In his VFW convention speech yesterday, Donald Trump made a preposterous claim that chilled me to my adamantium bones.
"We're ordering 147 new F-35 lightning fighters," Trump expectorated. "This is an incredible plane. It's stealth — you can't see it!"
Yeah, that’s really fascinating, Wonder Woman. Except you can see it. It’s invisible to radar. I would wager that literally everyone in the military you’re commander-in-chief of knows that. So how is it possible that you don’t?
What’s worse, this isn’t the first time he’s made this claim. Here are four other times he’s made the same — or a similar — statement. You tell me whether he’s talking about eluding radar or whether he thinks this plane is literally invisible to the naked eye:
“Do you like the F-35? You can’t see it. Literally, you can’t see it. It’s hard to fight a plane that you can’t see, right? But that’s an expensive plane you can’t see.” — during an October press conference in Puerto Rico
"I was asking the Air Force guys, I said, 'how good is this plane?' They said, 'well sir, you can't see it.' I said 'yeah, but in a fight, you know. A fight, like I watched on the movies. A fight, they're fighting. How good is this? [They] say 'well, it wins every time, because the enemy cannot see it. Even if it's right next to it, it can't see it.' I said, 'that helps!'" — during a chat with Coast Guard members in November
"I may ask Marillyn Lockheed [not her real name, by the way]. We buy billions and billions of dollars worth of that beautiful F-35. It's stealth. You cannot see it. Is that correct?" — speaking with Lockheed Martin CEO Marillyn Hewson in March
"In case you haven't noticed, there's an F-35 stealth fighter outside, and it's beautiful. I went to one of the pilots, I was saying, 'how do you compare this with a certain other plane from the enemy?' They said, 'well the difference is, when they fight, they can't see our plane.' I said, 'that sounds like a pretty big advantage, right?' It's called stealth. Super stealth!" — at a Made in America event on Monday
Thank God we have this technology, because relying solely on Mitch McConnell’s superhuman leaping ability and preternaturally viscous prehensile tongue would leave us particularly vulnerable to Vladimir Putin’s army of trained penguins.
God bless America, and long live Superman.
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