The $400,000,000 Qatari Boeing 747-8 Jumbo Jet Is a Trojan Horse

May 21, 2025 06:57 PM EDT, Wed

This Qatari is a Trojan Horse. The Boeing 747-8 would have to be stripped down to the airframe to make sure that there are no listening devices or tracking devices embedded in Trump’s gift. Plus the airframe and electronics have to be hardened to be able to withstand an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) generated by a nuclear blast.

  • How long would that take?
  • How much would it cost?

Team Trump’s decision to accept the Qatari “gift” doesn’t end the controversy; it starts the controversy.

May 21, 2025, 2:12 PM EDT By Steve Benen

When the news broke last week that Donald Trump poised to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar, some of the relevant players made clear that the plans had not yet been finalized. In fact, a spokesperson for Qatar’s government referred to the “possible transfer” of the aircraft, adding that “no decision has been made.”

A week later, however, it’s apparently a done deal. The New York Times reported:

The United States has accepted a 747 jetliner as a gift from the government of Qatar, and the Air Force has now been asked to figure out a way to rapidly upgrade it so it can be put into use as a new Air Force One for President Trump, a Defense Department spokesman confirmed Wednesday.

Sean Parnell, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement, “The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations. The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”

The Times’ report added that the Defense Department “has not given an estimate of when the work on the Qatari plane might be done, even though Mr. Trump and the White House have made clear the president wants it soon, perhaps even by the end of the year.”

What the president “wants” is likely to prove irrelevant: NBC News recently reported that converting the luxury jet will “take years to complete.”

Indeed, it’s worth emphasizing that the administration’s decision to accept the Qatari “gift” doesn’t end the controversy; it starts the controversy.

Now that this plan is moving forward, the president and his White House team should prepare for a series of questions for which there are no easy answers. Where will Trump find the money to pay for for this “free” plane? Why does he keep pretending that this “gift” isn’t for him personally, even after he’s publicly suggested otherwise? How does Trump intend to overcome the seemingly obvious fact that the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause still exists, and it appears to prohibit exactly this kind of arrangement?

Why was Attorney General Pam Bondi involved in approving this process after having served as a paid registered lobbyist for Qatar? How does Trump plan to explain away his earlier condemnations of presidents accepting foreign gifts? Why is the president apparently indifferent to the fact that even many of his Republican allies have expressed opposition to this idea? Will Congress have any role in approving the transfer, as is required for such gestures of international generosity?

As for the gambit’s many Democratic critics, the congressional minority can’t hold hearings or send subpoenas, but a group of Senate Democrats last week formally requested that the Pentagon’s inspector general’s office open an investigation into the matter, which might actually happen, and there’s a related effort to press the Justice Department’s inspector general’s office to begin scrutiny, too.

This story, in other words, is just getting started. Watch this space.

Steve Benen Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Why Qatar might come to regret offering a plane to Donald Trump

The support of the United States is crucial to the strategic security of Qatar.

May 16, 2025, 7:31 PM EDT

By Allen Fromherz, author of “Qatar: A Modern History”

Whether or not President Donald Trump ultimately accepts a $400 million Boeing 747-8 from Qatar, the reasons for the country’s offer are best appreciated from an airplane-level view. Descending into the small, but highly influential country reveals a great deal about why Qatar is so interested in securing the support of the United States — and why its survival as an independent state demands it.

Qatar would be relatively powerless in the event of an invasion from its much larger neighbors.

Though it can sometimes feel like an island, or al-jazeera in Arabic, Qatar is a peninsula of rolling sand dunes and salt fields, dotted by ports and major gas and oil industry along the shore.

Look out of the window of the plane and you’ll see the turquoise waters of the Persian Gulf over the North Field, a massive source of natural gas that it shares with Iran. Look out the other side and you’ll see a region of salt flats that corresponds with Qatar’s border with Saudi Arabia, its only land border. This ground was perfect for Al Udeid Air Base, the largest American military base in the Middle East under Central Command, especially after Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups threatened U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.

While Qatar has a small military and has spent millions updating its food security systems and its defense, it would be relatively powerless in the event of an invasion from its much larger neighbors. The support of the United States, which has an interest in the security of its main air base, is crucial to the strategic security of Qatar and the free flow of commerce and oil through the Gulf.

But that security was called into question shortly after a visit Trump made to the region during his first term, when Saudi Arabia, feeling confident it had secured the president’s backing, deemed Qatar’s financial support of the Muslim Brotherhood to be support of extremism and led a blockade of the country.

Food supplies were threatened. Families were split. Even camel herds were caught between the newly closed border of Saudi Arabia and Qatar. No longer able to fly over Saudi Arabia, Qatar Airways flights were diverted to Iranian airspace. Iran stepped in and sent planes and ships full of groceries. But far from causing Qatar to back down, the blockade seemed to strengthen the country and cement the links between Sheikh Tamim al Thani and Qatar’s residents. Eventually, in 2021, as President Trump was leaving office, the blockade was lifted, and Qatar’s ruler arrived in Al-‘Ula, Saudi Arabia, and signed a joint statement to coordinate their national media, fight terrorism and “stand firm against any confrontation that would undermine national or regional security.”

Qatar was able to change its policies and affirm its ultimate alliances with the U.S. and its Gulf neighbors, without appearing to fully back down. Al-Jazeera, the Doha-based network that the Saudis had demanded be shuttered, remains the major Arabic news service for the region, and Qatar did not sever its ties with groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. The main lesson Qatar learned was the importance of securing allies on both sides of the U.S. political divide. Long before Trump’s election, Qatar had coordinated a campaign to build good will in the United States, beginning with a major donation to Hurricane Katrina recovery efforts, earning the small country a great deal gratitude in the deep-red state of Louisiana. Some of that money went to Xavier University of Louisiana and to Tulane University, but Qatar also supports other U.S. institutions of higher education; it has paid generous sums to Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth University and others that set up campuses in Doha’s Education City.

Long before Trump’s election, Qatar had coordinated a campaign to build good will in the United States.

