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Topics: Donald Trump, Politics, Social Media
Donald Trump is in hot water after saying he plans to accept a huge gift from Qatari royals.
The US president has been receiving all kinds of negative attention since he took to office on 20 January this year following a series of controversial executive orders.
Trump has claimed there is only two genders, erasing the identity of the people who identify as the other 70 genders, he then deported a bunch of 'criminals', as well as children, and then caused a massive tariff war.
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And now his new ‘gift’ has set people right off, and they aren’t happy about what it could mean.
The POTUS has announced he's planning to receive a new presidential plane from the Qatari royal family to replace Air Force One.
The freebie is to replace one of the two 40-year-old Air Force One planes, which first took the skies in 1987.
The luxury Boeing 747-8 aircraft from the Qatari royal family, which will be used as Air Force One cost a whopping $400 million!
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The so-called ‘gift’ will be officially announced when Trump visits Qatar tomorrow (14 May), but he’s already been raving about it online.
Taking to his social media platform, Truth Social, he claimed that it’s a ‘transparent’ transaction.
He explained: “So the fact that the Defense Department is getting a GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE, of a 747 aircraft to replace the 40 year old Air Force One, temporarily, in a very public and transparent transaction, so bothers the Crooked Democrats that they insist we pay, TOP DOLLAR, for the plane.
“Anybody can do that! The Dems are World Class Losers!!! MAGA.”
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Trump previously had a $3.9 billion contract with Boeing to replace both Air Force One planes, but this has been mired in delays, with Trump calling the situation 'a total mess'.
Qatar's plane will not exactly be free for the US taxpayer, and could still cost the US hundreds of millions of dollars.
“This isn’t really a gift,” Rep. Joe Courtney, a Democrat on the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee which oversees executive airlift, told Politico.
“You’d basically have to tear the plane down to the studs and rebuild it to meet all the survivability, security and communications requirements of Air Force One. It’s a massive undertaking — and an unfunded one at that.”
The plane has previously been referred to as a 'palace in the sky' and images from inside show plush cream leather interiors, spacious chairs and tables, a flat screen TV and enough leg room to lie on the floor and not touch the sides of the plane.
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The plane will likely look very different if the US does accept it, as it will need an overhaul to become the new Air Force One.
Trump has claimed it would be ‘stupid’ not to accept the gift to replace Air Force One and the jet is apparently already in the US, as per flight tracking data.
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The Boeing 747-8 is currently sitting at San Antonio International Airport, NBC News reported.
Some have slammed the gift as bribery after Trump's company signed a deal to build a golf course in Qatar last month.
“Last week Donald Trump announced that a $5.5 billion golf course and Trump resort would be built in Qatar. This week Qatar gifts the President a luxury jet that he can keep when he leaves office. This is corruption in its rawest form,” one post on X read.
Bernie Sanders posted: “I don't know who needs to hear this, but NO, Donald Trump cannot accept a $400 million flying palace from the royal family of Qatar."
Retired US Air Force colonel, Moe Davis, said: “Those of us who served in the military couldn’t accept a cup of coffee and a doughnut at a contractor site because of the appearance of impropriety.
“Now Trump is taking a 747 airplane from the government of Qatar for his personal use … grift and corruption run amuck.”
Trump has defended himself by clarifying he would donate the plane to his future presidential library, and will not continue to use it after his second term as president ends.
LADbible Group has previously contacted the White House for comment.