In short,
Qatar is offering to give a luxury 747 for Trump to use as the new Air Force One as Boeing is way behind schedule on a replacement one. After Trump leaves officer the plane would be donated to the Trump Library. Trump is defending the gift arguing it is stupid to turn down a good deal while critics are raising concerns over ethical and constitutional issues.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy5ell3gkxvo

The constitutional issue comes under the Emoluments Clause which prohibits the president from accepting foreign gifts and money without Congress' permission.
There are also security issues in ferrying the president around in an airplane gifted by Qatar. I don't think they would try to kill him but if they had surveillance devices they could gather all sorts of information to leverage.

My biggest concern is what is being expected in return for this "gift"?

I was expecting OP to post about this and to also post the limited info that he did.  So predictable.

OP is also leaving out info.

it's okay to send trillions of our dollars and goods to foreign countries, but heaven forbid one of them reciprocate!!   

The airliner is NOT a gift to Trump.  It's a gift to the US President for his USE, not as a personal possession.

And just because the plan is to donate it to the Trump library doesn't mean that's the final word on what happens to it.  The money to reimburse Qatar could make that jet the official AF1 going forward.

If Boeing can't produce a new AF1 before Trump is out of office, why can't he accept a "loaner" from Qatar?  If Boeing ever delivers, we'd have 2 luxury airliners to swap between for Presidential and VP official trips.

It bothers me that people think Trump wants to accept this "gift" to "enrich himself" but then brush off the fact that Trump donates his salary to beneficial causes. 

 

it's okay to send trillions of our dollars and goods to foreign countries, but heaven forbid one of them reciprocate!!   

The airliner is NOT a gift to Trump.  It's a gift to the US President for his USE, not as a personal possession.

And just because the plan is to donate it to the Trump library doesn't mean that's the final word on what happens to it.  The money to reimburse Qatar could make that jet the official AF1 going forward.

If Boeing can't produce a new AF1 before Trump is out of office, why can't he accept a "loaner" from Qatar?  If Boeing ever delivers, we'd have 2 luxury airliners to swap between for Presidential and VP official trips.

It bothers me that people think Trump wants to accept this "gift" to "enrich himself" but then brush off the fact that Trump donates his salary to beneficial causes. 

 

As I predicted, OP is only parroting what he saw via the fake news. 

Lets see if OP post what else we got.

Nothing is free,   it's a bribe.  If biden did this there would be outrage. 

please prove it's a bribe...

Nothing is free,   it's a bribe.  If biden did this there would be outrage.

Nothing is free,   it's a bribe.  If biden did this there would be outrage.

You mean like hiring his son for millions of dollars to sit on a Ukrainian energy board, even though he has zero experience in that sector and region?

Or maybe the Chinese paying Hunter and the Biden Family $31M from 2018 through Joe's time as President?

https://nypost.com/2022/01/27/chinese-elite-have-paid-some-31m-to-hunter-and-the-bidens/

The Qatar "gift" would be transferred to the Department of Defense, so it's really not a gift to Trump personally.  After he leaves office, the craft could legally be transferred to the Trump Library Foundation.  There's also precedent for the government to sell the gifted craft and hand the proceeds to the US Treasury for the benefit of the federal government.

If the gift is accepted by Congress, then none of this matters.  With a GOP Congress, I don't see much resistance to accepting it.

As for covert surveillance, anything the DoD and professional contractors find suspicious can be easily replaced with more trusted components. 

Boeing was contracted to deliver a replacement for Air Force One in July 2018, with a deadline of last year. However, the company said it has experienced delays because of factors including the bankruptcy of a key supplier, staff turnover, and the COVID-19 pandemic.  In February 2018, the White House said Boeing would build two next-generation Air Force One planes at a fixed cost of $3.9 billion. Trump, backed by his officials, claimed his deal-making had made savings worth around $1.5 billion.

The delivery date for Boeing to replace the 41+ year-old Air Force One was 2024.  Basically, Boeing accepted the revised contract in 2018, and 6 years later still wants more time.

The Qatar 747-8 would eliminate all the problems being reported with the current AF1 and give Boeing as much time as they need to deliver replacements.

It's really a shame people think Trump is gullible enough to accept a $400M 747 without realizing there may be favors asked in the future.  But, that's why Congress is there.  If Trump appears to be giving Qatar or any other nation unjustified favorable treatment, they have the power and duty to block him.

This comes down to the deep state and other Liberals trying to block any of Trump's successes for the sake of impeding his efforts to fix our broken government.