Organizations such as Brookings Doha Center are funded as think tanks, communicating to the so-called Washington establishment. Qatar may have assumed, like many observers, that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would defeat Trump in 2016. Its courtship of the Republican Party began shortly after the blockade started. That courtship continues to this day, as evidenced by the country’s offer of the plane to President Trump.

But Qatar has offered the U.S. and its allies something even more valuable than money. Instead of breaking all ties with Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah and other actors in the region, Qatar has stepped up very publicly as a mediator, communicating with those same groups and offering to try to pressure them financially into deals. Far from being a problem, Qatar emerged as a major non-NATO ally, as declared by former President Joe Biden, an ideal partner in peacemaking. Qatar remains indispensable to Trump and his Israel-Hamas ceasefire negotiator Steve Witkoff; and Qatar was crucial to the success of some of the short-term deals that led to the release of Israeli and American hostages.

Qatar is now free to court high net worth individuals from around the world and a secure Islamic banking infrastructure. Qatar’s Investment Authority, which invests more than half a trillion dollars in projects around the globe, continues to secure deals. Not wanting to be outdone by Saudi Arabia or UAE, which have also inked major economic deals with Trump, the White House announced more than $200 billion of economic deals with Qatar, including the sale of 210 Boeing aircraft.

On April 30, 1840, the Sultana, a vessel sent by the sultan of Oman, arrived in New York. It was laden with gifts meant for the personal use of President Martin Van Buren. There were two Arabian stud horses, gold mounted swords, Persian carpets and other luxury items. The ship’s arrival caused a political crisis for Van Buren who, in the middle of a re-election campaign, was caught between not wanting to offend the sultan and not wanting to take emoluments from a foreign power. Congress eventually agreed to accept the gifts on behalf of the government of the United States. The horses were sold (including one to a former member of Andrew Jackson’s Cabinet) and other items became a part of the future collections of the Smithsonian. To avoid a constitutional crisis, perhaps Trump could cite the Van Buren precedent and offer to sell the plane and add the proceeds to the U.S. Treasury.

As for Qatar, offering Trump a plane may not turn out to be as deft of an investment and Qatar’s original intent could have been misunderstood. A few days after the story broke, the prime minister of Qatar explained that the gift was actually meant to be a ““government-to-government transaction.”” Qatar’s government seems aware that too obvious of an attempt to influence President Trump could open Qatar up to the risk of again being out of favor when Republicans are no longer in control.

Allen Fromherz Allen Fromherz is a professor of Middle East, Gulf and Mediterranean history at Georgia State University. He directs the Middle East Studies Center at GSU and was President of the American Institute for Maghreb Studies (2015-2021). He is founding series editor, with Matt Buehler, of Edinburgh Studies on the Maghrib and is North Africa senior editor for the Oxford Research Encyclopedia Africa. Since 2024, he is also Co-Chair of the Monsoon Book Prizes, which celebrate the archaeology, history and political economy of the Indian Ocean world.

George Washington saw Trump’s plane gift from Qatar coming 250 years ago

The Founders knew a throne when they saw one — and that’s how they’d see Qatar’s $400 million “gift” to President Trump.

May 15, 2025, 1:56 PM EDT

By Alexis Coe, Presidential historian

The founders didn’t foresee flight — but they knew a throne when they saw one. And to this George Washington scholar, Qatar’s $400 million jet gift to President Donald Trump reads like a punchline 250 years in the making.

Patriots fought against unchecked power, foreign entanglements, self-dealing and a ruling class blind to suffering. King George III and Parliament enriched themselves while ordinary people struggled. Palaces, ceremonial coaches, gilded thrones — these weren’t luxuries colonists enjoyed. They were obstacles to the earliest articulation of the American Dream.

If a prince gives you a jet and you take it, you owe him — even if you pretend you don’t.

In 1787, the Constitution’s’s framers gathered in a sweltering room in Philadelphia to design a government that wouldn’t collapse into monarchy or rot with foreign influence. They wrote the emoluments clause — Article I, Section 9 — which they saw as a firewall. It forbade federal officials from accepting gifts or titles from foreign states without congressional consent.

The logic was simple: no monarchies by stealth, no subtle realignments of loyalty. If a prince gives you a jet and you take it, you owe him — even if you pretend you don’t. In the founders’ eyes, it’s more than improper. It’s a betrayal. They didn’t fight a king just to watch a president accept a sky-high royal estate — or what Donald Trump calls a write-off.

The early republic was on high alert for anything that resembled aristocratic excess.

George Washington warned of “the insidious wiles of foreign influence,” calling it “one of the most baneful foes of republican government.” His successors remained hypersensitive: Thomas Jefferson returned a diamond-studded snuff box from the French ambassador on constitutional grounds and warned that the presidency could devolve into elective despotism. John Adams was publicly dragged for his taste in carriages, so his son, John Quincy Adams, surrendered horses and gilded gifts to the State Department rather than risk the appearance of impropriety.

This Congress — stacked with elected officials who swore to uphold the Constitution — hasn’t cried out, but the first one would have. When John Adams suggested calling the president “His Majesty, His Highness, the President of the United States of America, and Protector of Their Liberties,” Congress balked. Too monarchical. Too much. Too soon. They didn’t need to be reminded, as the 119th Congress so often does, that patriots waged a brutal eight-year war on domestic soil to get out from under a crown.

This week, NBC News’ Kristen Welker asked Trump whether, as president, he would uphold the Constitution. “I don’t know,” he replied. Fifty-three Republican senators refused to comment. Only Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul spoke up — on social media, naturally — reminding us that “Following the Constitution is not a suggestion.”

When referring to the document you swore to defend is treated as political bravery, we’re already in trouble. But doing nothing? That’s permission. This Congress isn’t just tolerating the jet. It’s underwriting the decay that made it possible.

What Trump is doing is anti-constitutional — not “unconstitutional,” a term we apply to so many of his official acts, as if they exist in a gray area of vague corruption that might be defensible. In reality, it violates the independence that was supposed to anchor the presidency.

Thomas Jefferson didn’t fear a tyrant who seized power. He feared one who bought it with borrowed luxury.

