Boeing CEO Regrets Air Force One Deal With Trump

Defense One reports:

Boeing should have rejected then-President Donald Trump’s proposed terms to build two new Air Force One aircraft, the company’s CEO said Wednesday.

Dave Calhoun spoke Wednesday on the company’s quarterly earnings call, just hours after Boeing disclosed that it has lost $660 million transforming two 747 airliners into flying White Houses.

“Air Force One I’m just going to call a very unique moment, a very unique negotiation, a very unique set of risks that Boeing probably shouldn’t have taken,” Calhoun said. “But we are where we are, and we’re going to deliver great airplanes.”

Read the full article. The CEO who signed the deal resigned in 2019 in the aftermath of the Boeing Max crashes. Trump, you may recall, had strong-armed him into an unusual deal that was partly negotiated publicly over Twitter with the implied threat that Trump would wreck the company if he didn’t get what he wanted.