Trump is blasting the military-industrial complex. But he's one of its biggest boosters.

 https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/08/trump-military-defense-industry-booster-410396

 Since becoming president, Donald Trump has overseen historic increases in defense budgets, fawned over military equipment, installed a number of defense industry insiders in top Pentagon positions and made a major push to sell weapons overseas.

But on Monday, Trump said leaders at the Pentagon “want to do nothing but fight wars so that all of those wonderful companies that make the bombs and make the planes and make everything else stay happy.”

 Yet Trump's record tells a different story. All three of his hand-picked defense secretaries had ties to the defense industry: Jim Mattis was a member of the General Dynamics board of directors, Pat Shanahan was an executive with Boeing, and Mark Esper was Raytheon's top lobbyist. Mattis also returned to his board position shortly after leaving the Pentagon, showing the revolving door between industry and the Defense Department.

 The idea that Trump is taking on the defense industrial base is “pure fantasy,” National Security Action, a liberal advocacy group composed of former Obama administration staffers, said on Tuesday. "Trump has consistently prioritized the financial interests of America’s defense contractors — and, in doing so, turned our values and long-term interests into collateral damage."

 Trump has also made an aggressive push to sell weapons overseas. In 2017, he took credit for a deal to sell arms worth $110 billion to the Saudis, although many of the deals were negotiated under Obama. Trump touted the jobs created by the deal, which will specifically benefit major primes such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon, former White House spokesperson Sean Spicer said in a 2017 briefing.