What Trump is doing is anti-constitutional — not ‘unconstitutional.’

And yet here we are. A $400 million soaring throne room from an authoritarian monarchy to a man who treats the Constitution like a nuisance. Trump’s plane joins a long list of foreign giveaways he — or rather, his friends, family and future presidential library — have accepted: Saudi cash funneled through his hotel lobbies, Chinese patents fast-tracked for Ivanka, a $2 billion investment from the Saudi sovereign wealth fund to Jared Kushner’s firm shortly after he left the White House, and so many more.

It’s classical corruption: the decay of the body politic, the collapse of civic virtue, the slow confusion of public service with personal reward.

The founders fought for more than a break from monarchy — 1776 was the beginning of the American Dream. Not golden thrones, but ordinary people having a chance to get ahead. Trump’s flying palace doesn’t just violate the Constitution. It mocks the idea entirely.

Alexis Coe Alexis Coe is a presidential historian, senior fellow at New America and New York Times bestselling author of “Young Jack: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1957” (2025), “You Never Forget Your First: A Biography of George Washington” (2020) and “Alice+Freda Forever: A Murder in Memphis” (2014).

AG Pam Bondi faces an awkward question about her approval of the Qatari jet ‘gift’

When it comes to the attorney general and the luxury jet from Qatar, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin is asking all the right questions.

May 15, 2025, 9:36 AM EDT By Steve Benen

It was earlier this week when the public first learned about Donald Trump ’s plan to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar to be used as a temporary Air Force One. The president spent the days that followed trying to defend the outrageous arrangement, with limited effect.

The result is a bizarre controversy that has divided congressional Republicans and conservative leaders, while raising a seemingly endless list of ethical and legal concerns.

But while this burgeoning fiasco adds to the list of Trump scandals, the president isn’t the only one facing difficult questions.

According to a report from ABC News, which was the first to break this story, Attorney General Pam Bondi and her Justice Department team determined that accepting the plane would be legally permissible so long as the Qatari government gifts it to the Defense Department and the jet is later turned over to the Trump Library Foundation.

This was dubious guidance in its own right, but there was a related problem hanging overhead: Bondi used to work as a registered lobbyist for foreign clients, including the government of Qatar — the same government that’s apparently prepared to reward Trump with a jet.

Now, a key Senate Democratic leader is asking all the right questions. NBC News reported:

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, sent a new letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi asking how she came to a conclusion that the Qatari gift of a $400 million jet to Trump would be ‘legally permissible’ and pressing her to provide the committee with information about whether the Justice Department determined there were no potential conflicts of interest. In the letter, provided first to NBC News, Durbin asks Bondi if she recused herself from decision-making related to the matter because Bondi previously worked as a lobbyist for Qatar.

“There are serious questions about whether you should have recused yourself from this matter,” , noting that Bondi “did not list the State of Qatar as a conflict of interest on your Senate Judiciary Questionnaire, despite serving as a lobbyist for this foreign government prior to your confirmation as Attorney General.”

The Illinois Democrat, who’s retiring next year, asked Bondi to provide the Senate Judiciary Committee with:

  • the memo the attorney general prepared that concluded that the acceptance of the Qatari gift would be “legally permissible”;
  • and “the names and titles of the Department ethics officials with whom you consulted on your potential conflict of interest in this matter and any records or materials related to this consultation.”

Durbin asked that Bondi comply with his request by May 28.

For those interested in accountability and legal ethics, the good news is that Durbin is pressing the attorney general on an important point, and the facts appear to be on the senator’s side. The bad news is that Durbin’s correspondence is a request, not a subpoena, and given that the Illinois Democrat is in the minority, he has no way to compel Bondi to cooperate with this line of inquiry.

Indeed, it’s likely that the attorney general will ignore the senator’s letter — and there won’t be a whole lot he can do about it without the support of his Republican colleagues, which will almost certainly never materialize.

Steve Benen
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Trump’s jet from Qatar is worrisome. What he’s giving in return is troubling.

The only thing that unites the policies the president has announced on his Middle East tour so far is that they are exactly what the Gulf states wanted.

May 14, 2025, 2:36 PM EDT / Updated May 14, 2025, 3:16 PM EDT By Chris Hayes

This is an adapted excerpt from the May 13 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”

For decades, going back to Ronald Reagan, when an American president makes their first visit to a foreign nation, they almost always go to Canada. It makes sense: They’re our top trading partner; we share a language and a very long border. But in 2017, Donald Trump did not do that.

Instead, Trump went to the oil-rich kingdom of Saudi Arabia, where he joined in laying hands on a glowing orb . During that trip, he also forged a close friendship with the nation’s crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who would later invest $2 billion in a business owned by Trump’s son-in-law, against the advice of his own economic experts.

It’s worth noting that before that announcement, Syria’s leader offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus.

Eight years later, Trump is president again. This time around, Trump, once again, decided he wasn’t going to Canada, the country he openly wants to annex. Instead, the president went back to the Middle East, landing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Tuesday, with plans to visit Qatar and the United Arab Emirates next.

The Saudis, the Qataris and the Emiratis all clearly understood the assignment. Take the crown prince: He greeted Trump on the tarmac and rolled out the royal purple carpet.

Not only did the Saudis welcome Trump with open arms, but they also welcomed his co-president, Elon Musk. However, Musk wasn’t the only billionaire on the trip. Trump and the crown prince joined forces to open a U.S.-Saudi investment forum for big-money players from the two nations, with speakers from U.S. firms like Citigroup, BlackRock and Palantir.

The White House claims Trump “secured $600 billion in deals with the Saudi government and firms.” But, according to The New York Times, “the details the White House provided were vague and totaled less than half that number. And a closer look at the projects the administration provided shows several were already in the works before Mr. Trump took office.” But Trump claimed a big win, and so the [president] responsible for the “Muslim ban” posed onstage in front of a massive Saudi flag and was applauded.

Trump had some other big gifts ready, too. The president announced a $142 billion arms agreement to provide the Saudis with U.S. weapons and defense contractors to maintain them. He also announced that he plans to lift sanctions on Syria, which Trump said was at the behest of the Saudis. “Oh, what I do for the crown prince,” he said from the stage.

