Donald Trump’s vaunted deal-making skills haven’t saved jobs at Carrier, or at Ford. He hasn’t convinced North Korea to surrender so much as a slingshot, despite giving up one of America’s biggest bargaining chips. And when it comes to Russia … to be fair, that wasn’t as much bargaining as begging, so maybe it shouldn’t count.
But how has Trump done on something with Real Numbers in it? Something where Trump bragged about his intervention even before taking office? Here’s Trump one year before moving to DC, going after the cost of creating a new version of Air Force One.
However, the true cost of two new Air Force One planes, was budgeted at $2.87 billion. Though some estimates put the total at $3.73 billion by the time of completion in 2026, that still didn’t put it to the number Trump was throwing around. But Trump was okay with that. According to him, “Boeing is doing a little bit of a number” and trying to make too much money off the contract. But Trump would show them who was boss.
Even before he sat down in the Oval Office, Trump claimed that he had been on the phone with Boeing and chopped down that big number. It was a claim he repeated several times in his first few months in office—his go-to example of his negotiating skills.
Trump: We've got that price down by over $1 billion and I probably haven't spoken for more than an hour on the project,
However, within a few weeks, the White House website had chopped Trump savings from “over a billion” to “millions.” And now, Donald Trump has completed his negotiations, coming up with a new price of … $3.9 billion. That’s right. After two years of negotiation, Donald Trump’s price is a billion dollars higher than where he started. No wonder everyone loves to negotiate with Trump.
According to USA Today, Trump is claiming that the new contract saved either “$1.5 billion” or “$1.4 billion” over the original contract. Except it doesn’t. The original contract was actually the $2.87 billion figure. The $3.73 billion was a projected cost running forward to 2026 and anticipating inflation and cost overruns. Trump has now reset the base value to $3.9 billion. Nowhere did anyone project any kind of number that would make Trump’s $3.9 billion a “savings.”
Trump has actually raised the cost of this project by over $1 billion.
But it’s not as if America isn’t getting some value for its money. That new, revised, and much higher price includes an all-new, all-gaudy red, white and blue paint job that will replace the cool blue that Air Force One has maintained since there has been an Air Force One—because there’s nothing like replacing a classic, understated design known the world around one from the mind of a man who doesn’t understand the words “too much.” The new Air Force One will also likely come with a larger bed. Because Trump insists that the current bed is too small. And he needs space for “executive time.”
Boeing might also want to think about throwing in a drawer full of pre-written excuses for whatever new scandal Trump needs to cover-up. Say … something like his $2.5 billion lie about the savings he’s making on Air Force One.
But that’s not the only horror story that emerges when looking at Donald Trump’s history with the America’s executive jet. There is also this bonus tweet, which clearly reflects a nightmare summoned up from deep within Trump’s personal phobias.
Maybe the new, higher price for Air Force One reflects the feature Trump needed most—a golden escalator.