No, they won't be cutting-edge or the most lethal surface warfare ships. Because they're battleships, and battleships are obsolete technology.

That's what I (and pretty much everyone else with any knowledge about naval power) has been saying. Also, we haven't built a battleship since the 1940s, not 1994 (I'm assuming the Felon made that claim? He's wrong again.). In fact, the Mighty Mo was the last battleship we ever built, and that was 1944.

Hopefully someone in the Navy (not Hegseth, obviously, but someone lower down who knows something about something) can put enough sand in the gears of this so that too much money isn't wasted before we have a new President that might actually learn something about what the Navy needs....

Naval procurement is its own mess, but I'm pretty sure POTUS can't just dictate what gets built. For one, Congress has to approve the funding, which will be part of a larger defense bill (usually). And the Navy has a set of requirement for their ships which have to be met (and, sometimes, creates problems as it did with the FREMM/Constellation).

I think all that has to occur is Congress saying "no", which is likely if the Navy says they don't want it. Which they don't. Of course, I suppose the Felon could fire all Navy personnel until he finds one that agrees with him.