BTW, the contract Trump negotiated in 2018 with Boeing is for 2 747's at a fixed cost of $3.9 Billion.  That's $1.95 Billion per plane.  Compare that to the $400M plane Qatar is offering.  I guess taxpayers were given the "US Government Special Price".  There's going to be some money spent retrofitting it for AF1 use, but I doubt that costs $1.55B.

BTW, the longer Boeing takes to deliver, the more it's going to cost them -- that's just factoring in inflation alone.

Since the contract is fixed cost, Boeing will either "eat" those cost increases, or they will have to find ways to get the government to make change requests from the current design.  Engineering changes are one way contractors justify increasing what they charge Uncle Sam.

If they have to eat the increases, they'll be tempted (forced?) to cut corners.  I don't think we want AF1 to be less than top-of-the-line so Boeing can make a larger profit on the contract.

Does anyone think it's impossible that Boeing is intentionally delaying delivery?  Maybe until they can get a new administration to pony up more funding?  The longer the DoD has to maintain a 41 yr-old AF1, the more expensive it becomes.  Since it's also a Boeing 747, any major repairs or upgrades are usually done by Boeing for the systems and subsystems they produced.  I worked many years with the Boeing Corporation because the E-3 AWACS airframes were Boeing 707s.  Every certain number of years, we had a "block" delivery which included fully refurbished and upgraded airframes, mostly done by Boeing.  Boeing also produced, maintained and upgraded the flight and mission simulators since much of the hardware needed to be identical to the AWACS aircraft systems much of which was proprietary.  I was writing software for the AWACS, so we needed to test on the same components as the mission hardware to ensure compatibility.

Then there's the technology aspect.  Over 10 years of building a new 747 with all the comms, nav, and so on aboard AF1, those systems are stagnant.  Meaning the technology can't be upgraded within that timeframe without engineering changes being proposed, analyzed, tested and approved.  That means the new AF1 may be delivered with 10-year-old technology.  it's just the way it is on complex government procurement projects.  i once tested and accepted delivery of portable shelters that included workstations for each duty position.  The original specs included IBM 286 compatible PCs.  After the 3 year prototyping and manufacturing period ended, those computers were ancient by current standards.  We attempted to replace the workstations with current 486 PCs, but even that was too slow.  We wound up ripping out all the PCs and replacing them with DEC Ultrix workstations -- more powerful RISC processors running Ultrix (UNIX) O/S.  Of course, the cost to field these shelters went through the roof, but we needed the computing horsepower that PCs just couldn't handle, and the DEC machines didn't even exist until after shelter delivery.  The process can get very complicated -- and expensive.

When an airframe has a certain number of operating miles on it, the maintenance schedule includes more inspections, more parts being replaced, and eventually an entire retrofit with all new parts.  It's usually cheaper to retrofit them than to order 100% new aircraft. If those models are no longer being manufactured, retrofitting can also start to get more expensive.

Procurement and management of aircraft like this is very complicated and expensive.  If the aircraft continues to accomplish the mission it's meant for, trying to get a brand new bird with all the latest technology is hard to justify financially.

Nothing is free,   it's a bribe.  If biden did this there would be outrage.

Trillion dollar deal also signed. This must be part of the bribe too right?

Trillion dollar deal also signed. This must be part of the bribe too right?

Yes selling our defense industries to the middle east might be connected to the bribe.   You don't celebrate when China buys up our farm land.   

lul
add "might" in there so you don't get called out
goalposts moved...

Yes selling our defense industries to the middle east might be connected to the bribe.   You don't celebrate when China buys up our farm land.

I'm just trying to understand this.  Is the current Air Force One broken?  Is it dangerous to operate?  I understand it is forty something years old and I agree a new one is needed.

But the current one Quatar is offering seems substandard and inferior.  And if the US needs to add more things to it to make it functional as an Air Force One why couldn't they just do that to the original aircraft?

I'm just wondering, I have no qualms about Quatar offering it for the POTUS's use.  Almost seems like Quatar is offering Trump a Toyota Corolla to use instead of his old BMW.

Tump's progress in the middle east seems to have scared the crap out of Iran

They are finally willing to come to the table.

https://www.econotimes.com/Oil-Prices-Slide-on-Iran-Nuclear-Deal-Hopes-and-Rising-US-Crude-Stockpiles-1710344

Yes selling our defense industries to the middle east might be connected to the bribe.   You don't celebrate when China buys up our farm land.

please define what you mean by "defense industries."  Selling an entire industry that large is impossible under a single administration.

