On "Forbes Newsroom," HarrisX Founder and CEO Dritan Nesho discussed a new Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll showing voters' attitudes towards President Trump accepting a luxury plane from Qatar.
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00:00I do now want to zoom out a little bit and set our sights internationally.
00:05President Trump last week took his first major foreign trip and he went to the
00:09Middle East, went to a few countries there. Business deals were on the
00:13forefront and diplomacy, foreign diplomacy, was in the backseat. And
00:17notably, he did not visit Israel, the United States' biggest ally in the
00:21region, while he was on this trip. But last week, ethical national security and
00:26legal questions were raised after news broke that the royal family of Qatar
00:30planned to gift President Trump a luxury $400 million plane. Trump said that the
00:36plane was a great gesture on behalf of the Qataris and essentially only a stupid
00:39person would reject it. Do the American people agree? I mean, you asked voters how
00:44they feel about the Qatari plane. What did they say? Well, on that specific issue,
00:5162% of voters say that it raises ethical concerns about corruption. And part of it
01:00is because it's not really a gift to the United States government, but it's a gift
01:04to the Trump library that plane would be retrofitted to be Air Force One, probably
01:11at great cost. And then it belongs to the library, which means that Trump can continue
01:16using this mega luxury jet while he's alive, and frankly, the library afterwards. So it's
01:26a reasonable position. And again, close to two thirds of voters feel uncomfortable with
01:32that decision. Trump has majority support amongst Republicans at 60% to be able to accept the
01:40plane. And what's playing strongly with Republican is the fact that it's a half a billion
01:46dollar gift to the United States and to the president. But percent of Republicans are
01:51uneasy. 62% of independents, very importantly, are uneasy with the decision that say it raises
01:58concerns and 85% of Democrats as well. Now, I will say that stepping back, the recent trip to the Middle
02:05East was wildly successful for Trump. And 59% of voters support his administration's efforts to
02:15have strong relations with Saudi Arabia, which is a country that Americans haven't always trusted
02:21and haven't always viewed positively, especially in the wake of 9-11. And again, the initiatives that
02:31Trump has taken in Saudi Arabia and in the Gulf region, people are willing to give them a chance,
02:37especially because they carry a big ticket economic benefit in the trillions of dollars, given the sizes of
02:47the deals that have been signed. They also they also essentially believe that this is a path to resolving
03:00the Israel Hamas conflict. And again, Trump still has net positive support when it comes to his handling of
03:09that conflict, even though voters do not believe that there will be any kind of resolution to that war anytime soon,
03:19especially given the posture between Israel and the United States and what seems to be a cooling relationship
03:26between Benjamin Netanyahu and President Trump.