President Donald Trump is apparently backtracking on his plan to house his Qatari-gifted jet at his presidential library after he leaves office.
The jet had long been set to go to his presidential library complex in Miami when Trump leaves office. But his son, Eric, told NBC News via text message that plans have now changed.
“No. That’s not the plan at the moment for Miami,” Eric Trump wrote.
It remains unclear where exactly the jet will end up. Eric had previously told The Palm Beach Post last month that an older, retired Air Force One jet will be the one in the Trump library.
The president’s $400 million Qatari Boeing 747-8 has seen nothing but controversy since the Middle Eastern country donated it to the Department of Defense last year. Trump was originally ecstatic about the jet when his administration first received it.
“I think it’s a great gesture from Qatar. Appreciate it very much,” he said at the time. “I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer. I mean, I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’ But it was, I thought it was a great gesture.”
The jet debuted in July and made its first international trip carrying Trump to Turkey for a NATO summit, but it appears that the jet was put into service too soon.
After Trump raised eyebrows by taking the old Air Force One back to the U.S., The New York Times reported that the new jet lacked some of the same defensive measures as the older aircraft, including not having proper antimissile capabilities. Those concerns, amid the president’s rapidly escalating war in Iran, prompted the Trump White House to swap the new jet for the old jet to fly Trump back to Washington.
That report has emerged as a point of contention within the White House after Trump reportedly felt embarrassed that the Times reported on the lack of security on the jet.
The Trump administration then opened a probe into the Times for its reporting, even going as far as to try to subpoena the records of reporters’ family members.
Even so, the president has confirmed that the new jet has some security concerns, as he confirmed to reporters last month that the jet was being taken out of service.
“It has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out,” he admitted.
Mockups of the Trump library show a large building, mimicking that of New York’s Freedom Tower, with the name “TRUMP” at the top. The interior of the building shows a plane with the color scheme of an older Air Force One jet, not Trump’s preferred red, white, and blue.
Sen. Chris Murphy, a Democrat, attempted to get some answers on the fate of the jet, asking Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in a congressional hearing last month: “Will you commit that the president will not take this jet with him out of federal inventory when he leaves office?”
But Hegseth said it was “not a decision for necessarily me to make,” adding that “ultimately, we’re grateful to have it in the fleet for the Air Force to protect the president of the United States.”
Murphy responded by saying, “That’s a deeply unsatisfactory answer to the American public.”
