title:  Air Force Secretary Delivers EPIC Smackdown To Trump On Boeing – You Don’t Get It, Sir
text: If anybody besides Boeing is going to know the details of the contract they have to deliver two new Air Force Ones, it would be, surprise surprise, the Air Force. Trump, however, is treating this like a simple business thing (because he doesn t know any better and considers himself to be the preeminent genius of the world), and it s not.Thankfully, Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James was only too happy to enlighten Trump with some of the nuance behind a contract like this, which Trump would do well to learn: Air Force One, although it is a 747 platform, is way, way more than what you would think of as a commercial airliner. It really is, in many ways, a flying White House, in terms of the security. There s [electronic] countermeasures built in, communications, very high level communications, security of all types. After all, this is carrying the president of the United States. It has to go long distances, it has to survive under difficult circumstances, much more difficulty than a normal civilian airliner. So it is a bit more complicated than perhaps meets the eye. And then she dropped this truth bomb on Trump: There are professional security people who are in the White House who develop requirements for Air Force One. They are not political appointees; they are professional security people. Those requirements then come to the Air Force and our job is to build the acquisition strategy around it to deliver those requirements. In other words, we didn t make up all these security factors and communications standards. The price tag on these planes could be lowered, she notes, if you change the requirements on it. Since the White House sets the requirements based on what they need to protect the President, and what the President needs to do his job from the air, then neither Boeing nor the Air Force really sets a price. It s a negotiation and the price tag, at $170 million (not four effing billion) is probably very reasonable, given what all is involved.We should also note that these planes won t even be in service for another decade   well after Trump is out of office even if he were to win re-election in 2020.And yet, here s Donald Trump, on Twitter, acting as though the Air Force is just shoveling money into the fire willy-nilly, and/or that Boeing is severely overcharging just because they can.Her entire response can be paraphrased to,  With all due respect, sir, you don t get it.  In providing a detailed explanation, she was not only clarifying what was going on and allaying any worries that might arise from the cost, but she was also telling Trump that he was totally ignorant about the entire process.His tweet was dangerous. It sent Boeing s stocks tumbling briefly. Trump needs to get informed and stop tweeting on his own, or someone needs to take his phone away from him so this doesn t happen again. Thankfully there are experts to explain what s really going on here.Read morePhoto of Deborah James by Alex Wong via Getty Images. Photo of Donald Trump by Drew Angerer via Getty Images