--- title: Donald Trump Targets Lockheed's F-35 on Twitter description: Donald Trump said the cost of the Pentagon's $379 billion F-35 fighter program is "out of control" canonical: https://time.com/4597932/donald-trump-twitter-lockheed-martin-f35/ author: Mark Thompson article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-12-12T17:02:04.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:41:59.676Z article:section: Politics og:title: Trump Just Fired a Heat-Seeking Tweet at the Pentagon's Fattest Target og:description: He says the F-35's costs are "out of control" og:url: https://time.com/4597932/donald-trump-twitter-lockheed-martin-f35/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafd0ea014b76bc47/6988b29ccd1bba1bb07035e9/150728-f-vy794-916.jpg?branch=production&width=888&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 888 og:image:height: 500 og:image:alt: 150728-f-vy794-916 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Trump Just Fired a Heat-Seeking Tweet at the Pentagon's Fattest Target twitter:description: He says the F-35's costs are "out of control" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafd0ea014b76bc47/6988b29ccd1bba1bb07035e9/150728-f-vy794-916.jpg?branch=production&width=888&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Donald Trump Just Fired a Heat-Seeking Tweet at the Pentagon's Fattest Target > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ## Video: TIME 2016 Person of the Year: Donald Trump [Watch (HLS stream): TIME 2016 Person of the Year: Donald Trump](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/Q0tBuF3M.m3u8) (4:12)  _Published 2016-12-07. The 2016 Person of the Year is Donald Trump, the President of the divided states of America._ by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Dec 12, 2016 5:02 PM UTC  An Air Force F-35 takes off from Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. An Air Force F-35 takes off from Luke Air Force Base, Arizona. Air Force photo / Staci Miller by [Mark Thompson](https://time.com/author/mark-thompson/) ## Mark Thompson Dec 12, 2016 5:02 PM UTC Willie Sutton purportedly said that he robbed banks “because that’s where the money is.” [President-elect Donald Trump](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump/?xid=homepage) took the same approach Monday, saying the cost of the Pentagon’s $379 billion F-35 fighter program—the most expensive weapon system in the history of the world—is “out of control” and will be a prime target in his effort to save “billions of dollars.” It marked Trump’s second broadside at a major U.S. defense contractor. Last week, he [criticized the cost of a pair of new Air Force Ones](http://fortune.com/2016/12/06/donald-trump-boeing-contract-air-force-one/) built by the Boeing Co., the nation’s second-largest defense contractor. On Monday, he drew a bead on the F-35, built by the Lockheed Martin Corp., the nation’s No. 1 defense contractor. [The company’s shares dropped by about 5% following Trump’s tweet](http://fortune.com/2016/12/12/donald-trump-lockheed-martin-twitter/). “I am heartened, if not overly impressed, by Mr. Trump’s recent zingers about Air Force One and, more importantly, the F-35,” says ex-Pentagon top weapons-tester Tom Christie. “This is where the real waste, fraud and abuse and big dollar savings are—the hundreds of billions in misconceived and faltering modernization programs.”  But Air Force boosters pushed backed. “Today, over three-quarters of the current Air Force fighter fleet is comprised of 1960-70s-era designs that average well over a quarter of a century old,” says David Deptula, a retired Air Force lieutenant general and fighter pilot. “The only thing more costly than a first-rate Air Force is a second-rate Air Force.” While the F-35’s costs have stabilized recently, the Government Accountability Office [says](https://time.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/f35gao2pager.pdf) the cost of the program has jumped by $111 billion—nearly 50%—since it began 14 years ago. “This is one of the benefits of having an outside perspective on these matters,” says Dan Grazier, a former Marine officer who now monitors the military at the nonprofit Project on Government Oversight. “President-elect Trump is right to be skeptical about the runaway costs of the F-35 and many other weapon programs.” A Lockheed spokesman said the company has been working to drive down the plane’s cost. “Since the beginning, we have invested hundreds of millions of dollars to reduce the price of the airplane more than 60% since its original costing,” said Jeff Babione, the company’s F-35 chief. While Trump may have picked the biggest bullseye painted on the Pentagon, his opening salvo is going to meet stiff resistance. All of the military services except the Army are buying the plane, giving it boosters in the Air Force, Navy and Marines. Lockheed has spread contractors for its construction among 45 states and eight foreign nations, giving the program advocates at home and abroad. The Pentagon’s plan to buy 2,457 of the jets has long been controversial. In an effort to save money, the Defense Department pushed the Air Force, the Navy and the Marines to buy the same jet. But after more than a decade in development, the three variants are so different from one another that most of the hoped-for shared savings have disappeared. With about 200 F-35s already delivered to the Pentagon, it’s too late to stop it before production. But Pentagon officials have known for years that buying all 2,457 jets is unlikely. The problem with cutting production, of course, is that each jet costs more as economies of scale shrink. The Marines have the most complex F-35, because it needs the ability to land and take off from small Marine ships nearly vertically. The Navy’s version is beefed up for punishing use aboard aircraft carriers. The Air Force version, designed for long runways on land, doesn’t require such costly modifications. Pentagon auditors pegged the cost of each F-35 at $154.3 million in its last annual cost report a year ago, down from its $159.2 million the year before. “It is true that the F-35 has had major cost overruns in the past, but it has