Trump Takes Questions About Controversial Air Force One Plane Gift From Qatar

At a press briefing, President Trump took multiple questions about the gift of an Air Force One plane from Qatar.

Transcript

00:00however you okay you're confident that there will be a deal on cutter has cutter asked

00:04for anything in exchange for that 400 million dollar luxury jumbo jet and how can the american

00:10people be so sure that they will not in the future well i think what happens with the

00:14plane is that you know we're very disappointed that it's taking boeing so long to build a new

00:18air force one you know we have an air force one that's 40 years old and if you take a look at

00:23that compared to the new plane of the equivalent you know stature at the time it's not even the

00:28same ball game you look at some of the uh arab countries and the planes they have parked alongside

00:35of the united states of america plane it's like from a different planet and it's close to 40 years

00:41old might be more than 40 years old now and we uh when i first came in i signed an order to get it

00:49built i took it over from the obama administration they had originally agreed i got the price down

00:56much lower and then uh when the election didn't exactly work out the way that it should have

01:03a lot of work was not done on the plane because a lot of people didn't know they made change orders

01:08that were so stupid so ridiculous and it ended up being a total mess a real mess and when i came back i

01:16said by the way what's going on with the uh the boeings that are coming in well sir they're way behind and

01:21they are they're way behind they were way behind another mess that i inherited from biden and uh

01:27it's going to be a while before we get them and i think qatar who uh has really we've helped them a

01:35lot over the years in terms of security and safety i feel they i think they end very very nicely and

01:41i have a lot of respect for the leadership and for the leader qatar and i think they very they knew

01:46about it because they buy boeings they buy a lot of boeings uh and they knew about it and they said

01:52we would like to do something and if we can get a 747 as a contribution to our defense department

02:01to use during a couple of years while they're building the other ones uh i think that was a

02:08very nice gesture now i could be a stupid person to say oh no we don't want a free plane we give free

02:13things that we'll take one too and it helps us out because again we're talking about we have 40

02:19year old aircraft the money we spend the maintenance we spend on those planes to keep them tippy top

02:25is astronomical you wouldn't even believe it so i think it's a great gesture from qatar

02:31i appreciate it very much uh i would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer i mean i could

02:38be a stupid person say no we don't want a free very expensive airplane uh but it was i thought it

02:45was a great gesture and i think it was a gesture because of the fact that we have helped and continue

02:50to we will we will continue to uh all of those countries saudi arabia uae qatar and others we keep

02:59them safe if it wasn't for us they probably wouldn't exist right now and i think this was just a gesture of

03:05good faith and uh i don't get it someday it'll be like ronald reagan they decommission them you know

03:11they get to a certain age they decommission them uh it'll go to my library they're talking about going

03:16to my library uh in years out but i thought it was a great gesture and it's something that was done by

03:24ronald reagan they actually decommissioned the plane and he put it in his library and

03:27it actually has made the library i think a boeing 707 uh it's actually made the library uh more

03:34successful so it was good do you plan to use the plane after you leave office no i don't no it would

03:41it would go directly to the library after after i leave office i wouldn't i wouldn't be using it no