Qatar Royals Unloading Their Unwanted, Tacky, Old, Used 747 On Gullible Idiot
The LIFE cereal ad of unsellable luxury aircraft. Donnie likes it!
There are three things Donald Trump hates more than anything else in the world: Losing, being told “no,” and being laughed at. Those are all at stake in his toddler-like obsession with acquiring the huge flying palace 747 that the royal family of Qatar wants to give him as a gift — you know, to the American people, in the form of the Trump Library which does not exist, and not as a personal bribe or anything. After all, it’s a great deal! FREE, he keeps insisting, overlooking the little detail that the cost of stripping the thing down to make sure it’s not loaded up with listening devices, then rebuilding it to the security standards of a real Air Force One could cost around a billion dollars and take longer than is left in Trump’s second term, at least if he bothers leaving office after 2028.
He wants it, he must have it, and to get it, he will hold the economy’s breath until it turns blue if he must.
And here’s where the punchline lands: Trump is probably getting played by the Qataris, who have been trying to sell the damn plane since 2020 with no success. While the 13-year-old plane is newer than the two 747s that currently serve as Air Force One (the designation actually applies to any USAF plane carrying a president), it’s still old and inefficient compared to newer, smaller jets, and just getting rid of it will “save Qatar’s rulers a big chunk of change on maintenance and storage costs, aviation experts told Forbes. Making Trump happy would be an added bonus.”
See? It’s not a bribe! As one aviation consultant put it, giving the jet to Trump is more of a “creative disposal strategy” for a pricey white elephant that’s outlived its usefulness as part of an obsolete “model of geopolitical theater in the skies.”
That’s fine with Trump, who’s sure having a newer, glitzier jet to play with will help him win an airport tarmac dick-measuring contest that the Qatari royals are no longer interested in playing. How they must be laughing at him!
The Forbes piece goes into a great deal of detail about the jet, which was tricked out for use by Qatar’s former prime minister, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, and a lot of interesting information about the changing market for royal jets, where more fuel-efficient two-engined Airbuses or Boeings, and even opulent corporate jets are much more in vogue. The impression we get is that Trump is super impressed that Qatar is willing to “let him” take a bloated old Sedan de Ville off their hands.
You can imagine the conversation among the Qatari royals:
You fly it.
I’m not gonna fly it, you fly it!
Let’s get Donnie!
Yeah! He won’t fly it, he hates everything!
He likes it! Hey, Donnie! [Everyone laughs uproariously, because these Middle Eastern monarchs are fully conversant with old American TV commercials from the 1970s]
But he’d be in good autocratic company: The Qataris also unloaded another of their unwanted luxo-boat 747s to Turkish President Reycep Tayyip Erdogan, who no doubt thought he was getting quite the deal, too.
As Chris Hayes had no end of fun pointing out last night on his MSNBC show, customized luxury 747s are fiendishly hard to sell on the used market, just like Michael Jordan’s supersized Chicago-area mansion, because the only people who can afford the asking price can just as easily order something custom-built to their own tastes. Trump, on the other hand, doesn’t like to spend his own money on things, so he’ll have to settle for Qatar’s used hand-me-downs and rely on taxpayers to pick up the costs of refurbishing the plane.
It’s a fun overview of just how brilliantly Qatar’s royals have taken advantage of Trump’s vanity and willingness to be suckered into taking a fast-depreciating asset off their hands. Enjoy!
Maybe for a follow-up, the Qatari royal family will convince Trump it would be the world’s biggest honor for him to be selected to paint their fence. God knows he’s never read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
Finally, we really like this suggestion from The Bulwark: The ideal resolution to this stupid mess would be having a president who actually followed the law (no bribes please, and also the Constitution forbids presidents taking emoluments, pfft). Or we could wish for a Congress that would recognize a crime when it sees one, and at least impeach Trump.
But with neither of those in the cards, Congress could still do something. Democrats have introduced a resolution condemning Trump’s accepting the plane, but Ryan Goodman of Just Security offered an even more compelling idea: Both houses of Congress could do exactly what the Emoluments Clause calls for, and introduce a resolution that would consent to Trump’s receiving the gift — and then vote against it. Per the Bulwark,
It’s a subtle difference, but a significant one. By voting down a consent motion, Congress would be fulfilling to the letter its obligation under the Constitution—to give or to withhold the consent by which no gift can be constitutionally bestowed on the president.
With that vote done, there might be a more solid opportunity for members of Congress to sue Trump for violating the Emoluments Clause than they did during his first term, when a similar attempt was tossed out by an appeals court decision that individual members of Congress didn’t have standing. Seems worth a shot!
Of course, the best strategy might simply be for those close to Trump to point out to him that he’s being played for a sucker. Now we’re just hoping that some video will leak of Qatari royals laughing it up over how they got one over on the stupid American president.
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Re-upping today’s meme chat carefully curated political cartoon, because relevant: https://open.substack.com/chat/posts/3230f2ba-0e92-4240-9a17-d119d8e5be4e?utm_source=share
I have this picture of the jet in 4 years rusting out back in an overgrown field at some remote air force base with its landing gear up on cinder blocks.