stabilized in recent years,” says Todd Harrison, a defense-budget expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “The real question facing the new Trump administration is whether or not to buy the full quantity of 2,457 aircraft as currently planned.” Beyond forcing the three services to share an aircraft, the Pentagon also rushed the plane into production before its blueprints had been finalized. There was little logic for the haste, given that the Pentagon’s pre-F-35 warplanes remain the best in the world. “Due to concurrency, the practice of producing operational aircraft before the program has completed development and finalized the aircraft design, the services must send the current fleet of F-35 aircraft to depot facilities to receive modifications that have been designed since they were originally manufactured,” the Pentagon’s top weapons-tester recently [noted](http://www.dote.osd.mil/pub/reports/FY2015/pdf/dod/2015f35jsf.pdf). “Some of these modifications are driven by faults in the original design that were not discovered until after production had started, such as major structural components that break due to fatigue before their intended lifespan.” Merrill McPeak, retired fighter pilot, was the four-star general running the Air Force when the Pentagon ordered the services to share the same airplane. “No comment,” he said Monday when asked about Trump’s tweet taking aim at the F-35\. “I know too much.” But he didn’t hesitate to tell TIME what he saw as the plane’s shortfalls in 2013\. “This is a jobs program for Marine aviation,” he said. “The idea that we could produce a committee design that is good for everybody is fundamentally wrong.” He scoffed at the Marine demand for a plane that can land vertically, saying, “The idea of landing on a beach and supporting your troops close up from some improvised airfield, à la Guadalcanal, is not going to happen.” Then again, the whole notion of sending manned aircraft over heavily-defended enemy territory is increasingly dubious. First of all, no President wants to risk a pilot getting shot down and falling into enemy hands. When ISIS captured the pilot of a Jordanian F-16 last year—and burned him to death inside a cage—there wasn’t a lot the Jordanian military could do to retaliate. If that pilot had been American, the President would have been forced to decide between escalating the war or looking impotent—a choice no President wants to have to make. And aerial dogfights—one of the original justifications for fighter aircraft—no longer happen: beyond-visual-range missiles and improved ground-based anti-aircraft weapons have rendered them obsolete. Every day, the U.S. military’s expanding fleet of drones is eclipsing the value of short-legged warplanes like the F-35. ## Transcript MUSIC ] Every year we choose the Person of the Year who is the individual who has had the most influence on events for better or worse. The Tod argue that anyone had no influence that Donald Trump over the events of this year. [ MUSIC ] I didn't get Beyonce and Jay Z and Goose Bernstein to get crowds, I had just me. And ideas that people wanted to hear. But there is a profound argument about whether his influence was for the better or for the worse. And that really is the challenge that faces the country came through this election season more divided conspicuously publicly than at any time through any election cycle that most of us Can remember. [ MUSIC ] We're gonna have a lot of jobs put back. I think we're gonna have a lot of fuel companies leaving our country. I believed we will be successful with defeating ISIS or bringing them down to a level where it's almost the same thing. And I hope I'm judged from the time of the election as opposed to from January 20th because the stock market has had a tremendous bounce and people are seeing very good things for business in this country. [ MUSIC ] One of the things that was remarkable in going to see him, to interview him, is to be in that Penthouse which is the most austiontacious, imaginable marble and mirrors, and gold. And see him in the suit and the diamond cuff links. There is a kind of distance that repressed him about, of how is it that the billionaire is the tribune of the working man? He said, he thought that it had to do With that he wasn't a phony, that there have certainly been wealthy politicians before. Doing some cases would bend over backwards to make themselves appear like the common man, or do anything that they could, eating the corn dog at the Iowa State Fair, wearing a flannel shirt in New Hampshire. I think he had a very strong instinct that his wealth and that flamboyant display of his wealth Was not a liability that it was actually an asset. [ MUSIC ] Donal Trump is very comfortable sitting down and answering questions, although he very frequently does not remotely answer the question that you asked. In one sense it feels very undisciplined and in another sense maybe it's very disciplined in that He knows what he will and will not talk about and is unabashed in completely changing the subject. Do you feel changed by your election, and how you do think, if I play this tape back in four or eight years, the office will have changed here? Well, it's a It's a very humbling experience, I can tell you, as somebody that loves this country, it's a very large country, but it's also an even more powerful country than the numbers, because, if you look at China, and India, and you have others with more people, but, when you look at what we do in this country, it's The most incredible place on earth. [ MUSIC ] A lot of people think that Person of the Year just because the nature of the name is an honor. And certainly there have been years where we have recognized people's whose influence has been altogether, unassailably worthy. Normally, that's not the case. I know there are a lot of people who disagree with so much of what Donald Trump said and are very apprehensive about what his presidency means for them and for the country. I think I would challenge them to suggest that someone else this year had more influence than a way greater Surprise than what he did in 2016. 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