This is crazy even by Trump's standarts.
He's simply trolling and enjoying at this point. Deer or horse, my friend?
If they would introduce white&golden paint after a century of grey - i won't mind!
Look at the technical specs from the US navy website. Only 128 Mk41 cells and 12 CPS cells. In terms of volume isn't this less than 055?
12 CPS are big, they equal a 32 cell block. As such, it's relatively close to what Nakhimov brings - there it is 160 cells (replacing 80 normal+20 huge), and 7 short range weapons.
Other that that, Defiant appears to sit quite low in the water. I think it's actually armored this time, and it's very likely nuclear.
Frankly speaking, it appears this is an attempt to prove frequent forum saying that steel doesn't cost much.
If you look closely, it's a "DDG(X) stretch" in fact, doubling down on survivability (which was already prominent in ddgx) and short area weapons.
Potentially it makes sense, as attempt to match lower industrial productivity via more survivable ships. If it can, roughly speaking, be x2 more survivable for x1.5 the price - math may click for US. USD is usually not their biggest problem.
