E.W. Jackson, a minister who was the Virginia GOP’s nominee for lieutenant governor in 2013, says President Barack Obama is trying to sink the Navy.
"(Obama) is reducing our naval fleet to 1917 levels, while China establishes naval hegemony over the Pacific," Jackson wrote in an Independence Day email announcing the formation of a veterans group seeking better treatment of active and former service members.
We wondered whether Obama really is cutting the fleet to a level not seen since the U.S. entered World War I. Jackson backed his claim by sending us a 2012 PolitiFact National article detailing a downward trend in the fleet’s size and a 2014 op-ed in The Hill by two former Navy officers.