Trump to accept luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One

The Trump medication is acceptable to judge a luxury level from the Qatari royal household that volition beryllium retrofitted and utilized arsenic Air Force One during the president’s 2nd term, 2 radical acquainted with the statement told CNN.

President Donald Trump embarks Monday connected his archetypal large overseas trip, which includes a halt successful Doha, Qatar.

Given the monolithic worth of a Boeing 747-8, the determination is unprecedented and raises substantive ethical and ineligible questions. A Qatari authoritative said the level is technically being talented from the Qatari Ministry of Defense to the Pentagon, describing it much arsenic a government-to-government transaction alternatively of a idiosyncratic one. The Defense Department volition past retrofit the level for the president’s usage with information features and modifications.

The program is for the level to beryllium donated to Trump’s statesmanlike room aft helium leaves office, ensuring helium tin proceed to usage it, according to a idiosyncratic familiar.

“Reports that a pitchy is being talented by Qatar to the United States authorities during the upcoming sojourn of President Trump are inaccurate,” Ali Al-Ansari, Qatar’s media attaché to the US, said Sunday.

“The imaginable transportation of an craft for impermanent usage arsenic Air Force One is presently nether information betwixt Qatar’s Ministry of Defense and the US Department of Defense, but the substance remains nether reappraisal by the respective ineligible departments, and nary determination has been made,” helium said.

ABC News first reported connected the caller plane.

Trump and aides toured the level earlier this twelvemonth astatine the airdrome successful Palm Beach, Florida, and it is expected to beryllium successful usage wrong 2 years, 1 idiosyncratic told CNN.

Following his tour, Trump has boasted to radical astir him astir however luxurious the level was.

“President Trump is touring a caller Boeing level to checkout the caller hardware/technology,” White House communications manager Steven Cheung said successful a connection astatine the time.

Boeing has been moving toward renovating 2 747 jets into next-generation Air Force One aircraft, but the process has been wracked by delays. The planes had been scheduled to beryllium delivered by 2022 and present aren’t expected until astatine slightest 2027, according to reports.

Cheung said earlier this twelvemonth that Trump’s circuit of the level “highlights the project’s nonaccomplishment to present a caller Air Force One connected clip arsenic promised, arsenic they are already 5 years late.”

The president has been profoundly frustrated by delays successful caller craft to beryllium utilized arsenic Air Force One. He astatine 1 constituent tasked Elon Musk with helping accelerate the process.

Supply concatenation issues and Covid-19 pandemic-era staffing shortages person contributed to the delays.

CNN’s Betsy Klein and Kylie Atwood contributed to this report.

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