While that announcement was a good one and those sanctions on Syria should be dropped, we should not drop them as a favor to the [Saudi crown prince] who threw $2 billion at your son-in-law.

It’s also worth noting that before that announcement, Syria’s leader offered to build a Trump Tower in Damascus] and said he would give the U.S. mineral rights contracts in his country, according to several sources familiar with the efforts who spoke with Reuters.

Mideast diplomacy is one of the most complicated, fraught areas of American foreign policy, and out of the gate, Trump is basically just going down a list of policies that the Saudis and their allies wanted.

Policywise, some of those concessions are better than others; corrupt processes can sometimes accidentally create a decent policy here and there. But they’re not policies so much as presents for his overseas buddies, and, in return, those buddies are giving him what he wants.

Which brings us, of course, to the Qatari jumbo jet. A special Boeing 747-8 that has been called a “palace of the sky” and a “flying mansion.” A luxury item worth $400 million and gifted to Trump by the Qatari royal family over the weekend.

It is full of leather, gold and burl wood accents. It sports at least three lounges, two bedrooms, nine bathrooms, five galleys and a private office. Trump is palpably stoked out of his shoes about this thing, like a very rich kid on Christmas morning getting the world’s most expensive toy.

Accepting this jet would be the most shockingly corrupt act by a president in the history of the presidency. It violates not only the spirit of the Constitution, but literally the text. However, according to Trump, not taking it would be “stupid.”

It seems the only thing that unites the policies Trump has announced on his Middle East tour so far is that they are exactly what the Gulf states wanted.

The Gulf states don’t have huge armies, but they have a lot of oil and a lot of money, and they use it to extend their geopolitical dominance.

It makes sense, this is the place Trump feels most at home because these countries get Trump in a way they never got any other American president. That’s because this American president openly admires despots and envies what they have.

The Gulf states that are hosting Trump understand that. They recognize he is not there for 330 million Americans. He is there for himself, and they are there to indulge him. It’s not because Trump is a unique force of nature. He is not special; he is just easy.

He’s not even the first foreign leader to be gifted a 747-8 by the Qataris. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan got a half-billion-dollar jumbo jet back in 2018.

But this is the thing: The Gulf states have been doing this forever. They don’t have huge armies, but they have a lot of oil and a lot of money, and they use it to extend their geopolitical dominance. That only goes so far with a traditional, law-abiding American administration. However, with Trump, a man not just willing but thirsty to trade on the trappings of the office that American voters bestowed on him, the sky is the limit.

Chris Hayes Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MSNBC. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press). Allison Detzel contributed.

Among the problems with Trump’s ‘free’ luxury jet from Qatar: It’s not actually free

Even if the jet from Qatar were free, this arrangement would still be a legal and ethical mess. But the free plane also wouldn’t be free.

May 14, 2025, 8:50 AM EDT By Steve Benen

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](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/114503203859060399) 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](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/12/us/politics/trump-qatar-plane-jet.html) that only “a stupid person [would] say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive

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 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 Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Turning Qatari 747 into Air Force One could cost $1 billion and take years, experts say

Taxpayers would likely foot the bill to retrofit President Trump’s new jet, which could be more than twice the plane’s $400 million value.

May 13, 2025, 6:16 PM EDT / Updated May 14, 2025, 3:52 AM EDT

By Dan De Luce, Tom Winter, Laura Strickler, Courtney Kube and Gordon Lubold

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. The project might also not be completed by the end of Trump’s term in 2029, at which time the plane is expected to be handed over to Trump’s presidential library foundation.

Richard Aboulafia, an analyst and consultant on commercial and military aviation, said he thought turning the Qatari jetliner into Air Force One would cost billions and take years.

“You’re taking a 747, disassembling it, reassembling it, and then jacking it up to a very high level,” said Aboulafia, a managing director at AeroDynamic Advisory, a consulting firm.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Aviation experts refer to Air Force One as the most complicated aircraft on the planet. The plane is meant to serve as a secure communication center in the sky — including command and control of nuclear weapons — and allow the president to issue orders to military and government agencies in the event of war or other emergency.

Experts said the idea made no financial or practical sense given that Boeing is already deep into a multiyear effort to convert two 747s to replace current Air Force One planes. They said that the contract for refurbishing the Qatari 747 would likely go to Boeing as its original manufacturer.

“Since you’re also disassembling and reassembling the jet for security reasons, you’re probably going to go with the people who know it better,” Aboulafia said. “If you have to rip the plane apart, that’s more of a Boeing job.”

Some of the work could be done by L3 Harris, which specializes in this kind of work. The work would likely be done in Greenville, Texas. Qatari officials have said that the possible transfer of an aircraft for use as a new Air Force One plane is under consideration but no final decision has been made.

Dismantled, part by part

The Qatari jumbo jet would have to be effectively dismantled, part by part, to ensure there were no listening devices, spyware or other security vulnerabilities that could allow foreign powers to eavesdrop on the president’s plane.

It would then have to be fitted with costly, sophisticated systems for secure government communications, midair refueling, missile defense, countering electronic jamming and protecting against electro-magnetic pulse attack. There would likely need to be quarters added for White House medical staff and the Secret Service.

Installing the new systems could push the project into the 2030s, according to Aboulafia, who said that equipping the plane with midair refueling capability alone would be “enormously time-consuming.”

The White House has said the jet would be handed over to Trump’s presidential library foundation by the end of his term, in January 2029. That would presumably require the removal of all the sensitive government equipment installed on the aircraft.

Trump could override current Air Force security rules but usually employees working on presidential aircraft or similar sensitive projects need a high-level security clearance, known as a “Yankee White” clearance, according to an industry member who asked not to be named. In the past, Boeing has struggled to find enough workers with the necessary security clearances to do the work.

‘A real relief for Boeing’

In 2018, the Air Force issued a contract to Boeing to convert two 747s to eventually serve as new Air Force One aircraft, for $3.9 billion. In 2019, the Pentagon estimated that the total estimated cost of building, equipping and testing the planes would be higher, at about $5.3 billion.

