President-elect Donald Trump continues to make waves on social media.
Since winning the election, he’s used Twitter as his preferred method of communication with the public.
And the left was outraged over one Tweet he sent.
Boeing has a contract with the federal government to replace the Pentagon’s fleet of 747’s.
Included in their deal is the production of – and upgrades for – a new model Air Force One.
Air Force One is described as a “flying fortress” where the President and his team can run the country securely in the event of a disaster.
It also includes living and sleeping quarters as a traveling White House.
But President-elect Donald Trump is not happy with Boeing’s progress.
The new Air Force One is running over budget.
Bloomberg Politics reports on the costs originally earmarked for the new Air Force One planes:
“The Pentagon already is budgeting $3.2 billion for research and development, military construction and acquisition of two of the planes through fiscal 2021, said Kevin Brancato, the lead government contracts analyst for Bloomberg Government. More money is anticipated in the two years after that. Boeing 747-8 planes average about $225 million each, he said, which means most of the money will go to outfitting the planes for presidential use.”
President-elect Trump tweeted that the project was running at $4 billion – which is over budget – and the order should be canceled.
Boeing is building a brand new 747 Air Force One for future presidents, but costs are out of control, more than $4 billion. Cancel order!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 6, 2016
Politico reported that the President-elect met with reporters in the lobby of Trump Tower and expanded on his Tweet:
“Later Tuesday morning, Trump spoke briefly with the assembled media in the lobby of Trump Tower, where he elaborated on his Twitter post decrying Boeing’s Air Force One project.
“The plane is totally out of control. It’s going to be over $4 billion for Air Force One program and I think it’s ridiculous,” he said. “I think Boeing is doing a little bit of a number. We want Boeing to make a lot of money, but not that much money.”
After President-elect Trump pointed out the raw deal taxpayers were getting, Boeing’s stock price tumbled.
Of course, liberal journalists then jumped to the conclusion Trump would now use Twitter to tank or inflate stock prices, and add to his or his children’s vast fortune.
A scheme where Trump/family short a stock, plan a tweet to crash it would be a sure-fire way to cash in. We'd never know if they're doing it https://t.co/NVvInNqFaG
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) December 6, 2016
But Trump’s spokesman responded saying he’d already sold all of stock holdings shortly after becoming the presumptive Republican nominee in June.
And other conservatives pointed out Boeing has been leeching off the taxpayers through the Export-Import bank (Ex-Im).
The Ex-Im is a federal bank that loans money to foreign companies who buy U.S. exports.
The largest beneficiary of the Ex-Im’s taxpayer subsidies is Boeing, which raked in 68% of the Ex-Im’s long-term guarantees in 2014.
Do you agree with President-elect Trump’s Tweet about canceling the order for the new Air Force One due to cost overruns?
Let us know what you think in the comment section.
Surely you didn’t expect the truth . ” You can’t handle the truth!”
I do not understand why they can’t just do upgrades, which are a lot cheaper than a new plane. Question in point is the BUFF(B-52) which has been in service since the fifties, with many upgrades, and is still a very good weapons platform. I’m just saying
The more aircraft are used, the more fatigued the airframe gets. The aircraft compress and expand with every flight, after a couple of hundred or thousand sorties over a 20-30 period, the airframe just gets “tired”, and the chance for failure increases. Military aviation and civilian aviation are two very different animals, things are done every day with military aircraft that civilian airliners just don’t do. Air Force One, starts out with a civilian-type airframe, but quickly becomes 100% military. It resembles the civilian 747 in appearance only, underneath that skin is a flying fortress of weapons and defense measures, classified communications equipment and whatever else the Pentagon deems necessary.