Democratic Congressman Rick Larsen is questioning Republican challenger John Koster’s committment to having Boeing build air refueling tankers in Everett.

Larsen raised the issue after hearing a comment Koster made in a radio interview. Here’s the excerpt put out by the Larsen campaign. (Koster’s campaign has not questioned the veracity of the audio.)

Here’s my transcribing ot the interview that aired on KSER, a public radio station in Everett.

Interviewer: What is your feeling about the tanker contract?

Koster: Boeing is a big part of it here. They employ probably about 27,000 people, around, give or take, down in the Everett plant. It is all the other jobs that are connected to that. For every one inside they estimate there are three to four. So they are very, very important to the economy here in the 2nd Congressional District.

We need that tanker built. We need to do things to keep business here generally speaking too. But we need that tanker built in this country, the refueling tanker should be built in this country, whether it’s built at this plant or somewhere else, it needs (emphasis added) to be built in the United States of America.”

Larsen issued this statement: “If I hadn’t listened to this interview myself, I wouldn’t have believed it. There is only one answer when it comes to questions on the tanker: The tanker needs to be built RIGHT HERE in Everett. John Koster just flunked Snohomish County 101. We can’t let Koster put the lifeblood of our local economy at risk,” he said.

You can read his entire press release here.

Today, Koster called me to say: “I am going to fight like hell to make sure Boeing builds the plant here. I have never wavered in my support of Boeing building that plant in Everett.”

Earlier, his campaign issued a press release in which Koster states:

“In his desperation to hold onto his job, Rick Larsen continues to look for ways to misconstrue my position on the issues. In his latest effort, Larsen says that I’m okay with sending the Air Force Tanker project outside of the 2nd Congressional District. This could not be farther from the truth. My commitment to bringing the Tanker contract to Boeing right here in Washington State has never been in question.”

“My main concern has always been that we could potentially lose the deal to Europe’s Airbus, not Northrop Grumman, and that the ridiculous scenario of sending the U.S Air Force Tanker contract outside of the United States would become a reality.”

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