I’d say given the objections that are coming from Republicans, as well as Democrats on Capitol AND a lot of conservative pundits Trump won’t be getting his 400 million bribe… er, “gift” from Qatar. Hell, even Laura Loomer, who can whisper “This one can’t be trusted, FIRE him/her NOW” into Trumpty’s ear and it happens is screaming this is a really bad thing. Still, it’s clear Trump wants that plane. I’m talking covets it. I dare say it’s an obsession on the level of his decades long desire to boink his daughter Ivanka. Alas, it’s not so simple as Trumpty envisioned. And the costs are ‘YUGE’ even before you take into account “special requests” Trump is sure to demand.
I could write pages about the costs of simply taking a 13 year old blinged out for a middle eastern Potentate dictator/ruler and refitting it into a working and secure part of the Presidential aircraft fleet. As in one of two jets we maintain to be used as Air Force One. (Again, it’s not a specific plane but a call sign for whatever fixed wing aircraft a President is flying on) You’d pretty much have to strip the interior down to the bare metal, carefully check every square inch for listening/recording devices (and/or transmitters) so sums like a billion dollars or more have been bandied about.
Yep, brand new avionics, communications gear with all sort of crazy level secure encryption, defensive systems (and some of us believe despite denials there’s a smattering of small OFFENSIVE ones to make an attacking aircraft getting too close think twice and back off), the ability to withstand an EMP burst(s), installing aerial refueling capability and so on is expensive. (Not to mention time consuming) And that’s not the whole list! Before I get to the snarky part there’s one other huge cost no one seems to be talking about. Once Trump is no longer ‘The Prez’ all that special stuff, the communications/crypto gear, much, if not most of the avionics, the defensive systems etc. would have to be REMOVED! And that adds another several hundred million.
However on top of all the stuff that would have to be done for any ole regular President, as this article from HuffPost tells us Trump will have some shall we say “special” request. Or to be more accurate DEMANDS. Remember ‘Trump Force One?’ It was the Boeing 757 Trumpty flew around on during campaigns. I’m sure he thought it was the ultimate. Just like he thought his apartment in Trump Tower was. However, Trumpty learned his Trump Tower digs were a shack compared to the WH. Same for his ‘vaunted” Trump Force One after he got his first ride on an AIR FORCE One. So, Trump wants one of his very own.
I suppose we might take a little comfort in this arrangement being that the Qatari bribe “gift” has the Air Force being a ‘pass-through’ entity until Trump leaves office in 2028 at which time the plane is transferred to HIM personally. That’s a whole article in and of itself. What matters is Trump wants this because the time will come when he has his very own personal version of “Air Force One” to tool around in. Because of that we can expect any retrofitting of the Qatari plane will take on making ‘Trump Force One’ into something Donald loved.
As the linked article indicates, Trump didn’t rely on designers but was hands on during the fitting out of that 757. His special requests included some doozies. HuffPost quotes the guy in charge telling us about Trump’s demand for a special place in the galley for OREO COOKIES. Really. You’re still reading Politizoom and not The Onion. Special Storage in the galley of the plane for his freaking Oreos?
Donald Trump’s $37 million redesign of his private Boeing 757 in the early 2010s came with the expected Trumpian trimmings of gold finishes and a gigantic TV.
But there was also a quirky request from the now-president.
In an interview with Forbes published Tuesday, aircraft interior design specialist Eric Roth recalled his surprise when Trump asked him for a special area in the plane’s galley dedicated to Oreo cookies.
“I said to him, ‘Mr. Trump, really?’” Roth remembered. “And he replied, ‘I love Oreos.’”
“I love Oreos.” Well, you can be sure Trump made sure there was something extra special about that space where HIS Oreo Cookies would be stored. And that it cost thousands. That leads to what the hell else expensive quirks of Trump’s had to be accommodated. I’d image special storage in the hold, and a super-duper special fridge for his Diet Cokes was a given. Special storage for the steaks the chef would burn to a crisp during long flights and a separate grill burner reserved only for that? Or special storage for the ingredients needed to make his ‘beautiful chocolate cake’ from scratch. And of course a special oven dedicated to that purpose only. Who knows what the hell else Trump would demand the taxpayers pay for, for what it intended to become HIS personal plane when he leaves the WH?
I’m haunted by a question from a line in the song Send In the Clowns – “Don’t you love the farce?’ Well, the good news is that so many, even some seriously hard core MAGAs are saying no to this whole thing. Even Qatar has started to make noises about nothing having been agreed to, that only ‘discussions might be taking place’ with the DOD and Air Force. No doubt they are as pissed as Trump over the blowback. I’m sure they will find a way to funnel their bribe to him (Trump’s crypto scheme seems a likely bet) but Trump will be major butt-hurt over this not working out. I don’t see him giving up on it, at least not yet so there’s always that possibility it could happen but for now we can enjoy meme makers having fun making fun of the whole batshit insane situation.
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OREOs??? Good GRIEF! I already knew the refit was going to take a ton of money for his personal palace in the sky, but that’s a little too much for me. Then there’s the steaks and cake and “what the h*ll” comes out of my mouth. I would be thinking having to strip it down to bare metal would mean he didn’t have the personal palace that he was given *cough*BS**cough* from the original plane. Would they put it back is another question, yes? And how much would *that* cost?. I wish I’d had this information too! You do it better:-):-) 🙂 🙂 Awesome column!!!!!!!!!
tRump: “If I can’t have my plane, then give me Greenland.”
Where is the Department of Government Efficiency when you need them? Surely this is a waste of taxpayer dollars, when there are already 2 planes in the works to replace the Presidential jet!
Because the “Government Efficiency” was known by all outside the Drumpf fluffers to be code for “Get Rid of All the Stuff We Don’t Want but Leave Stuff We Do.”
Sums it up nicely! Hell, that should become a Democratic talking point! It makes for a helluva sound bite. The kind that it short and pointed enough to stick in voter’s minds.
Why am I reminded of Smeagol: “It came to me, my own, my love, my precious”?
Thinking about a realistic timeline for doing all these projected needed things to the plane to make it ready to be used as an Air Force One, I’m guessing that it would take until almost (or after) the end of $trump’s four years to complete. So President $trump wouldn’t get to ride around in it much. So the NEXT Administration would probably be in position to veto $trump’s dream of getting to keep it. … After all, $trump has proven that the new President gets to veto everything he/she hates about the previous President.
I’m sure Trump envisions taking the plane with him “as is” BUT even if he gets away with accepting it even a Republican President would have all that expensive stuff, including some of the avionics that are classified higher than normal, all the communications gear (that encryption equipment would make him a fortune with our enemies) and the defensive systems (again, something enemies would pay a fortune to get their hands on) and who knows what else. I suppose they’d leave the aerial refueling capability but the point is that Trump wouldn’t get to just fly off with billions of dollars of classified hardware and software.
Again I have to mention this because for all the talk about how much it will cost to INSTALL all that stuff on his bribe/jet I suspect it would cost a half billion or so to REMOVE it in a manner that would allow for it to be re-used by the Air Force.