Even if the Qatari-gifted Air Force One were perfect in every way, and the plane were serving Donald Trump and the United States well, it’d still be a legal, political and ethical mess. We are, after all, talking about a luxury jet the president accepted despite the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause, which bars chief executives from receiving gifts from foreign powers without congressional approval.
We’re also talking about a plane the Republican, who went to extraordinary lengths to reward Qatar after receiving the gift, apparently intends to “donate” to his presidential library after leaving the White House.
That the new Air Force One is clearly not perfect in every way makes the mess considerably worse.
Earlier this month, Trump took the new plane to Turkey for a NATO summit, but he chose not to fly home on it. The president claimed by way of social media that he was taking the older Air Force One “for old times’ sake” and denied the switch was made due to security concerns.
It quickly became apparent he was not telling the truth. MS NOW reported that Trump swapped out the Qatari-gifted jet for his flight from Turkey to the United Kingdom “over concerns that the gifted aircraft lacks the secure communications systems and military defenses needed to safely manage a rapidly escalating conflict with Iran.”
The New York Times published a related report three weeks ago, which sparked a furious White House leak investigation, despite the newspaper highlighting the fact that the plane’s deficiencies were visible to the naked eye.
The Times’ latest reporting has advanced the story, noting what happened when Trump toured the luxury Boeing 747-8 early last year and was struck by his luxurious amenities.
Mr. Trump’s February 2025 tour of the Qatari jet led to a frantic sprint inside the White House and the Pentagon. The administration sought to upgrade the plane in time to meet his demand for it to be ready by the nation’s 250th birthday this summer, with an accelerated retrofit.
An investigation by The New York Times found that the president’s push to get the luxury aircraft quickly led to ballooning costs and trade-offs in safety features that potentially left Mr. Trump and others who travel with him on Air Force One vulnerable.
There’s a lot to the reporting, which has not been independently verified by MS NOW, with the Times documenting how directly involved the president was in making decisions about the plane, including his personal approval of its security measures.
That’s highly relevant because many of the security and safety features that were included in the previous Air Force One (and will be included in the next Air Force One, which will be ready in a couple of years) were left off the Qatari-gifted plane.
The plane was so unprepared for presidential travel that some White House officials “initially expected it would only be used for domestic travel or to visit allied countries with U.S. military bases.”
But there were no such limitations. Even as experts had envisioned a multi-year process, the administration embraced a “compressed timeline of just about eight months,” not because it had to, but because Trump was like a child who wanted immediate access to his new toy.
We learned nearly a year ago that members of Congress from both parties expressed concern the president would pressure the Air Force to complete security modifications too quickly, thus creating a security risk because Trump was simply too impatient. It’s now increasingly obvious that those concerns were correct.
Indeed, the president gave away the game last week, taking the new Air Force One out of service (at least temporarily) until its security features can be improved.
The bottom line is unavoidable: Trump created a national security problem because he was overeager and self-indulgent. I know it’s trite to say this would be an enormous scandal in a normal presidency, but this really would be an enormous scandal in a normal presidency.
There’s also the question of cost. Earlier this month, a reporter asked the president about the price tag for preparing the Qatari-gifted jet. “Well, it cost very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way,” Trump responded.
I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean, but there’s a likely explanation for why the Republican was cagey on the underlying question. “The government spent hundreds of millions of dollars to purchase equipment needed to train pilots to fly the 747-8 plane so quickly, on top of the approximately $400 million cost of the upgrades that the administration has publicly acknowledged,” the Times’ latest reporting added. “The Pentagon has tried to mask the total price tag — including from Congress — by taking the funds from a classified budget for nuclear modernization.”
If Democrats win back a congressional majority, it’s a safe bet that this will be the subject of some rather intense oversight hearings.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
The post Why Trump rushed the Qatari-gifted Air Force One into service before it was ready appeared first on MS NOW.
