When Donald Trump accepted a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar, there was a long list of questions about the arrangement, and by any fair measure, the president created a legal, ethical and political mess. But hanging overhead was a related question: What happens to the plane after the Republican exits the White House?
The administration’s official line has long been the Qatari aircraft should be seen as a “gift,” not to Trump personally, but to the United States. The same administration’s official line has also been that the not-at-all-free jet will apparently head to his future presidential library.
How does the White House resolve the conflict between the first talking point and the second? So far, by ignoring it.
Some Senate Democrats, however, came up with a more straightforward idea. The Washington Post reported:
A Senate panel narrowly voted down an amendment Thursday that would prevent the military from transferring a Qatari jet to be used as Air Force One to President Donald Trump’s future library. The amendment, introduced by Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), failed on a 14-15 party-line vote before the chamber’s appropriations committee.
As the Connecticut Democrat explained in items published to Bluesky, the amendment wouldn’t have changed much in terms of the status quo: The Trump administration could still accept the plane from Qatar; it could still take steps to refurbish the jet; it could still move money around to try to pay for it; etc.
What Murphy’s proposal would instead do is prevent the Republican from taking the plane with him at the end of his second term.
“This is an extraordinary amount of money to be used on a plane retrofit that will likely only be in service for a short period of time. Well, the administration has essentially refused to brief us on the full cost,” the senator told his colleagues. “Reports are that this number could be easily $1 billion.”
Murphy added, “To most Americans, that’s a lot of their money to be spent on a plane that is not going to be in the service of the United States military, in the United States Air Force, for perhaps any longer than a few months, because the president has, in fact, stated his intention to take this plane with him when he leaves office.”
But when the amendment came up in the Senate Appropriations Committee, every Democrat voted for it — and every Republican voted against it.
By way of an explanation, Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, questioned the premise behind the effort, saying, “The president has never came out and said he’s putting this in the library. He said it in a joke one time.”
To the extent that reality matters, that wasn’t true. The administration’s position about the plane and the library has been repeated for months, and there’s never been any indication that the president was kidding about his intentions.
For that matter, if Trump was just joking around, then what would be the harm in having Congress impose some restrictions to ensure the plane remains in the public’s hands after January 2029?
