just how stressed they have been. the gerald ford from here will head out to sea next week. that's when they are going to begin to launch aircraft on and off of it as part of their sea trial, testing out the electromagnetic catapult and then it will be a couple more years to test all the new systems on here before it actually goes out on a deployment, what we would think about is heading off to either go fight isis, project american power against north korea somewhere in the world. a lot of discussion about the cost here, as we said, 12.9 billion dollars to build this ship. it's the newest in what they

call the uss nimitz class. all the aircraft carriers, eisenhower i'm standing on right now was built in 1977. a lot of technology has changed. a lot of has gone into this ship to try and get the most out of that 12.9 billion dollars. as the chief of naval operations told us earlier, the final commanding officer of this ship has not even been born yet. they expect that it will last some 50 years in service. so it's been designed to be able to receive technological upgrades as they happen. you think about the uss eisenhower when it was designed in 77 and went to sea, the internet didn't even exist. so imagine the technology that will be put on to the gerald ford in the next 50 or so years. the navy facing a lot of criticism on the cost and a lot of questions about will all this new technology work? they had the new destroyer, that cost 3 billion dollars. it's put to sea a couple of years ago and has since had

innumerable problems with some of the new technology and that's something the navy has worked hard on here with the gerald ford to try to make sure they don't have those same problems going forward. david: leland -- i don't think -- >> they have made a lot about this carrier in terms of they have beefed up the propulsion and the design of the hull. we walked on it. you still get the new ship smell when you walk on this ship in terms of how new it is, how sleek it is and a lot has gone into make it more efficient. show you some images of the flight deck here. there's two aircraft on the flight deck, an fa-18, that's one of the navy's primary fighter attack planes and also an f-35, david, a lot of people have said how did they get there if they didn't fly on? to show you sort of the sense of cha what this has been -- sense of what this has been, they are bringing these planes on and had to crane them on yesterday for what they are now saying is the cap-off from the white house of

made in america week. david? david: it is made in america week. there's finer product made in america week. we paid for it at a 50% greater cost than we thought it would cost. leland, terrific job. that was 8 minutes in description. i think the engineer could do no better in describing what went into that ship and what's going on that ship. let me bring in retired four star general jack keen to talk about this in relation to the president's plans for our military, which are huge to use one of the president's expressions. this is an example. now we should mention of course obviously this thing has been in production for years. and in design for years. but it is symbolic, is it not, general, of what the president wants to do to try to transform our military? >> yeah, there's no doubt about that. this is a new class of aircraft carriers. the nimitz class which leland referred to has been around for 40 years. so there's two other aircraft

carriers that will follow this one that will be built remarkably the same as we've got here, with all the advance technology that leland was speaking of. one of the thins that's very attractive -- one of the things that's very attractive about this also, given all the technology, the ship's company which is going to be 2600 is actually 600 less than what's on the nimitz class today. that's a great accomplishment to the people who have designed this technology, that we can have that many people less on a ship. and also the quality of care for the sailors on the ship is going to be much improved as well as the min nance on the ship. -- maintenance on the ship. it will cost us less to take care of this ship as it has the other class. also we should understand that the navy is contemplating eventually going to smaller aircraft carriers because of the evolving threat that's out there, particularly from the chinese and the russians and

their ability to swarm missiles at our ships at sea. david: yeah. >> but yes, this is really part of a build-up that the united states military is undertaking that the first true signs of that are really the 2018 budget, and the congress on the senate side and on the house side are moving actually to increase the president's submission by some 37 billion dollars over what he proposed, which is pretty significant that the congress of the united states and the president are together that we've got to improve their capability of the united states military. david: general, let's talk about cost a little because donald trump even before he was president, when he was president elect began to put some pressure on some companies, contractors working for the military, this thing is twice over budget. was supposed to come in at about 6 1/2 billion. came in at 12.9 billion, almost double what the estimate was. is there any chance that the president could get some of that

spending in line? >> i think he's absolutely going to do that. jim mattis, the secretary of defense is clearly understands this issue. his number two guy is a businessman. i think that's a step in the right direction, to bring somebody in who has business experience, who deals with cost, as a routine every single day to get costs out of everything, anybody that's run a major corporation understands that. david: that's right. >> people who have run operations in the pentagon in the past quite frankly don't understand that. we pass a budget and we're measured on our effectiveness to spend every dime we've got -- david: forgive me general for interrupting but you can see a little sliver there of marine one. that's the name for the helicopter that carries the president wherever he is in the world. it is called marine one. no more so than at norfolk which is the home of one of the biggest naval operations in the world. perhaps the biggest. general, one thing as we're

