Trump sparks fresh outrage over new Air Force One plane as Qatar gift unveiled | indy100

Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

It was back in May last year that reports of US president Donald Trump planning to accept a Boeing 747-8 from the Qatari royal family – to be used as the new Air Force One plane - infuriated Americans, with the news resulting in the Republican being accused of giving into “bribery”.

Now, the plane itself has been unveiled, with the 80-year-old showing off the jet at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Friday.

In a speech at the base, Trump said: “We were at a little bit of a log jam. We’re waiting for the … I call them the normal 747s, and I asked the Amir if we could use the brand new 747 that he got.

“And I said, ‘we’d like to use it for a little while, because the planes are pretty old. Our planes are old.’

“A normal president wouldn’t do this, a normal president wants to stay away from aircraft, ‘we don’t want to order any aircraft’ … but our country has to be represented properly.”

But X/Twitter users weren’t happy with the news, with Republicans Against Trump writing that “after taxpayers spend hundreds of millions upgrading the plane, Trump gets to keep it after leaving office”:

It has previously been reported that the plane will be deposited in the Trump Presidential Library, managed by the National Archives and Records Administration, when Trump’s second four-year term is up.

The press office of California governor Gavin Newsom tweeted: “Trump is so laser focused on affordability that he spent $400M retrofitting his ‘flying palace’”:

“So many outrages we can’t keep up,” said Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics:

Another X user commented: “Nothing says ‘America First’ like flying around in a foreign prince’s hand-me-down jet while taxpayers foot the retrofits”:

“Courtesy of Qatar (except for the billion dollars we spent to upgrade it),” tweeted former Republican congressman Adam Kinzinger:

And another account said: “Imagine if Obama was given a foreign made plane and he used that instead of the normal Air Force One”:

Just ‘plane’ ridiculous, you could say… (sorry)

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