Naturally, the people of the United States provide their President with an airplane that he (or, eventually, she) can use to carry on the business of the people across the globe. While these airplanes are popularly known as “Air Force One”, that designation is actually used for whatever Air Force airplane happens to be carrying the President at any given time.
In fact, there are two such airplanes which are officially designated VC-25‘s. They are highly modified Boeing 747-200B’s and have been in service since 1990 and, as such, are coming due for replacement. In 2009, the Air Force sought suppliers with a plan to purchase three aircraft which were intended to come into service in 2017, 2019, and 2021.
Needless to say, the schedule has slipped somewhat since then and delivery estimates as of mid 2025 are for the aircraft to be delivered between 2027 and 2029. President Trump appears to have taken this personally and rails against this example of Pentagon delay/overruns more than any other. He continues to maintain a personal interest in the delivery of these aircraft and routinely pushes the bureaucracy to deliver them during his second term in office.
As it happens, the Qataris have a 747 which was so luxuriously outfitted that it’s often referred to as a “flying palace”. Unfortunately, the costs of maintaining the aircraft are quite high so they have been looking for a buyer for some time. It’s a bit confusing how the idea of donating it to the United States came about but it is clear that, after seeing it, Donald Trump was smitten. He then announced to the world that the Qataris would be donating it to the United States so that he could use it as Air Force One. After his term in office, the airplane would be given to his Presidential Library so that it would no longer be available for use by anyone else.
Although he denies that he would make use of the plane after leaving office, there is nothing that prevents him from doing so. In short, this is a gift that benefits just one person – Donald Trump.
Naturally, Americans were agape and plenty of reporters started digging into the story. The New York Times found information that the Qataris intended to sell the airplane to either Trump or the United States and that it was never intended to be a gift but that Trump blindsided them by announcing, without consulting with them, that it would be a gift.
At any rate, the problems with the gift quickly became manifest. For one thing, a gift like this would essentially be one of the largest bribes in the world. For another, the Constitution specifically forbids this sort of profiteering from the office of the President. Security experts noted that planes of this complexity offer myriad hiding places for listening devices and millions of dollars would have to be spent to search the aircraft and, even then, some bugs might be missed. They pointed at the experience the US had in building an embassy in Moscow that was so thoroughly bugged that construction had to be stopped midway and then, eventually, the entire building torn down and a new one built.
President Trump responded to his critics in his typically empathetic manner, telling a reporter who asked him about it that they should be “embarrassed” for even raising the issue and saying that only a “stupid” person would turn it down (The New York Times).