talking about cost, the president now i assume has landed on the deck of the gerald ford. we're talking about costs, and you in particular, a lot of times bureaucracies have a way of just building on top of themselves. and the pentagon is a bureaucracy. it may be more efficient, more vital bureaucracy than any others but it is a bureaucracy. you yourself have been critical of some of their spending -- that may be marine one. it is usually the last helicopter to arrive as a couple of helicopters with support staff arrived before. does this bureaucracy of the pentagon itself need to be -- are they spending money in the wrong places perhaps in perpetuating their bureaucracy instead of building beautiful ships like this? >> what the united states military does very well at and the american people see it all the time is we know how to fight and we know how to win.

david: yeah. >> that's the strength of the united states military but to do that requires significant business-like functions. the pentagon is not a business. but it requires business-like functions to support this huge enterprise. it is the largest of its kind in the world. you know, it manages real estate. you know, it manages motels. it manages installations, training bases, shipyards and i could -- airfields i could go on and on with that. some of that is frankly not done very well because we don't have really good business people doing things like that. we have civil servants who do that and much of them don't have the kind of experience and motivation that are driven by profit and loss out in the private sector. so yes, the strength of the united states military is our capabilities and the people who use those capabilities in our ability to win -- our ability to win. the problem with the united states military is its

bureaucracy, its business like functions and they could dramatically be improved and there is a lot of money we could save for that. >> we have a business president. leland is right next door to the gerald ford. i understand the announcement was made. the president is on deck. >> that's correct, david. they ring the ship's bell. you hear the announcement that the united states has arrived -- the president of the united states now on the deck. the marine one helicopter has landed. he's going to make his way down from the flight deck. you will see the f-35, that you all talked about that he had talked about as president elect about bringing the cost of the f-35 down. you will see the f-18. then he will walk down into the hangar bay, and that is where you see where it's going up on the screen there, that's going into the hangar bay -- hangar bay, and that big banner made in the usa. this has been a tough week for

the president politically if you will. this is a change for them to change the optics. end of made in america week. they are pushing made in america products. we saw that at the white house earlier with everything from the fire trucks to the hats earlier in the week, that the president talked about and sort of really showcased, and now coming here, to cap this off, the white house is saying this is proof positive that america is back, making america great again, making america's military great again, the same thing that the general talked about in terms of upgrading the u.s. military's ability to project force. the president has talked about going back to a 350 ship navy, and as you can imagine, that's something that the navy really likes to hear. these things take years to build. they cost billions of dollars. and they are hoping that with the president's new budget and the expansion of military spending, they can get a little bit better idea to forecast out

an and to plan to be able to purchase some of these -- david: i don't know if our communication is established here. can you hear me talking now? >> -- he was talking about the aircraft carriers. david: okay. >> you are seeing now inside of the hangar bay there, all the dignitaries gathered, awaiting the president, the presidential seal there on the podium. and the president -- we have a little bit different view here on deck, looking at some of the internal monitors. the president looks like is just about to walk off marine one there on the flight deck and then make his way down. we can expect to hear from him and also secretary of defense mattis about this. talk to the chief of naval operations earlier about what it means to have the president of the united states here, and he says i can't tell you how much it does for the morale of sailors worldwide, many of whom who are in very dangerous places, to see the president and have him make this effort to come here and talk about the

work that the navy is doing. david? david: i guess you can't hear me. the noise on the deck is pretty loud. leland is right next door to where the gerald ford is on another ship. even though it sounds like the sound has come down a little bit, it's still very hard to hear. that's the deck of course of the ford we're looking at from a neighboring ship. that picture, that's the hangar deck. there are about 4500 people there. it is hot today in the northeast. and this is just the southern tip of the northeast norfolk naval base. imagine being in the hangar deck. it is air conditioned, but still, you can see people fanning themselves quite actively and they are waiting for the president. as you probably know, when the president comes in, there's a lockdown situation, both before -- long time before, maybe as much as an hour before and then an hour after, when the president leaves the podium and goes off on marine one. so it's a hard time waiting for

