Ah, the joy of being the smartest POTUS ever - being easily duped

[thewayne]

The jet that Our Beloved Leader is so keen on accepting? Let's ignore the accepting gifts from foreign kings and all that for the moment.

He never stopped to wonder why they're so eager to get rid of it.

If he'd looked around, he would have seen that pretty much none of the Arab countries are flying the 747-8 jets. Why?

1. COST. $23,000 PER HOUR. It's a big effing plane, consumes a huge amount of fuel and requires a lot of maintenance. That plane has logged a little over 1,000 flight hours over the last five years - it's a yard bird! And yet it still costs money because it has to be stored and maintained and insured or it'll fall apart!

2. Size. Monster big heavy jets are very limited in where they can go. Monster big heavy jets require very long and wide runways to take off and land on. The royals are going to Gulfstream 5s and narrow-body jets that have a lot more options as to where they can travel to.

3. This particular jet is coming up on major maintenance. Currently it is due to have its front landing gear taken apart for major maintenance and inspection. The engines are also coming up on their complete tear-down and inspection. These are VERY costly procedures.

4. They can't sell it. There is no market for selling planes like this, it is described as "illiquid". The only use for 747-8s is for cargo, and this one cannot economically be converted for freight: you'd have to rip-out all that bling, reinforce the entire fuselage, cut a monster big hole in the side, recertify the fuselage as airworthy, and then you'd be able to use it for cargo transport. Probably cheaper to buy a used 747-8 that was built for that purpose.

I'm pretty certain he'll accept the bribegift. After all, his Attorney General said it's okay! And she should know, she was a paid lobbyist for Qatar, earning over $100,000 A MONTH for doing that. And he may refuse to let the military/Boeing modify it to bring it closer to the standards needed to be a proper Air Force One plane, because doing so would cost tens/hundreds of millions of dollars and take a lot more time than He would have patience for, and would also delay the two new AF1 jets further. He's going to want it NOW NOW NOW like the toddler that he is.

The Qataris fund Hammas. And the Huthis. And are pretty much allies with Iran. And now they're building a multi-billion dollar Trump golf course/resort in their country.

Qatar gets rid of a boondoggle that costs them money. They get to curry favor with the "Leader of the Free World". It is an absolute win/win situation for them.

Yep. No conflicts of interest to be seen here.

The NJ.com article excerpts from the Forbes article, which may be paywalled.
https://www.nj.com/politics/2025/05/turns-out-the-jokes-on-trump-when-it-comes-to-that-qatari-jumbo-jet.html

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2025/05/14/qatar-747-trump/

Comments

[motodraconis]

This is hilarious, an actual White Elephant.

[thewayne]

With gold trimmings.

[kaishin108]

And here we have another, well a great big whopping WT__ moment, grrrr. He is just so very stupid.

[pondhopper]

Heh. What an idiot. They dangle a shiny outdated expensive toy in front of him and he grabs it like a baby.

[thewayne]

That is pretty much the size of it.

[disneydream06]

I read some where, that for the US Government to go over it with a fine tooth comb "inspect/retrofit" it will cost $500 million more then the supposed price of the palace. :o :o :o

Also read that now The Dog Killer wants a new plane to go out and do her photo ops. :o :o :o
Hugs, Jon

[thewayne]

I haven't seen an estimate as to what the teardown/rebuild would cost, but certainly in the hundreds of millions.

And yes, the Dog Killer wants another Gulf 5. Apparently they already have one? I don't know if this would be a new replacement or a second one or what. Perhaps one for her exclusive personal use?

[disneydream06]

Oh, I'm sure it's for her personal use. :o

[thewayne]

Considering the 'ethical quality' of this administration, no doubt.

[disneydream06]

Somebody call Oprah, everybody wants a plane. :p

[thewayne]

Heh.  Somehow I don't think I can see the typical Oprah audience being able to afford the typical flight hour cost of a private plane.

[disneydream06]

LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[kraig]

I mean, it's not like he ever pays his bills. Other people do, or he defaults. He won't care about the expense.

[thewayne]

Apparently it's fairly common for rich people to have lousy credit scores from defaulting on creditors. And he's certainly exhibited a history of that.

[moonhare]

Great commentary! Every day another expense for retrofitting/upgrading this POS pops up.

[thewayne]

A-yup.

[silveradept]

I'd almost say Qatar was doing it for the tax benefits, but…no, wait, they might very well be doing it for tax benefits somewhere along the line. And, of course, because they have the measure of a man who believes himself a temporarily embarrassed billionaire and wants to project that he is richer and more powerful than he actually is.

[thewayne]

He's got money pouring in from his cryptocurrency scams, I don't know where it's going to.

[silveradept]

The people who are skimming off the top of every transaction so that they don't get accused of running a pump-and-dump.

[garote]

It's a handy evolution of the crypto industry: No one can accuse you of murder, or even of manufacturing guns, when all you're doing is selling zillions of bullets...

[bibliofile]

This is an excellent takedown. Thank you.

[thewayne]

Quite welcome.  I knew most of these points already, this article did a nice job of summarizing them, making it easy to post.