Will they change the name of Air Force One to Air Hamas?
We already know Donald Trump is more corrupt than Suharto. He is as rotten as ground beef tainted with E. coli. He would pardon a serial killer for a milkshake. The “president for the people” was always the “president for Donald J. Trump.”
A thought experiment I’ve played many times is wondering what it might take for the red hats to turn on Dear Leader. It always ends the same way: nothing. Trump could shoot Sean Hannity’s dog and steal his car and the Fox blowhard would still shake his MAGA pom-poms while riding the bus to work.
But those thought experiments never involved Qatar gifting a luxury jet.
You can get why a guy who uses a gold toilet would covet this blinged-out Boeing 747. The “flying palace” is as opulent as a penthouse. According to a charter company, the jumbo jet boasts gold-plated details, marble flooring, a theatre, lounges and private bedrooms.
Now Stephen Miller won’t have to bunk with Howard Lutnick as they spitball ideas to slap hefty tariffs on the sandals preferred by migrants.
Can you imagine if Joe Biden accepted a $400-million bribe — I mean, plane — from a country that has sponsored terrorism? Or if he planned to use it as Air Force One? Or if he did anything Trump has done in the last 100 days?
Jesse Watters would be calling for Biden to be drawn and quartered.
Free plane? The monetary value far exceeds past gifts, including a baby elephant given to Dwight Eisenhower or the in-line skates the Netherlands wrapped up for George W. Bush.
In response to blowback this week — including from increasingly skittish Republicans — Trump compared the plane to the Statue of Liberty. Um, France didn’t donate the monument to the sitting president with a provision of eternal personal use. After leaving office, Grover Cleveland did not move the Statue of Liberty to his backyard.
Trump’s brazen greed this time is too much for some MAGA diehards.
Laura Loomer, the whack job who would defend Trump even if he deported her lash technician, said accepting the plane would be a “stain” on his administration. Ben Shapiro said the free plane was the opposite of “draining the swamp.”
Mr. Shapiro may have missed other highlights as Trump turned the swamp into an ocean of grift. How about when the White House was transformed into a Tesla dealership? Or when Trump extorted Ukraine for critical minerals? Or when he blows millions on weekly golf trips? Or when he launched a meme coin that serves as a cash register for foreign agents hoping to gain influence?
Emoluments shmoluments.
Trump says only a “fool” would turn down the plane. It will cost taxpayers nothing. Another whopper. It will cost taxpayers millions to retrofit the plane with the security and advanced comms upgrades required by Air Force One.
The leader of the free world needs more than supple leather.
Can the “flying palace” refuel mid-air? Can it withstand a missile attack? Does it have a surgical bay? Can it calibrate with encrypted Pentagon systems, assuming Pete Hegseth doesn’t just move everything over to Facebook this summer?
And how long will it take to take to disassemble the jet to sweep for spyware? Trump was in the Middle East this week. I wouldn’t be surprised if a spook managed to slip an Apple AirTag into the nuclear football.
The idiocy of an American commander-in-chief wanting to travel in a donated jet from the Middle East was finally a bridge too far for some in conservative media. It underlined an ugly truth: Trump is a human hot air balloon and there is no ceiling on his corruption.
Oh, his fans can rationalize deportations without due process. They can look the other way when Trump scribbles his name on illegal executive orders targeting law firms or universities. They won’t say boo when his sons are globe-trotting and signing lucrative deals with foreign governments that make Hunter Biden’s laptop seem as benign as a box of Kleenex.
But a hand-me-down Qatari Air Force One? That is as un-American as falafel.
Wake up, MAGA. This movement was never about “America First.” It was always about “Trump First.” He is wealthier today than on inauguration day, a remarkable feat of self-dealing and crooked enrichment. Meanwhile, he’s lecturing the rubes on their civic duty in limiting doll purchases to two or pencils to five, even as he lusts for a half-billion private jet.
If Vladimir Putin promised to build Trump a bigger and better White House, do you know how fast he would board Air Hamas and move all U.S. executive operations to Moscow?
Accepting a free plane from Qatar only proves the same thing again.
If Donald Trump can profit, he does not care if America crashes and burns.