him, but as you can see, the navy and marines who are there still have their covers on. they have their uniforms in full dress. their whites are on. they are waiting for the president. the president is going to be joined with a number of individuals, including of course various color guards and people including the new captain of the ship will be there, admiral john richardson of the u.s. navy. there will be terry mcauliffe, the governor of the great state of virginia will be there as well, with a welcoming remarks. the principal address, though, will be the president. as leland was saying, it's been a particularly tough week when you think of everything that's gone on. friday at the end of the week, we were thinking -- we were thinking in fact that things would settle down. well, indeed that's the day that the big shakeup of the white house's own making took place when anthony scaramucci who used to be at fox business news was

announced to be the head of the communications for the white house. sean spicer stepping down. sarah huckabee sanders stepping up as his replacement. a lot of changes. this as leland said is a sort of resetting, if you will, of the image of what's going on in the white house. as general keen was saying, the president being seen as perhaps the military, the strongest suit of this presidency, of this commander-in-chief, leland, i believe you can hear us now. explain to us exactly how the president is going to get from the flight deck down to the hangar deck. i guess he's in one of the elevators, one of the big elevators that take the planes down now. >> well, the big elevators that take the planes down david are what you are looking at right there. that's where everybody walked on. that's the same walk i took earlier. it's humbling. you know, the idea of the aircraft carrier in a blue water navy is a uniquely american concept and uniquely american thing for a commander-in-chief

to arrive on an aircraft carrier such as the gerald ford. it appears as though we're watching some of the internal feeds that we get, that the president is going to walk down somewhere along -- probably out of view of our cameras down from the flight deck down there on to the hangar deck area, get a little bit of a tour on his way down, and then begin this ceremony. we're already a few minutes behind. you think about this, as the uss gerald ford, the uss bush -- george bush becoming before this, and there's a lot of history now that they are bringing in, the navy is to the carrier itself, talking about the commissioning and talking about gerald ford, and you see the slogan of the ship is integrity from the helm, speaking to what gerald ford was known for. he himself served in the navy for almost four years during world war ii. and of all things, he was a physical fitness coach. he was teaching young pilots how

to get fit and keeping them fit during their time at navy preflight school. got out of the navy in 1946, david, and then went on to his career in politics. david: all right. i want to bring back general keen because there's something else to be mentioned about what's happening here, and the reshaping of the military in the united states. and that is a sort of commitment towards the military that we didn't necessarily see in the previous administration, the way in which president trump understands the military seems to be much stronger, does it not, than the previous administration? >> yeah, most definitely. and i think one of the things that i put my finger on is there's an element of trust here that was never there with the obama administration. it frustrated so many of the senior leaders. you know, he had people in the white house that were constantly checking on what our field commanders were doing. even our combat field commanders, and they were micro managing them at times with

intimidation and coercion and implying that they should be doing something else. this got secretary gates so upset, he put it in his book. he had never seen anything like it in his entire career. when president trump came in, he just reset -- he just reset the table. he said i trust you. i will delegate authority to you. when we're committed to a conflict, you run the conflict. we are not going to be involved in that. if there's something i need to know, certainly let me know it. but otherwise it's yours. david: the line, though, general has always been shifting a little bit depending on who is president because obviously our military is underneath the commander-in-chief, who is a civilian, that's a very important distinction that we make in this country. not made in all countries. so how much leeway does this commander-in-chief give? at what point does the president overrule, if necessary, a general? >> well, he will do that. i mean, he just pretty much did it this week. you know, he received the plans for afghanistan. he was not satisfied with them.

and he's told them, listen, i want you to go back and take another look at this thing. i don't want you to repeat the mistakes of the past by the previous administrations. we have been at this war for 16 years now. david: yeah. >> so that is refreshing. that is exactly what a commander-in-chief should be doing, when he's overseeing the military. the military guys are great guys, and we respect them. i spent almost 40 years doing this myself. but we're human beings. david: uh-huh. >> we need oversight just like anybody does, and we welcome that oversight. david: on the other hand, it is a two-way street, and i think if the case were virtually every general in the pentagon was advising president obama not to withdraw almost fully all of our forces in iraq, a few years ago, and he did so anyway, and many people say that the vacuum left after our troops left was part of the cause of isis. >> oh, yeah, there's no doubt about that. and it's sad to say.

