“I am pleased to nominate a true WARRIOR, Hung Cao, to become the next Secretary of the Navy,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sept. 1, urging the Senate to move “ASAP” to confirm a nominee who has led the department in an acting capacity since April.
White House sends Cao’s nomination to the Senate
The White House formally transmitted Hung Cao’s nomination for Secretary of the Navy to the Senate, according to a White House release cited by the Navy press. The packet sent to the Hill also included nominations for other senior Navy civilian posts, marking a coordinated push to convert temporary arrangements into confirmed appointments.
Why Cao will require congressional waivers
The nomination is procedurally notable because, under current law cited in the release, service secretaries must have been retired from active military service for at least seven years. Cao retired in 2021, meaning he will need waivers from both the House and the Senate to serve as Secretary of the Navy. President Trump’s public post explicitly called for an expedited confirmation so Cao can continue work he has been doing “over the past 4 months.”
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End the scrambleHung Cao’s record as described in the nomination packet
The materials accompanying the White House statement recount a long naval career: Cao first enlisted as a seaman recruit in 1989, graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1996, and deployed to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. The release says those deployments, combined with other service, amount to more than 20 years as a naval officer; Cao retired in 2021 at the rank of captain. The packet also records his civilian roles after leaving active duty—most notably a position as a vice president and client executive at CACI International—and his political candidacies: a run for Virginia’s 10th congressional district in 2022 and a 2024 challenge to Senator Tim Kaine, both of which the release says he lost.
Other nominations: William Toti and Richard Breckenridge
The White House submission to the Senate bundled two additional Navy civilian nominations. William Toti was nominated to be Under Secretary of the Navy; the Navy announced in May that Toti had begun performing the duties of the service’s number two civilian after previously serving as a senior advisor to Deputy Secretary of Defense Steven Feinberg. The packet also includes a nomination for retired Vice Adm. Richard Breckenridge to serve as an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. The Navy said in June that it had selected Breckenridge to serve as a senior shipbuilding advisor prior to this nomination.
How the Senate, the Navy, and the shipbuilding community will respond
- The Senate and the House: Lawmakers will be asked to consider two separate waiver votes—one in the House and one in the Senate—before a confirmation vote can proceed, given the seven-year retirement requirement cited in the release. The president’s public urging for rapid action frames the timeline he wants, but the packet itself places the process squarely in the hands of the congressional chambers.
- The Navy and Marine Corps: Cao has been serving as Acting Secretary since April after the departure of former Secretary John Phelan, so his confirmation would convert an acting leader into a Senate-confirmed civilian head of the department. The White House materials present that continuity as a reason for expedited Senate action.
- Shipbuilding community and contractors: The selection of retired Vice Adm. Breckenridge, already named in June as a senior shipbuilding advisor, was elevated by the White House to an assistant secretary nomination—an apparent signal the administration intends to formalize an advisory role within the senior civilian leadership overseeing shipbuilding matters.
The administration has moved nominations that reflect both continuity—an acting secretary seeking permanent confirmation—and an effort to regularize the Navy’s senior civilian corps. The next concrete steps are clear on paper: congressional waiver votes because of the seven‑year rule, and Senate confirmation hearings and votes for the three nominees. How quickly those steps happen will determine whether the acting authority that has guided the Pentagon’s naval policy since April becomes a confirmed leadership team or continues in provisional form.