The project has been plagued by delays and cost overruns. The jets were supposed to be ready by last year but may not be delivered until 2029.

At a congressional hearing on May 8, Darlene Costello, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisition, technology and logistics, told lawmakers that the new planes could be ready by 2027 by reducing some of the requirements for the aircraft.

In 2022, Boeing’s then-CEO, Dave Calhoun, suggested the firm should not have accepted the Trump administration’s terms in 2018 on the new Air Force One.

For Boeing, converting the Qatari jetliner under a new contract could be good news as it has lost money on the fixed-cost contract it agreed to during Trump’s first term, as it has had to absorb major cost overruns, Aboulafia said.

“This would be a real relief for Boeing,” he said.

Dan De Luce Dan De Luce is a reporter for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Tom Winter Tom Winter is a New York-based correspondent covering crime, courts, terrorism and financial fraud on the East Coast for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Laura Strickler Laura Strickler is a senior investigative producer and reporter for NBC News. She is based in Washington.

Courtney Kube Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.

Gordon Lubold Gordon Lubold is a national security reporter for NBC News.t

MAGA influencers criticize Trump’s $400 million jet from Qatar

Trump’s plan to accept a luxury jet as a gift from the Qatari royal family has led to broad criticism — including from the MAGA faithful.

May 13, 2025, 11:39 AM EDT / Updated May 13, 2025, 1:18 PM EDT

By Clarissa-Jan Lim

President Donald Trump’s plan to accept a luxury jet from the Qatari royal family has led to an uproar among ethics experts, Democrats and even some Republicans. But some of the loudest criticism has come from his most fervent MAGA supporters.

On his podcast Monday, The Daily Wire co-founder Ben Shapiro pointed to Qatar’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas, saying that accepting a gift from the royal family is “not America First.”

If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop.

“Is this good for President Trump, is it good for his agenda? Is it good for draining the swamp and getting things done? The answer is no, it isn’t,” Shapiro said. “It isn’t. If you want President Trump to succeed, this kind of skeezy stuff needs to stop.”

He added: “I think if we switched the names to Hunter Biden and Joe Biden, we’d all be freaking out on the right.”

Far-right influencer Laura Loomer, who has had direct access to Trump, wrote a series of posts criticizing the gift.

“I love President Trump. I would take a bullet for him,” she wrote on X on Sunday. “But, I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400 million ‘gift’ from jihadists in suits.”

Faux News host Mark Levin shared Loomer’s post, adding: “Ditto.”

Loomer, however, also tempered some of her criticism with effusive praise for the president. “It will be a stain, but he is still the best President of my lifetime,” she wrote on X on Monday.

First reported by ABC News, the super luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet — which is estimated to be valued at $400 million — from Qatar is expected to be converted for use as Air Force One. The overhaul would take years and a potentially hefty price tag, along with a host of security concerns, according to aviation and intelligence experts who spoke with NBC News.

Meanwhile, Trump has defended his decision to accept the plane, calling it “a great gesture from Qatar” and suggesting it was too good an offer to pass up on.

“I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer,” he said Monday when pressed about the deal. “I mean, I could be a stupid person [and] say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive

Clarissa-Jan Lim Clarissa-Jan Lim is a breaking/trending news blogger for MSNBC Digital. She was previously a senior reporter and editor at BuzzFeed News.

Qatar’s jumbo jet gift is a deal for Trump, not the American people

Trump just put a “for sale” sign on U.S. foreign policy with Qatar’s jet gift.

May 13, 2025, 6:00 AM EDT / Updated May 13, 2025, 8:59 AM EDT

By Zeeshan Aleem, MSNBC Opinion Writer/Editor

In defending the gift of a super luxury jumbo jet he’s preparing to receive from the royal family of Qatar to use as Air Force One, President Donald Trump described it as a brilliant deal. Not for the American people, it isn’t.

The Boeing 747-8 jet is so lavish it is estimated to be worth around $400 million, and Jessica Levinson, a law professor at Loyola Law School and an MSNBC columnist, has said that “a gift of this size from a foreign government is unprecedented in our nation’s history.” Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché to the U.S., said in a statement that that the deal is not final, as “the matter remains under review by the respective legal departments” of the two countries’ defense departments.

Contrary to Trump’s insinuation that this is actually good for Americans, by accepting the luxe jet he’d be taking the American public for a ride.

After Democrats objected to the planned transfer of the “flying palace” as unconstitutional and corrupt, Trump suggested Democrats ought to be in awe of his deal-making abilities. The real offense, he said, would be paying for the plane. “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,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.”

Contrary to Trump’s insinuation that this is actually good for Americans, by accepting the luxe jet he’d be taking the American public for a ride. The Constitution’s emoluments clause prohibits public officeholders from receiving gifts from foreign states without consent from Congress. There’s a simple reason for that: Those countries have their own interests that are separate from, and often at odds with, the interests of the American public. By accepting the jet, Trump would be accepting a favor that could raise the potential for a reciprocal act that serves the interests of Qatar instead of the U.S.

“There is no question that any court that got to the merits would find a violation of the foreign emoluments clause,” Jeff Hauser, executive director of the Revolving Door Project, a public interest watchdog, told me.

ABC News, citing sources familiar with the plan, reported that “Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump’s top White House lawyer David Warrington concluded it would be ‘legally permissible’ for the donation of the aircraft to be conditioned on transferring its ownership to Trump’s presidential library before the end of his term.” (It’s worth noting, as my colleague Steve Benen pointed out, that Bondi “used to work as a registered lobbyist for foreign clients, including the government of Qatar.”)

But Hauser argued that its eventual donation to the library — where it appears plausible that Trump and his family could continue to use the aircraft after his term ends — makes it no less of a violation of the emoluments clause. “You absolutely cannot use the existence of a nonprofit organization as a shield against political corruption,” Hauser said. “You can be corrupt on behalf of a charity.”

Think about it this way: Even if you re-gift a gift, it doesn’t change the fact that you received a gift. That applies even if Trump doesn’t use the jet after exiting the White House. Of course the premise for this gift is to replace the aging aircraft in the Air Force One fleet with an impressive new jet, as Boeing’s contract to replace them has been delayed and plagued by cost issues.

