THE EDITOR – The United States has officially accepted a controversial luxury jet from Qatar for use as Air Force One, according to the Pentagon, despite concerns from lawmakers and MAGA allies about the financial and ethical implications.
POLITICO said that the $400 million jet will likely cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it up to presidential standards, including a security sweep of the entire aircraft and costly upgrades to ensure classified communications.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth accepted the Boeing 747 “in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in a statement. “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.”
President Donald Trump has billed the jet as a cost-saving stopgap due to massive delays in the Air Force’s effort to replace the current fleet with two Boeing planes. But Trump’s interest in the jet has worried lawmakers in both parties, who have stressed the security risks and ethical ramifications of the president accepting a foreign-owned aircraft as a gift.
“It still sounds like a pretty bad idea to have a foreign government outfitting the most highly sensitive plane in the U.S. arsenal,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in an interview.
Murphy, who has teed up a resolution to challenge the deal, could give new momentum to the congressional pushback. “This sounds like a question Congress should debate,” he said.
Trump has suggested keeping the plane at his presidential library after he leaves office, which Murphy called “fundamentally corrupt.”
ABC News first reported the administration’s acceptance of the jet.
It’s not clear how soon the Air Force, which is tasked with reconfiguring the Qatar plane, can upgrade the jet and put into service. But contractor L3 Harris Technologies will work on the electronics at the Texas facility, according to two people familiar with the issue, who like others, were granted anonymity to discuss internal matters.
A spokesperson for the company declined to comment.
The Air Force and Boeing have been working on delivering two new Air Force One aircraft but a series of issues, including cracks in the fuselage and slow going on wiring and other critical updates to the commercial 747, have pushed the delivery date to 2027 at the earliest. And that’s only then if some requirements are relaxed.
The plane, which Trump first toured in February when it made a stop near his Florida golf club, has sat in San Antonio, Texas for weeks, according to one defense official and flight tracking apps, where it is likely undergoing some preliminary assessments and work.
Just adding secure communication is “a big lift all by itself,” said a former defense official who worked on the Air Force One program. “Then you’ve got life support for the President. You take a medical suite with him when he goes, food service that lasts for the length of the trip and you’ve got some things that are there to protect the president from a range of possible threats.”
All of those upgrades “can’t be done in a few months or even a year,” the person said, even under the most rushed scenario. “This isn’t going to be a ‘free’ plane, as the president has said.”
And Trump will likely continue to face bipartisan backlash. Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said the deal sends the wrong message given the Gulf monarchy’s history of harboring extremists.
“We love it that Qatar wants to be friends with the United States again,” Hawley said. “But they could start by quitting harboring and promoting Islamic terrorists who want to kill Americans at every turn.”
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on Tuesday defended the gift, calling it “a normal thing that happens between allies.”
The subject even came up in the in the Oval Office on Wednesday during a televised meeting between Trump and South African president Cyril Ramaphosa, who apologized that he didn’t have a plane to give the president.
“I wish you did. I’d take it,” Trump said. “If your country offered the United States Air Force a plane, I would take it.”
