Trump Was Right Again: It’s Time to Kill the F-35 and Build Missile Shields

Trump Was Right Again: It’s Time to Kill the F-35 and Build Missile Shields

One more hard truth from Russia’s war on Ukraine is that stealth aircraft are no longer the king of the battlefield. The future of warfare will be decided by waves of cheap drones that overwhelm the fighter jet’s armaments. Countries need missile shields, drone-killers, and the ability to protect real infrastructure.

Once again, President Trump called it first. He warned us years ago that the F-35 program costs were “out of control.” He questioned why we were spending over a trillion dollars on a plane that couldn’t even protect our electric grid, oil refineries, or military transport lines from waves of $50,000 drones.

True, F-35s have shot down drones and at least one cruise missile in Israel, Syria, and the Red Sea. But those are kinetic weapons shooting down “one missile,” “a drone,” or “two drones.” There has been no real-world engagement against a swarm of drones. They don’t have enough kinetic weapons to disable 50—or hundreds of—drones at a time. The F-35 electronic weapon (EW) capability theoretically can disrupt multiple drones at a time, but its onboard power and antennae are not designed for drone swarms.

Now, the rest of the world is waking up. In Europe, Czech leader Andrej Babiš is an unapologetic, Czechia-first politician. He is saying exactly what Trump said: dump the F-35 and invest in missile defense systems that actually deal with current threats.

He’s right. Trump is right. And the rest of NATO better get the message before it’s too late.

Drones, Not Dogfights

Russia didn’t need fancy jets to destroy Ukraine’s energy grid or ignite chaos in its cities. They used waves of cheap Iranian-made Shahed drones, flying under radar, targeting substations, water supplies, and hospitals. The 2025 U.S. Intelligence Community Threat Assessment says, “Russia continues to develop cost-effective precision strike capabilities … using drones to disrupt civilian infrastructure and exploit gaps in traditional defenses.”

Those “gaps in traditional defenses” include modern fighter jets. And when 24 F-35 jets, at a cost of over $6 billion, cannot guarantee protection against $6 million worth of drones in a wave, wise leaders reject them.

Czechia Is a Canary in the Coal Mine

Czechia sits just a few hundred miles from Russia’s border and it’s not a military fortress—it’s a modern, vulnerable, NATO-linked country with 44 electrical substations; fuel depots, railway hubs, and bridges that move NATO supplies eastward; and dams like Vrané nad Vltavou, which, if destroyed, could flood parts of Prague itself. All these could be knocked out by an attack from less than $6 million worth of drones.

Let that sink in: a handful of drones could plunge a NATO capital into darkness and water. That’s not science fiction. That’s the battlefield of today.

Babiš sees it. He said it plainly: “Reevaluate it; resell it.” He was talking about the F-35. And he’s 100% right. He’d rather have Iron Dome or Patriot missiles—systems that can be deployed fast, that actually shoot down threats in real time, not years after contracts have been signed.

Trump’s Golden Dome Is The Future

This is why President Trump’s Golden Dome initiative is the most important defense proposal in decades. While swamp creatures snickered, Trump laid out a real vision for national security: a space- and ground-based network that can neutralize drones, missiles, and hypersonics before they ever reach American cities or allies. Trump’s instincts have always been spot-on: secure the border, protect the grid, build the wall, and shield the sky.

Real Defense Means Real Protection

Ask yourself this: if the lights go out in Dallas, or a fuel depot explodes in Des Moines, or a dam floods part of Pittsburgh—will an F-35 help? No. It won’t even get off the ground in time. But an Iron Dome battery can. A Patriot system can. The Golden Dome will.

And that’s why Trump was right to call out the F-35 as a waste and right to pivot to missile defense. He thinks like a builder, a realist, and a protector of the American homeland. Not like a defense contractor looking to squeeze taxpayers for another $10 billion.

Time to Build Our Shield

It’s time to get serious. Missile defense isn’t a ‘nice-to-have.’ It’s a national security imperative. The next war won’t look like World War II or the Gulf War. It’ll look like Ukraine: drones, grid failures, non-functioning hospitals, flooded cities, and panic—not because we didn’t have jets, but because we didn’t have shields. In the case of Czechia, the country doesn’t need to show off F-35s for NATO cocktail parties. Prime Minister Fiala cynically acquired it while desperate for a meeting with the Biden White House.

Czechia needs to protect its grid, its water, and its transport corridors. The same is true for us. So let the defense establishment grumble. Let the retired generals still fighting the last war lobby the Pentagon for more billions. We need to think about survival, not ceremony.

This is not just a policy disagreement—it’s a test of seriousness. Trump sees the battlefield for what it is. So does Babiš. They want to protect what matters most. And for that, we need missile shields, drone killers, and hard infrastructure defense, not jets that were designed for the previous war.