Avoiding conflict of interest matters beyond the corrupt back-scratching scenarios that they can set in motion. They also help maintain citizen trust in the government. A president who can only think of human interactions — including governance — as a series of private zero-sum transactions may not care about, or even understand, that.

It doesn’t matter whether Trump agreed to a specific quid pro quo behind closed doors. A free jumbo jet for Air Force One is a big favor — and a hugely tangible and personal one at that. There would be no way to extricate that from the rapport between the White House and Qatar going forward — it would be baked in as part of the bartering capital Qatar has with Trump in future instances when discussing everything from policy on Iran to Israel to natural gas deals. Moreover, other countries around the world will observe this and surmise that U.S. policy may be sold to the highest bidder.

Subscribe to the Project 47 newsletter to receive weekly updates on and expert insight into the key issues and figures defining Trump’s second term.

Zeeshan Aleem Zeeshan Aleem is a writer and editor for MSNBC Daily. Previously, he worked at Vox, HuffPost and Politico, and he has also been published in, among other places, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The Nation, and The Intercept.

Trump says he’ll accept a $400m gift from Qatar — which funded Hamas

The president attacked universities in the name of “protecting” Jews. But he’s happy to receive a donation from Qatar’s royal family — which backed Hamas.

May 12, 2025, 7:41 PM EDT

By Anthony L. Fisher, Senior Editor, MSNBC Daily

“I could be a stupid person and say no, we don’t want a free plane,” said the president of the United States about the Boeing 747-8 which the royal family that rules Qatar has offered as a gift.

There are obviously ethical, legal and constitutional issues — to say nothing of security concerns — with President Donald Trump’s willingness to accept a $400 million donation from a Middle East petrostate with tens of billions of dollars of business interests in the United States. (It’s also more than a bit hypocritical, given that Trump leads the party still obsessed with Hunter Biden’s comparatively low-stakes shady overseas business dealings.) Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), put it concisely in a post on X: “Not only is this farcically corrupt, it is blatantly unconstitutional. Congress must not allow this over-the-top kleptocracy to proceed.”

Perhaps less noticed is that Trump is poised to accept an exorbitant personal gift of a jumbo jet (meant to be used as Air Force One) from a government that has provided substantial funding for the antisemitic, fascistic terror group Hamas about 100 days after he signed his “Executive Order to Combat Anti-Semitism.” (For years, Qatar funded Hamas with the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government.)

Trump is poised to accept an exorbitant personal gift from a government that has provided substantial funding for the antisemitic, fascistic terror group Hamas.

At the same time, Trump’s administration continues to employ Kingsley Wilson as deputy press secretary for the Department of Defense, despite a recent social media record of posts widely seen as antisemitic. And since Trump returned to the White House, two powerful members of his inner circle have made ““stiff-armed salutes”” in front of big crowds and many cameras. Yet, the administration has used the thinnest of pretexts to characterize activists as antisemitic, before then claiming they’re providing material support to Hamas.

“To all the resident aliens who joined in the pro-jihadist protests, we put you on notice: come 2025, we will find you, and we will deport you,” Trump said in a White House fact sheet that accompanied his January antisemitism executive order. He also promised to “quickly cancel the student visas of all Hamas sympathizers on college campuses, which have been infested with radicalism like never before.”

Indeed, Trump’s supposed war on antisemitism is his rationale for his war on universities and campus activism. Meanwhile, pro-Israel and Trump-friendly media outlets have published many articles and op-eds decrying what they say is the nefarious influence of Qatari billions on U.S. universities and student activist groups. (We’ll have to check back in later to see if they’re equally appalled by Qatar’s lavish funding of an American president’s air travel.)

The Trump administration has tried to justify its deportation proceedings against Mahmoud Khalil, the green-card holder and spouse of a U.S. citizen who served as a mediator and spokesperson for a pro-Palestinian/anti-Israel student activist group encamped last year on the campus of Columbia University, on the basis of fighting antisemitism. Secretary of State Marco Rubio later admitted Khalil had broken no laws, and the government has yet to provide any evidence that Khalil spread Hamas propaganda or participated in any harassment of last month a federal judge ruled he can challenge the government’s deportation attempt in court.)

NBC News reviewed over 100 pages of documents the Trump administration filed as evidence to back up its deportation efforts for Khalil, and found that “in some instances, the government appears to be relying on unverified tabloid articles about Khalil. In others, the government’s claims about him are clearly erroneous because timelines don’t match.”

Let’s call Trump’s so-called war on antisemitism what it is: Trump’s cudgel to attack his perceived enemies.

In plain English, Trump and his administration’s claims that they’re battling antisemitism are absurd. In fact, they are falsely likening protected speech with which they object (such as co-signing an op-ed critical of Israel’s conduct in the war in Gaza) to a national security crisis requiring the most severe methods of enforcement, including denials of due process. The administration is also cloaking its brazen attempt to shake down universities and bring them to heel politically by withholding federal funds in the name of “protecting” Jews.

As Trump put in the antisemitism EO’s fact sheet, “My promise to Jewish Americans is this: With your vote, I will be your defender, your protector, and I will be the best friend Jewish Americans have ever had in the White House.”

But in accepting a $400 million personal gift from Qatar, a country that funded the group that gleefully butchered Jews on Oct. 7, 2023, Trump has made an absolute mockery of his “war on antisemitism.” Let’s call Trump’s so-called war on antisemitism what it is: Trump’s cudgel to attack his perceived enemies.

Anthony L. Fisher Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for MSNBC Daily. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.

Pressed on corruption allegations against Trump, Karoline Leavitt offers pitiful defense

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt pushed back against questions about the president’s grifts. It was a predictable failure.

May 12, 2025, 3:30 PM EDT By Steve Benen

Even before a foreign government eager to curry favor with the White House offered Donald Trump a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet those concerned with the president and corruption allegations focused their attention on his outlandish meme coin gambit, which has proved to be quite lucrative, which appears to have created influence opportunities that foreigners have reportedly taken advantage of, and which has been fairly described as “the most brazenly corrupt thing a president has ever done.”

