President Trump plans to pressure all government programs and agencies for cost savings, using his claims of saving $1 billion in the Air Force One project as the model, according to a former top adviser.
“Whatever has been done before, whatever is sacred now that you have been privy to, no longer exists,” according to Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski.
“It is fundamental and wholesale change in D.C. emanating from the Oval Office. Because the president believes that part of his duty and obligation to the American people is to watch their tax dollars,” he warned Republican congressional staffers at a conference hosted by the center-right Ripon Society.
Lewandowski, who has opened a Washington consulting firm, provided insider details on how the Air Force One talks with Boeing went down and why it is a model for the administration’s review of the government.
He said that Trump balked at both the price of the project and the need for two jets.
“You know what that mindset is?” he asked the 150 staffers at Ripon’s 7th Annual Senior Staff Symposium on Leadership held at George Washington’s Mount Vernon home.
“It’s a mindset that wants to know why we are buying two Air Force Ones as opposed to just one. I know this is a crazy notion, but who goes out and buys two brand new cars on the first day? You can only drive one. Maybe you drive one for two years, and then you turn it in, and then you drive the other one for two years,” he explained.
Lewandowski added: “The president brought in the CEO of Boeing Corporation to say, ‘Look, the price is too high. I’m not going to pay $4.2 billion for two airplanes.’ The program manager was there, and the president asked him, ‘Why are we buying two planes?’ ‘Well sir, that’s what the specs are for.’ ‘Well why don’t we just buy one?’ ‘Well, that’s what we need.’ ‘Well, I can only be on one plane at a time. It’s only Air Force One if I’m on it. That’s the only time they ever call it Air Force One. Maybe we just buy one.’ And the program manager looked at the president and said: ‘No one has ever mentioned this to me before sir.'”
He concluded, “That’s not pejorative against this program manager. That’s the mindset that our government officials and our bureaucrats have had, and that’s the way they’ve always done it.”
Critics have questioned Trump’s $1 billion claim, saying the full cost of the program is unclear.
Todd Harrison, with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the $4 billion total program cost was a placeholder number, referred to as a “funding wedge” meant only for future budget estimates.
The program calls for two aircraft because officials want one aircraft to be available if the other one is undergoing maintenance.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
