And now, new reporting reveals that the Trump administration initially approached Qatar about buying the plane, contradicting the narrative that Qatar just wanted to treat their pal to a luxury Boeing 747 because he\u2019s a great guy.<\/p>\n
On Monday, CNN reported that Trump \u201ctasked his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff with finding a list of viable planes\u201d to temporarily serve as the presidential plane, and the Air Force was exploring other options as well. They landed on the Qatar jet:<\/p>\n
After the Pentagon\u2019s initial engagement with the company, Boeing provided US defense officials with a list of other Boeing clients around the world with planes that could work in the meantime, three of the sources said.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd Qatar was one of the clients,\u201d the second source familiar with the discussions said, adding the Pentagon \u201coffered to buy the plane\u201d?and Qatar indicated it was willing to sell it.<\/p>\n
On February 15, Trump toured the Qatari plane when it was brought to Palm Beach, Florida. At the time, White House communications director Steven Cheung said Trump was just on the jet \u201cto check out the new hardware\/technology.\u201d But on Monday, the New York Times<\/em> reported that the plane was flown from Doha to Florida, at an estimated cost of $1 million, so Trump could check out the U.S. government\u2019s potential purchase.<\/p>\n\n\n
The Pentagon had launched the discussions with Qatar after learning that the White House supported the idea, the third source familiar said, and Witkoff helped facilitated the initial conversations, the White House official said.<\/p>\n
The third source recalled that the initial discussions were about leasing the plane, rather than buying it outright.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 After Mr. Trump looked at the plane, one thing was clear: It was love at first sight.<\/p>\n
Flying back to Washington on one of the existing Air Force One 747s, he marveled at what he had seen of the interiors of the Qatari jet and talked about the plane as if getting it for his own use was a done deal. A new paint job, his allies in the White House figured, and few other quick upgrades*, and it could be ready within the year for Mr. Trump to fly.<\/p>\n
The talks about acquiring it intensified.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
* Again in car terms – wash ‘er, change the oil , she should start right up. Don’t mind that rust.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
\n\n\n\n
But, according to the Times<\/em>, at some unclear point, haggling between Qatari and U.S. officials over buying the plane turned into a discussion about Trump accepting an exorbitant gift:<\/p>\nThat was a surprise to Air Force officials. At no point, Pentagon officials said, did the Air Force propose that the plane be donated.<\/p>\n
One senior administration official told The Times that Qatar raised the option of a potential gift, or at least that Qatari officials were \u201cagreeable\u201d to the idea of a no-charge, government-to-government transfer when it came up. A second official said Mr. Witkoff, for one, always believed the transaction would be a donation.<\/p>\n
Another official said Qatari officials volunteered the idea of a donation, an account that Qatar has declined to address.<\/p>\n
Government officials in Qatar \u2014 who had long wanted to unload the plane \u2014 had a different version of the sequence of events, according to a person familiar with their timeline.<\/p>\n
They were willing to send the jet to Florida for Mr. Trump to take a personal tour. But the expectation was that the plane would be sold to the United States, not offered as a gift.\u00a0 Intelligencer<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
Getting the world’s most expensive Presidential gift from the folks who host Hamas leadership doesn’t smell TOO funny, does it?<\/p>\n
Now, Mr. Trump did announce a $200 billion – well, factually $96,000,000,000\u00a0 – deal between Qatar and Boeing – maybe the 747 was just thrown in as a cost of doing business? Lagniappe?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Defense Department has released a statement that the famous Qatari 747 has been accepted by … Trump gets 747, reportedly not a “gift”<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":668,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[213,340],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-169783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-your-tax-dollars-at-work","category-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/668"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=169783"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/169783\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=169783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=169783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=169783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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