The American People Are Paying Close To $24 Million For New Refrigerators On Donald Trump’s Air Force One

Donald Trump uses Air Force One to go to meetings, conferences, speaking engagements, and Palm Beach, but it needs some fixing up and it’s going to cost a pretty penny. Actually, the repairs needed for Air Force One are considered an upgrade and it is going to cost the American people a lot of money for something said to be necessary. The plane of the president of the United States needs a couple of new refrigerators and they will come at the price tag of close to $24 million.

According to CNN, the new refrigerators being put on the Boeing cost $23.6 million and are from a U.S. Air Force contract put in place back in December. Two of the five “cold chiller units” are in need of being replaced, and Air Force spokesperson Ann Stefanek said this is necessary.

“The current rear lower lobe cold chiller units being replaced are the original commercial equipment delivered with the aircraft in 1990. The units were based on the technology at the time and designed for short-term food storage.

“Although serviced on a regular basis, reliability has decreased with failures increasing, especially in hot/humid environments. The units are unable to effectively support mission requirements for food storage.”

It isn’t as if Air Force One can take any and all replacement parts, as they have to be specially made.

Still, some are seeing this cost of nearly $24 million for two refrigerators as an extremely high expense. As reported by The Hill, Eric Schultz, a senior advisor to former President Barack Obama, said that there would have been extreme consequences for doing such a thing with Air Force One.

we would have been impeached https://t.co/KdF82dEseH

— Eric Schultz (@EricSchultz) January 26, 2018

The coolers needed by Air Force One are required to have the ability to store 3,000 meals onboard. The refrigerators currently on the aircraft have been in use since 1990 and it has come time for them to simply be replaced since they aren’t in proper working order.

Richard Aboulafia is the vice president of analysis at the Teal Group consulting firm and he said that this is “not getting people rich.” He said that these refrigerators have unique requirements and that they aren’t going through normal contractors to get the proper things done for the plane.

It has already been brought up that President Trump has been overly critical and vocal about the high cost of Air Force One in the past. Back in December of 2016, he even tweeted out to “cancel order!” while saying he would use his own private jet instead of the presidential plane. Now, he has been using it regularly and will continue to do just that with two new refrigerators that will cost approximately $24 million.