President Donald Trump on Friday showed off the new Air Force One — a formerly Qatari-owned jumbo jet that has been converted into the official U.S. presidential aircraft. The event took place inside a massive hangar at Joint Base Andrews, with a couple hundred Air Force personnel looking on.
According to The Washington Post, Trump acknowledged the unusual nature of the gift, saying, "I said, 'We'd like to use it for a little while, because the planes are pretty old, our planes are old.' See, a normal president wouldn't do this."
New Look for Air Force One
The new aircraft eschews the Kennedy-era robin's egg blue exterior of the old plane for a bolder look. The underbelly of the plane is painted navy blue with a red stripe above it. On the left side, where the president boards, the plane features the presidential seal. The tail of the aircraft has a massive American flag on it.
"This plane was transformed into a flying White House at a level of luxury that nobody has ever seen before," Trump said from inside the hangar, as reported by The Hindu.
Qatar's Gift and the Plane's Conversion
The jet was originally owned by Qatar and was gifted to the United States. The Air Force has been modifying the plane since last September, according to ABC News, which described the aircraft as the "world's most luxurious plane."
The BBC reported that Trump unveiled the modified Qatari luxury jet meant for Air Force One service, as noted in BBC News.
Our Take: A Gift That Raises Questions
To put it plainly, Trump's admission that "a normal president wouldn't do this" is the most telling part of this story. Accepting a luxury jet from a foreign government as a gift for the president's personal use is not standard practice — and the president himself acknowledged it. While the plane may be impressive, the optics of a foreign nation gifting a "flying White House" to a sitting U.S. president are unusual at best. In our view, this raises legitimate questions about the boundaries between diplomatic gifts and personal benefit. The American public should pay close attention to how this arrangement was handled and what, if anything, Qatar expects in return.
