Renovating Trump's 'Free' Qatari Jet Is Going Great, Just Don't Ask About The Mysterious $934 Million Transfer No One Wants To Talk About

Yahoo

5 days ago

It may feel like it's already been years, but in reality, the news that President Trump decided to accept a "free" Boeing 747 from the nation of Qatar is only a couple of months old. It's no secret that, in order to use the plane as Air Force One, it will require an expensive and thorough renovation. How much are taxpayers actually spending on Trump's "free" plane, though? Well, that's classified, but it also sounds like early estimates of nearly a billion dollars may have actually been pretty accurate, the New York Times reports.
Apparently, the Pentagon mysteriously transferred $934 million out of its nuclear missile modernization budget into "an unnamed classified project" that "congressional budget sleuths" believe "almost certainly includes the renovation of" Trump's allegedly free plane. We can't know for sure that money will be used on Trump's plane, and even if it is, they may not use the entire $934 million to renovate the plane, but according to the Times, Air Force officials have previously mentioned using money already allocated for nuclear modernization to turn the Qatari jet into a useable Air Force One.
It's also important to remember that the current plan isn't for the U.S. government to keep the plane. Instead, it will supposedly be transferred to Trump's presidential library (which, notably, still doesn't exist) when Trump leaves office. So while work on the plane will reportedly begin soon, it will likely take at least a year, if not two, to get it ready for duty. That leaves very little time for Trump to use it as Air Force One. He is, after all, constitutionally ineligible to serve another term as President, at least if you go based on what the words in the Constitution say.
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Free For Trump, At Least
When he was asked about the ethics of the whole plane thing back in May, Trump said, "I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, 'No, we don't want a free, very expensive airplane.'" Which is great, except for the part where the American taxpayers are footing the bill for a plane the federal government won't even get to keep once Trump leaves office. As the Times put it:
It is free in the sense that a used car handed over by a neighbor looking to get it out of his driveway is free. In this case, among the many modifications will be hardened communications, antimissile systems and engine capabilities to take the president quickly to safety as one of the older Air Force Ones did on Sept. 11, 2001, when Al Qaeda attacked the United States. And there is the delicate matter of ridding the jet of any hidden electronic listening devices that U.S. officials suspect may be embedded in the walls.
Then, of course, it has to be stuffed with the luxuries — and gold trim — with which the 47th president surrounds himself, whether he is in the Oval Office or in the air. The jet's upper deck has a lounge and a communications center, while the main bedroom can be converted into a flying sick bay in a medical emergency.
After spending all that money on refitting the Qatari jet for Trump to use as Air Force One for maybe a year or two, the federal government will still have to pay for the two Air Force One planes already on order. You know, since Trump's plan is to take the Qatari jet with him when he leaves office. So every dime spent on this plane is an extra cost to taxpayers to make Trump happy.
Officially, We're Still Saving Money...somehow
Last month, Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink told Congress not to worry about the cost of the "free" Qatari jet. "I think there has been a number thrown around on the order of $1 billion, but a lot of those costs associated with that are costs that we'd have experienced anyway," Meink told lawmakers. "We will just experience them early. So it wouldn't be anywhere near that. We believe the actual retrofit of that aircraft is probably less than $400 million."
That doesn't exactly track, considering we, again, still have to pay for the two other Air Force Ones already on order, and the federal government won't keep the Qatari jet after Trump leaves office. But the Times also cites "engineers and Air Force experts who have been through similar projects" and still don't buy that budget estimate. And when pressed for more details last week, the Air Force said it couldn't discuss the cost of the project because it's classified. As the Times points out, though, "the Air Force is willing to discuss the cost of building a new generation of intercontinental ballistic missiles, but not the cost of renovating the president's aircraft." Curious.
As Senator Jeanne Shaheen, a Democrat who sits on the Armed Services Committee, told the Times, "The more we learn about this deal, the more disturbing it becomes. The security implications of accepting a private plane from a foreign nation as Air Force One and the resulting ethical concerns a gift of that size creates were already significant." Beyond that, though, Shaheen said they're worried "this administration is diverting funds from the nuclear modernization budget to finance costly renovations to this plane," and that "we're weakening our credibility to fund a vanity project for President Trump."
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