There are laws in place that prevent certain weapons, technologies and other defense systems from being exported from the US.

Maybe brush up on those rules before acting like Trump is going to bypass those rules and do something detrimental to the nation.

https://www.trade.gov/report/2025-defense-export-handbook

I'm just trying to understand this.  Is the current Air Force One broken?  Is it dangerous to operate?  I understand it is forty something years old and I agree a new one is needed.

But the current one Quatar is offering seems substandard and inferior.  And if the US needs to add more things to it to make it functional as an Air Force One why couldn't they just do that to the original aircraft?

I'm just wondering, I have no qualms about Quatar offering it for the POTUS's use.  Almost seems like Quatar is offering Trump a Toyota Corolla to use instead of his old BMW.

A new AF1 was supposed to be delivered by Boeing, but they're delayed. Not by a few weeks or months, which is understandable.  But a year. See above Flapp post.

Also, when the contract was presented to the Trump admin, Trump was able to also slash cost by a lot.

I highly doubt that this Qatar donation would be used as AF1.  There is too much things that need to go into installation.  They should just use the current AF1 and ask Boeing on a more firm deadline.  I assume they're close to finishing.

What this donated plane should be used for is other government official travels.

I was expecting OP to post about this and to also post the limited info that he did.  So predictable.

OP is also leaving out info.

The real question should be why no one else was concerned about this enough to post the story.

But by all means, what info am I leaving out?

The real question should be why no one else was concerned about this enough to post the story.

But by all means, what info am I leaving out?

The reason nobody else posted this story before you is we don't frequent the same anti-Trump websites as some people here.  This story wasn't trending before you posted, so nobody who follows the actual news had a chance before you jumped on it.

The real question is why you always have to turn your posts into attacks on those who don't think like you?

This isn't a political news site.  It's a 2A forum.  Just because you come here for your political arguments doesn't mean everyone else cares that much about bashing Trump 24/7/365.

I guarantee you someone would have posted this if you'd have waited a day or so.  Most people with any common sense waits to see what the real news is before posting a knee-jerk reaction to what is often fake news intended to get clicks.

it's okay to send trillions of our dollars and goods to foreign countries, but heaven forbid one of them reciprocate!!   

The airliner is NOT a gift to Trump.  It's a gift to the US President for his USE, not as a personal possession.

And just because the plan is to donate it to the Trump library doesn't mean that's the final word on what happens to it.  The money to reimburse Qatar could make that jet the official AF1 going forward.

If Boeing can't produce a new AF1 before Trump is out of office, why can't he accept a "loaner" from Qatar?  If Boeing ever delivers, we'd have 2 luxury airliners to swap between for Presidential and VP official trips.

It bothers me that people think Trump wants to accept this "gift" to "enrich himself" but then brush off the fact that Trump donates his salary to beneficial causes. 

 

Sure, Qatar can reciprocate but it needs to be approved by congress per the emoluments clause.
If it were not a gift to Trump but rather a gift to the USA then it wouldn't go to Trump's presidential library after he leaves office. The plane would stay in ownership of the government and when the government decides to replace it they get to decide what to do with it.

Pointing to Trump donating his salary is whatbaoutism and irrelevant, like a criminal who points out he volunteers at a children's hospital, both can be true. Not to mention comparing a $400,000 salary to a $400,000,000 airplane misses the mark quite a bit. It also assumes money as a motive when I think the motive, given Trump's character, is much more an interest in having the biggest and best of everything. Only Reagan's library has an old AF1, I think Trump wants it so he can have a big flashy library dedicated to him.

The reason nobody else posted this story before you is we don't frequent the same anti-Trump websites as some people here.  This story wasn't trending before you posted, so nobody who follows the actual news had a chance before you jumped on it.

The real question is why you always have to turn your posts into attacks on those who don't think like you?

This isn't a political news site.  It's a 2A forum.  Just because you come here for your political arguments doesn't mean everyone else cares that much about bashing Trump 24/7/365.

#1 My post didn't attack anyone
#2 "Trending"?
#3 The story was in the news for at least a day when I posted it.
#4 Sounds like you want the Political Discussion section to be an echo chamber where no one says anything bad about Lord Trump. You paint any critical comments on Trump as 24/7 Trump bashing.
#5. There need not be an argument, I posted a news story, you can read it and move on if you don't desire to debate.