The Left’s hysteria over the Trump administration’s willingness to accept a Boeing 747-8 jet as a donation from the royal family of Qatar has reached a crescendo. President Donald Trump plans to use the luxury aircraft as a temporary replacement for Air Force One, which is 40-years-old, as he awaits the long-delayed delivery of two new Boeing jets.
The New York Times reported that in 2018, the Air Force contracted with Boeing to build two new aircraft. However, last year, Boeing announced the planes wouldn’t be ready until 2029. In response, Trump enlisted Elon Musk to help accelerate the timeline, after which a new target date of 2027 was set. Still, given Boeing’s history of delays, that promise seems doubtful.
Concerns about the aging fleet aren’t new. As early as 2014, a commenter on Aviation’s forum warned that the two VC-25 jets that constitute the Air Force One fleet (modified military versions of the 747-200) were already obsolete:
These two 747-200s are among the last remaining 747-200s in service. I suspect that they are the best-maintained 747-200s in the world and they have considerable sunk costs in their custom rigging. But even when the aircraft were put in service in 1990, this model had already been replaced by the 747-300 (1982) and 747-400 (1989).
At any rate, perhaps wary of Boeing’s assurances, Trump has been exploring alternative options. And Qatar’s offer of a 747-8 appeals to him.
[To be fair, news of Trump’s potential acceptance has also raised ethics concerns among some of his supporters.]
During a Wednesday evening interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) made a stunning assertion. He said the idea of using the Qatari jet as a temporary replacement for Air Force One was first floated during the Biden administration.
Mullin, who is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, informed Tapper:
What the media isn’t telling you and what no one’s talking to you about is this same 747 has been in negotiations for a year. The Biden administration is the one that started these conversations.It didn’t start in the Trump administration. Why? Because we need a backup for Air Force One. Because right now, the President of the United States is flying around on a 40-year-old plane and there is no backup for it.The backup we had – the airframe started having structural issues.No one’s discussing that part. They’re discussing that the deal ended with President Trump.Maybe I’ll give them a pass. Maybe you didn’t know. I’ll give you the pass.
To say the least, if Mullin’s revelation is correct, it fundamentally reshapes the narrative surrounding this issue.
Verifying Mullin’s claim is difficult, if not impossible, given that internal discussions within the Biden administration are not a matter of public record. Even if such information were to leak, I imagine few members of the legacy media would report it. Besides, with all the chaos surrounding Biden’s ability to stay in the race, such a story would hardly have been considered newsworthy at the time.
RedState’s Rusty Weiss suggested that maybe someone ought to ask former President Joe Biden. He quickly dismissed the thought realizing “it’s quite unlikely he’d have any idea about it in the first place. Perhaps they should ask whoever was running the country at the time.”
In the end, the controversy over the Trump administration’s acceptance of the Qatari jet may say less about national security or protocol and more about the reflexive outrage machine that defines modern political discourse. If Mullin is right — and the Biden administration truly initiated the deal — then the media firestorm currently directed at Trump is not just misplaced, but intentionally selective. Until more facts emerge, the louder critics shout, the more it seems they’re less interested in transparency than in scoring political points.
The full segment can be viewed below.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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