A signature complaint from conservatives trying to dismantle government is that it wastes taxpayer dollars while providing nothing of value. I await their condemnation of Donald Trump, who has pilfered just under a billion dollars from a secret Pentagon account to pay for the retrofitting of the gold-plated “gift” airplane he accepted from the government of Qatar.
When Qatar made the gift in May, Trump pitched it as a cost-saving measure. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer,” Trump said. “I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’”
But documents provided to Congress reveal $934 million that was covertly shifted from a Pentagon account earmarked for the modernization of America’s ground-based nuclear missiles. The money was moved to an unnamed classified project that budget experts have identified as Trump’s new vanity plane. If Trump has nothing to be ashamed of, why the clumsy attempt at secrecy?
Trump has blocked or attacked far smaller outlays as wasteful. Most recently, he tried to embarrass Fed Chairman Jay Powell by pulling out a document on camera that supposedly showed a $600 million overrun in the Federal Reserve’s budget for modernization of its headquarters. Powell, who does his own homework, looked at the document and pointed out that the money was for a separate building completed five years ago. It was Trump who displayed rare embarrassment.
The use of Air Force One as a vanity project aimed to exalt the imperial presidency at taxpayer expense is relatively recent. Apart from the luxury extras, the only difference between a jumbo jet outfitted as a presidential plane and an ordinary commercial jet is that a presidential aircraft needs secret communication capacity, sleeping quarters, and extra measures to deter attacks.
In the case of two Boeing 747s that Trump commissioned to be redesigned almost from scratch as the new Air Force One, the cost somehow has risen to an estimated $7 billion from an initial $3.9 billion. The original fixed-price contract was negotiated in 2018, under Trump’s first administration. A new 747 can be bought commercially for about $400 million.
Cost overruns have delayed delivery of these two official planes until 2029. Under the terms of the “gift” from Qatar, Trump gets to keep that plane when he leaves office, at which time the ownership will be nominally transferred to his presidential library. The refurbishing is expected to take about two years. So Trump as president will only get to fly in his gold-plated Air Force One for perhaps a year, after which he and his family can enjoy it forever. When Trump takes his interim Air Force One home with him upon leaving office, the Boeing planes will become the official Air Force One.
I got curious about how previous chief executives traveled on special presidential aircraft. The first president to fly overseas was Franklin Roosevelt. He secretly flew to Casablanca in January 1943 to meet with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin to negotiate about the postwar order.
FDR’s mode of conveyance was the best transatlantic aircraft of the era, known as a Boeing 314 “flying boat,” built for Pan Am. The flying boat had staterooms, lounges, and dining rooms, on the model of a small ocean liner. It took off and landed in the water and took about 16 hours to cross the Atlantic.
Basically, FDR chartered a Pan Am commercial airliner, adding extra security precautions. And he did it during wartime when transatlantic travel was far from secure.
Other presidents after Roosevelt flew on reconfigured passenger planes. Truman’s official plane was a modified DC-6. Eisenhower’s was a Lockheed Constellation. Neither had unusual luxury features. The use of Air Force One as a special call sign began under Ike, after his plane nearly collided with a commercial flight.
As late as Kennedy, Air Force One was a modified jetliner called a SAM 26000, a variation on a Boeing 707. The modifications were mostly for security, not luxury. They included a communications suite, upgraded avionics, defenses against attack, as well as a presidential office and sleeping quarters.
The entire cost of Kennedy’s Air Force One, production and modifications, was just $8 million, or about $85 million in today’s dollars adjusted for inflation. And that basic design, with some upgrades, was good enough for Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton.
Today, the official aircraft of the French president, no slouch when it comes to grandeur, is an Airbus A330, which dates back to the era of President Nicolas Sarkozy (2007–2012). It cost about 220 million euros, or about $350 million in today’s dollars. The planes of other world leaders cost sums in the same range.
It has long ceased to be news that Trump is a vain hypocrite. Pilfering a billion dollars of taxpayer money to pay the costs of a vanity plane takes both traits to new depths.