Trump insists Qatar is offering a "free" luxury jet, but that doesn't account for the cost of maintaining and operating an aircraft with complex safety and security features -- projected at $7.7 billion over 30 years

Inside Air Force One (YouTube)

Donald Trump claims he will receive a "free" luxury jet as a gift from the royal family of Qatar. And since the jet is "free," Trump states, the transaction will be a significant benefit to the American public. Unfortunately, that is not quite true, according to an article at Politico.  Under the headline "Trump’s free plane is not so free; The Boeing aircraft that Qatar may give the president would require a pricey and complicated overhaul to serve as Air Force One," Joe Gould and Connor O'Brien report:

President Donald Trump insists he’s getting a “free, very expensive airplane” from Qatar’s royal family. But it’s not much of a gift for the American taxpayer.

The Qatari Defense Ministry is talking to the White House about transferring the luxury-configured Boeing jet to the Pentagon, which would oversee its retrofitting into a makeshift Air Force One. But a private contractor would have to rip it apart to turn the jet into a flying White House for the president with secure communications and classified upgrades, according to former Air Force officials and lawmakers, an expensive and complicated prospect that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

“This isn’t really a gift,” said Rep. Joe Courtney (D-Conn.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee, which oversees executive airlift. “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.”

Administration officials argue that the current aircraft — two aging military versions of the Boeing 747 — are increasingly hard to maintain, and the replacements are years behind schedule. A third aircraft could help fill the gap.

“It’s a great gesture from Qatar,” Trump told reporters on Monday. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’”

Trump is not sharing the full story with taxpayers, Gould and O'Brien report. Given that Trump has flown on aircraft in the fleet that comprises Air Force One, one might expect a president who is early in his second term would be familiar with survivability, security, and communications requirements for such jets. If Trump is aware of that information, he is not letting on. Is Trump playing the American public for dummies? Would Donald Trump do that? The Politico report suggests the answer might be yes:

The aircraft in question — a Boeing 747-8 jet once owned by Qatar’s royal family — is the same base model as the two VC-25Bs currently under slow and costly modifications by Boeing. And that’s where the similarity ends.

“It’s what’s inside the aircraft that matters,” said Kevin Buckley, a former Air Force official who oversaw the Air Force One replacement program. “The presidential mission equipment is unique. It’s hardened. It’s secure. It’s survivable.”

The aircraft would need to be torn down and rebuilt from the inside out — including overhauling electrical wiring, avionics and power systems — to install secure presidential communications, self-defense tech and electromagnetic shielding.

“The cost of a retrofit like this would likely be on the order of a heavy maintenance cycle for a VC-25A, which is in the tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars,” said former Air Force acquisitions chief Andrew Hunter.

Add to that the significant cost of sweeping the aircraft for software modifications or embedded foreign tech. “That’s not a trivial thing to do,” Hunter said. “That alone would cost tens of millions of dollars.”

Building the aircraft is one thing, but maintaining and operating a presidential aircraft at the very highest standards is an expensive prospect all on its own. Each VC-25B costs more than $2.5 billion, with another $7.7 billion in projected long-term operations and support costs over 30 years, according to a 2021 internal Pentagon estimate.

“This gift could become a very expensive asset to own and operate,” Hunter said. “You might even ask why Qatar no longer wants the aircraft. And the answer may be that it’s too expensive for them to maintain.”

The possibility of an aircraft gift from Qatar comes as the VC-25B program is operating under stress, Gould and O'Brien write:

The VC-25B program itself is already behind schedule, and Boeing now projects delivery in 2027 — but only if some requirements are trimmed, Air Force acquisition official Darlene Costello told Congress this month.

Buckley predicts the retrofit of the Qatari aircraft will compete with or strain the workforce involved with the VC-25B.

“If you’re pulling people into doing this new thing, you’re not pulling them out of the air,” he said. “You’re pulling them out of the same labor pool — and a very specialized one. You’re talking about people with high clearances who already have a ton of work on their plate.”

Democrats have largely denounced Trump for the ethical concerns with accepting the gifted plane from Qatar. But Trump argued the move would prove a money saver, calling Democrats “world class losers” for questioning the move.

“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,” Trump said in a Sunday Truth Social post. “Anybody can do that!”

In a move that should surprise no one, Trump has chosen to demonize those who take a different view of the "Jetgate" controversy from the rosy picture Trump paints. Trashing the integrity of perceived adversaries has been a standard Trump tactic for years -- as has his persistent failure to speak truthfully.

In this instance, Trump claims the U.S. would receive the jet free of charge, but we know that is not true. He also claims the transaction has been transparent, but that isn't true either. As usual, Trump shows no respect for people who have expertise, especially those who work in complex fields -- medicine, science, research, aviation; Trump prefers his own brand of blissful ignorance, which is on embarrassing display in "Jetgate."