Trump’s boasts aside, here’s the real reason those F-35s wound up costing less

Lockheed Martin's deal to sell a new round of F-35s at a reduced cost to the Pentagon had little to do with President Donald Trump despite the commander in chief's boasts to the...

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"Some people call it alternative facts, I call it just flat-out exaggeration," said Rep. Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat who supports the F-35 program.

"These cuts were already set to be put in place before Donald Trump even became president, and people have been talking about the costs of the F-35 for quite some time," Veasey said. "The only thing Donald Trump did was spread fear and uncertainty through Fort Worth and cost the company billions of dollars when he made the stock prices go down."

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"Back in 2013, we had about 1,000 employees laid off at Bell Helicopter because of the sequester," Veasey said. "If you really want to start advocating for bringing down the price, I think the one thing that the president can do and take credit for is to get rid of the sequester."

"They (Republicans) control the presidency, control the House, control the Senate, they have the ability to get rid of the sequester and bring even more jobs to Lockheed," Veasey said. "It doesn't seem like there's any movement on that. I'm on the armed services committee and we talk how we can save money on a variety programs, but no one's talked about the sequester."