It’s against this backdrop that Trump is preparing to leave for the Middle East — his first major foreign trip of his second term — and a reporter asked White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt whether the president intends to meet with the Trump Organization’s business partners in the region. She apparently didn’t care for the line of inquiry.

“I think it’s frankly ridiculous that anyone in this room would even suggest that President Trump is doing anything for his own benefit,” Leavitt argued. “He left a life of luxury and a life of running a very successful real estate empire for public service, not just once but twice.”

Leavitt went on to claim, with a straight face, that Trump “has actually lost money for being president of the United States.”

In response to a question about the meme coin controversy, Trump’s chief spokesperson added that the president “is abiding by all conflict of interest laws” and “has been incredibly transparent with his own personal financial obligations.”

So, a few things.

First, Trump didn’t leave “a life of luxury.” He lives in a presidential mansion, filled with a small army of people who call him “sir” and cater to his every whim, and spends most of his weekends at a glorified country club in Florida, where he’s surrounded by sycophantic supporters who pay handsomely to hang out at a playground for the rich.

Second, Trump oversaw a real estate empire, but to call it “very successful” is, to put mildly, a real stretch.

Third, given the frequency with which Trump has tried to profit off the presidency, I’d love for Leavitt to elaborate on why she considers this line of inquiry to be “ridiculous.”

Fourth, if the White House believes Trump has been “incredibly transparent” with his finances, I have a follow-up question about the tax returns he has fought to keep secret.

Fifth, Leavitt might want people to believe that Trump “is abiding by all conflict of interest laws,” but as she really ought to know, presidents aren’t bound by the most serious conflict of interest laws.

Sixth, the idea that Trump “has actually lost money” while serving as president appears to be at odds with reality.

To be sure, I don’t mean to sound unsympathetic. The president’s many grifts are the stuff of legend, and if I were his press secretary, I’d probably struggle to come up with a persuasive defense, too.

But if Leavitt believes her talking points are going to end the corruption discussion, she’s likely to be disappointed.

Steve Benen Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Trump scrambles to defend luxury jet from Qatar he’ll use as Air Force One

The president tried to defend an apparent plan in which he’d get to use a luxury jet from the government of Qatar. It didn’t go well.

May 12, 2025, 8:00 AM EDT

By Steve Benen

In Donald Trump’s first term, the president cultivated an unexpectedly amusing list of incidents related to airplanes. I actually maintained a list, documenting a curious array of stories in which the Republican suggested that F-35s are literally invisible, whined about the complexity of piloting, referenced F-52s that didn’t exist outside of video games, complained to members of Congress that the emir of Kuwait’s plane was bigger than his, and (among other things) got caught lying about Japan buying U.S. fighter jets and lying about Finland doing the same thing.

In his second term, the news at the intersection of Trump and planes is far less funny. NBC News reported:

The Trump administration is preparing to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar as a gift to be used by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One for presidential travel until shortly before Trump leaves office, according to four sources familiar with the planning. Two of the sources also confirm that ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation once the president ends his second term.

According to a report from ABC News, which was the first to break this story, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Justice Department lawyers determined that the acceptance of the plane was legally permissible if the Qatari government gifts it to the Defense Department and it is later turned over to the Trump Library Foundation.

This is notable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the attorney general’s recent professional background: Bondi used to work as a registered lobbyist for foreign clients, including the government of Qatar — the same government that’s apparently preparing to reward Trump with a jet. (Soon after Senate Republicans made her the nation’s chief law enforcement official, Bondi also disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.)

It’s important to emphasize that the specific details of this arrangement are still coming into focus, and a spokesperson for Qatar’s government said that plans are not yet final. “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 U.S. 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 U.S., told Politico.

The intended beneficiary of Qatar’s apparent generosity, however, characterized the developments as a “fact” in an overnight missive published to his social media platform.

“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,” Trump wrote. “Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA”

So let me see if I have this straight. The sitting American president is eager to accept the largest foreign gift in the history of the United States, which he intends to keep after he exits the White House, in defiance of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution — a black-letter legal provision that the Republican is on record dismissing as “phony.” Trump is prepared to welcome a foreign government’s largess, even as that same country strikes private deals with the president’s family-run business.

This entire arrangement was approved by the president’s attorney general — who worked as a well-paid lobbyist for that same country.

It’s against this backdrop that Trump wrote that his critics are “crooked.”

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), who’s spent months focusing on White House corruption, described these developments as “wildly illegal.” In theory, congressional Republicans — many of whom seemed quite concerned about Qatari gifts to American universities in the recent past — could easily come to the same conclusions.

But it seems more likely that GOP lawmakers will again shrug with indifference.

Steve Benen Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MSNBC political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”

Trump administration will accept a luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One

Trump is expected to discuss arrangements for the plane during his visit to Qatar this week, one source said.

May 11, 2025, 12:59 PM EDT / Updated May 11, 2025, 6:16 PM EDT

The Trump administration is preparing to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar as a gift to be used by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One for presidential travel until shortly before Trump leaves office, according to four sources familiar with the planning.

Two of the sources also confirm that ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation once the president ends his second term.

According to one of the sources, the arrangement will be done according to U.S. and international laws, in observance of ethics rules. That official said it will take some time for the plane to be delivered but that the president will discuss the arrangement during his visit to Qatar this week.

Another one of the sources said the idea of gifting Trump this specific plane has been under discussion for “quite some time” and that when the formal offer was made more recently, the president “happily accepted.”

ABC News first reported the gift.

In response to questions about Qatar giving the plane to Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said gifts from foreign governments are accepted following the law.

“Any gift given by a foreign government is always accepted in full compliance with all applicable laws,” Leavitt said. “President Trump’s Administration is committed to full transparency.”

A White House official tells NBC News that it is true Qatar has offered to donate a plane to the Department of Defense, but the gift will not be presented nor accepted this week while Trump is in Qatar.

Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché to the U.S., added in a statement, “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.”

