Duffy: Trump is spending billions to reverse American progress

President Donald Trump has ordered the Navy to develop a plan to replace the electromagnetic catapults used to launch aircraft from future Ford-class aircraft carriers with legacy steam catapults. That might make sense if the newer technology had failed. It has not. The USS Gerald R. Ford was the first U.S. carrier built to launch aircraft electromagnetically rather than with steam power. The Navy spent decades developing the technology, including years of testing a full-scale system ashore, before installing it on the Ford and making it standard for the carriers that would follow. The Navy made that change for a…