{"id":2302,"date":"2016-12-13T23:50:18","date_gmt":"2016-12-14T07:50:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/alaska-delegation-unruffled-by-trumps-f-35-criticism\/"},"modified":"2016-12-13T23:50:18","modified_gmt":"2016-12-14T07:50:18","slug":"alaska-delegation-unruffled-by-trumps-f-35-criticism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/alaska-delegation-unruffled-by-trumps-f-35-criticism\/","title":{"rendered":"Alaska delegation unruffled by Trump&#8217;s F-35 criticism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>FAIRBANKS \u2014<\/strong> Alaska\u2019s three Republicans in Congress are largely unconcerned about President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s criticism of the $400 billion F-35 fighter jet program.<\/p>\n<p>Trump called the program\u2019s costs \u201cout of control\u201d in a Monday tweet and said billions in military expenses will be saved when he is president.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young issued statements expressing confidence that Trump will acknowledge the value of the F-35 program after Inauguration Day, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have had numerous conversations with senior military leaders, both before and after the election, about the critical need for a fifth-generation fighter like the F-35. And in every one of those conversations the experts tell me that killing this program is not an option,\u201d Murkowski said.<\/p>\n<p>Sen. Dan Sullivan emphasized the tactical benefits of the F-35s, according to his statement. Trump did raise legitimate concerns over costs and delays, he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI will fight to make sure that American taxpayers get their money\u2019s worth out the F-35 program while also ensuring that our nation\u2019s warfighters get one of the most capable, versatile, and lethal aircrafts ever produced,\u201d Sullivan said.<\/p>\n<p>The military is trying to lower program costs, Murkowski said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is understandable that these issues are on the president-elect\u2019s radar screen, given the prominence of the F-35 program, but on further examination I am confident that the new administration will understand the value that the F-35 brings to the fight,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<p>The new fighters are expected to generate $500 million in construction at Eielson Air Force Base.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FAIRBANKS \u2014 Alaska\u2019s three Republicans in Congress are largely unconcerned about President-elect Donald Trump\u2019s criticism of the $400 billion F-35 fighter jet program. Trump called the program\u2019s costs \u201cout of control\u201d in a Monday tweet and said billions in military expenses will be saved when he is president. Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Don Young [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":2303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2302"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2302\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2302"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}