Democrats have criticized the Trump administration amid reports about their plans to accept a plane, saying that a gift of this magnitude would need congressional approval.

“Trump must seek Congress’ consent to take this $300 million gift from Qatar. The Constitution is perfectly clear: no present “of any kind whatever” from a foreign state without Congressional permission. A gift you use for four years and then deposit in your library is still a gift (and a grift),” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, wrote in a post on X.

Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), called for an investigation into the administration’s plans to accept the plane, characterizing it as a “flying grift” that is “the most valuable gift ever conferred on a President by a foreign government.”

“Rather than enforcing ethics, the Attorney General has affixed the Department of Justice’s seal of approval to a transaction that flagrantly violates both the letter and the spirit of the Constitution’s Emoluments Clause,” Torres wrote in a letter to the head of the Government Accountability Office, the acting Inspector General of the Defense Department and the acting director of the Office of Government Ethics.

Axios was the first to report on Torres’ letter.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer similarly blasted Trump, calling the plane an example of “foreign influence.”

“Nothing says ‘America First’ like Air Force One, brought to you by Qatar. It’s not just bribery, it’s premium foreign influence with extra legroom,” Schumer (D-NY). wrote in a post on X.

Sen. Bernie Sanders I-VT), went even further, calling the move “corrupt” and “unconstitutional.”

“I don’t know who needs to hear this, but NO, Donald Trump cannot accept a $400 million flying palace from the royal family of Qatar. Not only is this farcically corrupt, it is blatantly unconstitutional,” Sanders wrote.

Justice Department officials did not respond to a question from NBC News whether Trump’s acceptance of the plane could violate federal anti-bribery laws or the Constitution’s emoluments clause which bars the president and other federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign powers without the approval of Congress.

ABC News reported that Attorney General Pam Bondi and other DOJ lawyers had determined that the acceptance of the plane was legally permissible if the Qatari government gifts it to the Defense Department and it is later turned over to the Trump Library Foundation.

A former senior DOJ official who spoke on condition of anonymity said that for the jet gift to violate federal laws barring the payment of bribes or gratuities to officials, the gift would have to be motivated by corrupt intent.

“Bribery requires a corrupt intent to influence an official act, i.e., a quid pro quo,” said the former official. Norm Eisen, who served as special assistant to the president for ethics in the Obama administration, said that the gift violated the emoluments clause. Eisen, a longtime critic of Trump’s ethics in office, and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said that he is considering whether to challenge the transfer of the 747 in court.

“Suffice it to say that I and many others are looking,” said Eisen, who referred to the plane as “emoluments force one.”

Eisen said that he believed the plane could not be accepted without the approval of Congress.

“I do think there is a violation here. The problem is that you have what is functionally a direct gift to the president,” Eisen added.

News of the plane comes ahead of the president’s first foreign trip of his second term, in which he will travel to Saudi Arabi this week and also make stops in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar.

While in Qatar, Trump is expected to deliver a speech and then talk with American troops at the Al Udeid Air Base, according to two U.S. officials.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is expected to accompany Trump during his stop at the base.

This is the second time Trump has decided to visit Saudi Arabia for his first foreign trip. He chose the same nation as his first stop in 2017, during his first term.

Yamiche Alcindor Yamiche Alcindor is a White House correspondent for NBC News.

Gordon Lubold Gordon Lubold is a national security reporter for NBC News.

Vaughn Hillyard Vaughn Hillyard is a correspondent for NBC News.

Garrett Haake Garrett Haake is NBC News’ senior White House correspondent.

Where Trump Can Be Found On Weekends
Mar-a-Lago
The Mar-a-Lago Club
1100 South Ocean Boulevard,
Palm Beach, Florida 33480
+1 (561) 832-2600
Florida, West Palm Beach
Trump International Golf Club
3505 Summit Blvd
West Palm Beach FL 33406
+1 (561) 682-0700
Florida, Miami
Trump National Doral Golf Club
4400 N.W. 87th Ave
Miami, FL 33178
+1 (305) 592-2000
Florida, Jupiter
Trump National Jupiter Golf Club
115 Eagle Tree Terrace
Jupiter FL 33477
+1 (561) 691-8700
Virginia, Potomac Falls
Trump National Golf Club Washington, D.C.
20391 Lowes Island Blvd
Potomac Falls, VA 20165
+1 (703) 444-4801
New Jersey, Bedminster
Trump National Golf Club Bedminster
900 Lamington Road
Bedminster, NJ 07921
+1 (908) 470-4400
New Jersey, Colts Neck
Trump National Golf Club Colts Neck
One Trump National Blvd
Colts Neck, NJ 07722
+1 (561) 973-1550
New Jersey, Pine Hill
Trump National Golf Club Philadelphia
500 West Branch Ave.
Pine Hill, NJ 08021
+1 (856) 435-3100
New York, Hopewell Junction
Trump National Golf Club Hudson Valley
178 Stormville Rd
Hopewell Junction, NY 12533
+1 (845) 223-1600
New York, Briarcliff Manor
Trump National Golf Club Westchester
100 Shadow Tree Lane
Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510
+1 (914) 944-0900
California, Los Angeles
Trump National Golf Club Los Angeles
One Trump National Drive
Rancho Palos Verdes, CA 90275
+1 (310) 265-5000
North Carolina, Mooresville
Trump National Golf Club Charlotte
120 Trump Square
Mooresville, NC 28117
+1 (704) 799-7300
Dubai
Trump International Golf Club Dubai
DAMAC Hills
Al Hebiah Third District Dubai
+971 (0) 4 245 3939
Ireland, Clare
Trump International Golf Links & Hotel Ireland, Doonbeg
DOONBEG CO.
CLARE, IRELAND
Phone: +353 65 905 5600
Scotland, Aberdeenshire
Trump MacLeod House & Lodge Scotland
Menie Estate Balmedie
Aberdeenshire, Scotland AB23 8YE
PHONE: +44 1358 743300
RESERVE: +44 1358 743300
Scotland, Ayrshire
Trump Turnberry
Maidens Road KA26 9LT Turnberry
Ayrshire Scotland
+44.1655.331.000
+44 01655 334115

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