President Donald Trump announced Sunday night that the Defense Department plans to accept a Boeing 747-8 jet as a replacement for Air Force One, describing it as a “GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE.”
Earlier in the day, CNN reported that the Trump administration was set to receive a luxury aircraft from the Qatari royal family, which will be retrofitted for use as Air Force One during Trump’s second term, according to two sources familiar with the arrangement.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the multimillion-dollar jet would be used temporarily, calling it “a very public and transparent transaction.”
Trump is scheduled to begin his first major foreign trip on Monday, with a stop in Doha, Qatar, CNN noted.
The decision to accept a Boeing 747-8, an aircraft of immense value, is unprecedented and has sparked significant ethical and legal concerns. A Qatari official stated that the jet is being formally transferred from the Qatari Ministry of Defense to the U.S. Department of Defense, framing it as a government-to-government exchange rather than a personal gift.
The Pentagon will then retrofit the aircraft with security upgrades and presidential modifications for Trump’s use, CNN added.
The gift comes as Boeing has been working on renovating a pair of 747s into next-gen Air Force One planes, a program that is years behind schedule. Both aircraft were supposed to have been delivered during the Biden administration in 2022 but now are not expected to be completed until 2027 at the very earliest.
According to a source familiar with the arrangement, the long-term plan is for the Qatari-supplied $400 million aircraft to be donated to Trump’s presidential library after he leaves office, allowing him continued access to it.
“The possible transfer of an aircraft for temporary use as Air Force One is currently under consideration between Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, but the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments, and no decision has been made,” Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché to the US, noted on Sunday, per CNN.
Earlier this year, Trump and his aides toured the plane at the airport in Palm Beach, Florida, and it is expected to be in use within two years, according to one person who spoke to CNN. After his tour, Trump has bragged to those around him about the luxuriousness of the plane.
Predictably, Democrats are up in arms over the deal, with some demanding a congressional ethics probe despite the fact that Trump has been very open about the situation.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., wrote to the Government Accountability Office on Sunday, stating that the plane would be the single most expensive gift ever received by a U.S. president, Fox News reported.
Torres derided the deal as a “flying grift,” arguing it violates the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which “explicitly prohibits any person holding public office from accepting ‘any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.’”
“I am writing to express alarm over reports that President Donald Trump is poised to accept a luxury aircraft — a Boeing 747-8 — from the government of Qatar. The plane, so opulent it has been described as a ‘palace in the sky,’ is set to be made available to President Trump for official use as Air Force One and then for private use once he leaves office,” Torres wrote.
“This ‘flying grift’ is merely the latest chapter in a tawdry tale of presidential profiteering unprecedented in American history,” Torres added without specifying what other “profiteering” Trump is supposed to have engaged in.
Trump doubled down on receiving the plane in a Sunday Truth Social post.
“So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40-year-old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane,” he wrote.
“Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!!” he added.