Is MSNBC whitewashing the $400 million gift to Trump?

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21. Maddow Blog-Trump scrambles to defend luxury jet from Qatar he'll use as Air Force One

The president tried to defend an apparent plan in which he’d get to use a luxury jet from the government of Qatar. It didn’t go well.

Trump's plan to accept a luxury jet from Qatar was endorsed by his attorney general — who also happens to be a former lobbyist for Qatar.

This is unfolding despite the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which Trump has dismissed as "phony." www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-05-12T12:05:33.071Z

Trump's plan to accept a luxury jet from Qatar was endorsed by his attorney general — who also happens to be a former lobbyist for Qatar.

This is unfolding despite the Constitution's Emoluments Clause, which Trump has dismissed as "phony."

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/trump-scrambles-defend-luxury-jet-qatar-ll-use-air-force-one-rcna206207

In Donald Trump’s first term, the president cultivated an unexpectedly amusing list of incidents related to airplanes. I actually maintained a list, documenting a curious array of stories in which the Republican suggested that F-35s are literally invisible, whined about the complexity of piloting, referenced F-52s that didn’t exist outside of video games, complained to members of Congress that the emir of Kuwait’s plane was bigger than his, and (among other things) got caught lying about Japan buying U.S. fighter jets and lying about Finland doing the same thing.

In his second term, the news at the intersection of Trump and planes is far less funny. NBC News reported:

The Trump administration is preparing to accept a superluxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar as a gift to be used by President Donald Trump as the new Air Force One for presidential travel until shortly before Trump leaves office, according to four sources familiar with the planning. Two of the sources also confirm that ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump presidential library foundation once the president ends his second term.

According to a report from ABC News, which was the first to break this story, Attorney General Pam Bondi and other Justice Department lawyers determined that the acceptance of the plane was legally permissible if the Qatari government gifts it to the Defense Department and it is later turned over to the Trump Library Foundation.

This is notable for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the attorney general’s recent professional background: Bondi used to work as a registered lobbyist for foreign clients, including the government of Qatar — the same government that’s apparently preparing to reward Trump with a jet. (Soon after Senate Republicans made her the nation’s chief law enforcement official, Bondi also disbanded the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force.).....

So let me see if I have this straight. The sitting American president is eager to accept the largest foreign gift in the history of the United States, which he intends to keep after he exits the White House, in defiance of the Emoluments Clause of the U.S. Constitution — a black-letter legal provision that the Republican is on record dismissing as “phony.” Trump is prepared to welcome a foreign government’s largess, even as that same country strikes private deals with the president’s family-run business.

This entire arrangement was approved by the president's attorney general — who worked as a well-paid lobbyist for that same country.

It’s against this backdrop that Trump wrote that his critics are “crooked.”

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who’s spent months focusing on White House corruption, described these developments as “wildly illegal.” In theory, congressional Republicans — many of whom seemed quite concerned about Qatari gifts to American universities in the recent past — could easily come to the same conclusions.

But it seems more likely that GOP lawmakers will again shrug with indifference.