Even President Donald Trump’s most loyal MAGA cheerleaders are taken aback by reports that he’s planning to accept a jet as a gift from Qatar.
The royal family of the Middle Eastern nation is gifting President Trump a Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet to serve as his new Air Force One, ABC News reported Sunday. But the gift is raising eyebrows among some of the president’s fiercest supporters.
Laura Loomer, a conspiracy theorist and Trump adviser with increasing sway over the president’s decisions, expressed her disappointment on X.
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“I would take a bullet for him. But, I have to call a spade a spade,” she said. “This is really going to be such a stain on the admin if this is true… I’m so disappointed.”
It appears Loomer’s concern isn’t so much about the ethics of Trump accepting such a lavish gift, but rather its source. The gulf nation has financial ties to Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, and has been accused of funding Hamas and Hezbollah, which are considered terrorist organizations by the United States.
Mark Levin, a Fox News host and Trump ally, avoided calling out the president by name but blasted Qatar on X, saying the country “cooperates with Iran and its proxies” and “funds terrorism.”
“Their jet and all the other things they are buying in our country does not provide them with the cover they seek,” he said.
Right-wing radio host Erick Erickson echoed the concerns, writing: “The Qatari government is not our friend, cooperates with Iran and its proxies, and funds terrorism and pro-terror propaganda around the world.”
Meanwhile, Democrats, who have long accused Trump of blurring the lines between public service and personal profit, are decrying the gift as outright corruption. Trump reportedly plans to transfer the roughly $400 million plane to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation shortly before leaving office.
“This isn’t a good idea even if the plane was being donated to the U.S. government. But Trump GETS TO KEEP THE PLANE???” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) wrote on X. “It’s simply a cash payment to Trump in exchange for favors. Just wildly illegal.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) called the gift a “grift,” reminding Trump that the Constitution prohibits federal officials from receiving personal gifts from foreign heads of state without the consent of Congress.
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, blasted the gift as “farcically corrupt.”
“Congress must not allow this over-the-top kleptocracy to proceed,” he wrote on X.
Meanwhile, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) is demanding an investigation into reports that Trump intends to accept the plane. The president toured the luxury jet in February.
“The American people are witnessing, in real time, what can only be described as a ‘flying grift,’” Torres wrote in a letter addressed to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, the Office of Government Ethics and the acting Department of Defense inspector general.
Sources told ABC that Attorney General Pam Bondi and Trump’s top White House lawyer, David Warrington, concluded that the gift is “legally permissible” because it’s not being given to an individual but to the United States Air Force, and later to the presidential library foundation. And they argue that it does not constitute a bribe because the gift does not hinge on an official act.
Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican who flamed Trump for saying the 2020 election was stolen, blasted the jet deal and pointed out that Republicans spent years probing Hunter Biden’s art sales for potential influence-peddling.
“Didn’t Hunter Biden once sell a painting and get investigated for four years?” Kinzinger wrote on X. He also dismissed the idea that Trump’s luxury jet would simply be handed over to his library after leaving office.
“Of course he will use it,” he continued. “The evil, sick, corrupt, fat, smelly grift is out of control.”