and also in afghanistan when generals petraeus and mcchrystal recommended to him the force level needed to win in afghanistan, he gave them 25% less and then pulled them out in is a months -- 15 month ts, guaranteeing the protracted war that we're not winning now. that was done by a commander-in-chief who made that horrific decision. donald trump is committed to winning it. that was step one. we never had even that statement made before. and he's also taken a whole of government approach in it. not just the military. he asked his allies in the middle east in particular which is the breeding ground for radical islam. that speech he made with national leaders there, he told

them i need you to drive the radicals out of the schools and mosques where they gather. you need to stop funding them. we, meaning the west, we cannot undermine muslim ideology which is so corrupted by these radicals. you have to do that. you have to provide your young people the alternative. david: right. >> so he is enlisting support from our allies in a way that his predecessor never did. and he's committing the pentagon to do what he needs to do. we cannot shoot our way out of this thing. we need to kill radicals when they gather in groups that can threaten us, but we also have to undermine the ideology and we need the muslims to do that. david: something else that the president anyway is saying is threatening his strategy or our strategy for defeating terrorism are all these leaks coming from inside the administration or inside the government somewhere, and he complained about one i reported on this yesterday the fact that al baghdadi, one of

the founders of isis, was still alive. and that that actually was leaked out. he claims in a tweet that he came out with today that the release of that information, the leak of that information, may have upset -- may have sabotaged the plan to actually kill al-baghdadi. do you know anything about that? >> no, i don't. but i have never ever in my time observing presidential administrations seen the kind of sabotage that has taken place inside this administration by people who are serving in one capacity or another at multiple different levels who are willing to leak classified information that actually can do harm with the single purpose in mind of undermining the president's ability and the administration's ability to do its job. that's what the purpose of this thing is really all about. i have never seen that kind of treasonous behavior because

that's what it really is. >> it's costing lives, is it not? >> i can't directly say that, but certainly when you are releasing classified information, it does impact our effectiveness, and that's why it is a crime. david: by the way, we are getting ready to -- the president is on board the ford. again, as leland mentioned, not yet the uss ford. it has to be commissioned before it gets that title, but it is a very impressive -- the largest nuclear powered aircraft carrier in the world. this is -- it's a floating city really. general, i'm sure you have been on these things before. it's amazing how these things actually are cities in and of themselves. are they not? >> yeah, they are incredible. actually i had the opportunity as a joint task force training commander to spend three weeks on the eisenhower. we had, you know, air force squadrons working for us, marine battalio battalions, paratroopers they were all on land, then we had 19 ships so i was all over that aircraft carrier plus the other one, it is amazing.

i think the aircraft carrier in and of itself more than any other piece of equipment in the united states military's arsenal symbolizes the military superiority of the united states. david: general, i hate to cut you off but we want to go to kristen fisher who is on board, and she can bring us up-to-date with exactly what's happening. how far we are away from the president. go ahead. >> hey, david. i'm standing inside of a hangar where there's about 5,000 people. it's hot. but nobody seems to mind much because we are now just minutes away from president trump arriving here on this stage. what we can expect is a 21-gun salute. then he's going to be introduced on stage by the defense secretary james mattis. and then he's going to speak. he's going to commission the ship. then probably one of the most exciting moments of this commissioning is something called the manning of the ship or the bringing of the ship to life. hundreds of sailors all in their dress whites will be running around the ship. we're expecting perhaps the military fly-over as well.

and then there's going to be the breaking of the presidential flag. the flag will be hoisted up and then unfurled. it is going to be a very dramatic event. a lot of music. the band is here. this is an event that really sums up a lot of what president trump loves and hates. he loves the fact that this ship is made in america. it is the biggest most expensive, most powerful, most technologically advanced aircraft carrier in the world, and it was all made in america. in fact, it was made over in newport news, just over the bay. he loves that. and of course this was made in america week. and just outside this hangar, as you walk into the hangar, in fact, there's this great big banner that says made in america. so president trump is going to talk about that quite a bit in his speech i would expect. but what he doesn't like, and he talked about this the last time that he was standing on this ship back in march, and that is

that this ship was overbudget, billions of dollars overbudget, years past its due date. in fact it still won't be able to be deployed for at least a few more years, probably 2021. there's also problems with some of the technological capabilities on the ship, with the catapult. they have switched from a steam powered catapult to an electromagnetic aircraft launch system, and president trump has criticized it for being too expensive and too unreliable. it will be interesting to see what president trump highlights today in the speech. it should be starting any minute now. we're told it should last about ten minutes and then of course the big manning of the ship which is really the highlight of the day. what most people in this hangar are looking forward to. but a ton of people here. 5,000 people here. 12,000 tickets sold overall for the commissioning of the navy's brand new aircraft carrier, the uss gerald r. ford. david: i'm curious about a number.