On Sunday night, as the public first learned about Donald Trump’s plan to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from his friends in Qatar to be used as Air Force One, the president was eager to defend the arrangement. The plane, the Republican argued online, would be “FREE OF CHARGE.”
Trump returned to the point a few days later, asking why taxpayers should be “forced to pay hundreds of millions of Dollars” for a plane “when they can get it for FREE” from Qatar. He added soon after that only “a stupid person [would] say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’”
Even if the luxury jet were free, this arrangement would still be a legal, ethical and political mess. But there’s a related problem: The “free” plane wouldn’t be free. NBC News reported:
Converting a Qatari-owned 747 jet into a new Air Force One for President Donald Trump would involve installing multiple top-secret systems, cost over $1 billion and take years to complete, three aviation experts told NBC News. They said that accepting the 13-year-old jet would likely cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over time, noting that refurbishing the commercial plane would exceed its current value of $400 million.
Politico had a related report that noted it “could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars” to retrofit Qatar’s “gift” into a makeshift Air Force One.
“This isn’t really a gift,” said Rep. Joe Courtney told Politico. The Connecticut Democrat, who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and helps oversee its panel on executive airlift, added, “You’d basically have to tear the plane down to the studs and rebuild it to meet all the survivability, security and communications requirements of Air Force One. It’s a massive undertaking — and an unfunded one at that.”
In other words, when Trump says the jet from Qatar would be “FREE OF CHARGE,” it’s true that it would be free for him — the president wouldn’t have to reach for his own wallet — but it wouldn’t be free to us, the American taxpayers.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer did a nice job Tuesday asking some important questions that the White House hasn’t even tried to answer.
“If the American taxpayers are forced to pay for this temporary plane, does it mean that the U.S. government will cancel the contract for the future Boeing plane? If so, how much will that cancellation cost?” the New York Democrat asked. “If not, why are American taxpayers being asked to spend hundreds of millions of dollars or more on a plane that will only be used for a year or two?” Soon after Schumer’s comments, Senate Democrats tried to advance a resolution that condemned “any acceptance of a Presidential aircraft, or any other substantial gift, from a foreign government as a grave national security threat to the Office of the President” and demanded that such a gift could only be accepted with the approval of Congress. Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blocked the measure. Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz of Hawaii, who introduced the resolution, said, “I remain flabbergasted that this thing is not going to pass. I remain completely aghast. This is the most blatant, obvious, ridiculous, gross corruption that I’ve ever seen in my entire life — by dollar amount, by symbolism, by violating constitutional and statutory law.”
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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