Donald Trump accepts secondhand security-compromised junk airplane from Qatar! Boeing must respond!

The Department of Defense, on behalf of Donald Trump, last month accepted, and hopes to transform into Air Force One, a Boeing luxury 747-8 worth about $400 million from Qatar. 

Echo opinion published in Seattle Times by Robert Weiner and Coby Rinke

There are questions, but also very serious ethical concerns surrounding the gift. Its acceptance could potentially violate the Constitution’s foreign emoluments clause and put an American president under the influence of leaders of the oil-rich nation.

But, there is another issue at play: The plane is incapable of being Air Force One, in the first place.

Boeing, whose previous contract to deliver two Air Force Ones is about five years late and billions over budget, should take responsibility. Instead of allowing the U.S. government to spend a billion more of taxpayer dollars to essentially start over on another aircraft, the company should make it clear to the U.S. government that the Qatari jet was never meant to be an Air Force One, and cannot be made so in a timely manner. 

Making this clear would benefit Boeing and the nation.

First, as retired four-star Gen. Barry McCaffrey has explained, the Qataris would likely not hand over the jet unaltered.

“It will have hundreds of bugs in it; there’s no way to sort out the security of it,” McCaffrey told KING 5 Seattle.

Even some Republicans echoed McCaffrey’s concerns. When asked how much it would cost to ensure the plane is safe for the president, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida questioned if that was even possible.

“I don’t know how you would be able to do that if you don’t build it from scratch,” Scott said.

Second, while Trump has presented the plane as the pinnacle of luxury, this is far from the truth. Qatar has reportedly been trying to get rid of the jet since 2020, and the fact leaders were willing to give it away when the Trump administration asked shows how little they valued it. Furthermore, the plane was actually manufactured before the two planes originally intended to be the new Air Force Ones, meaning it is far from the most modern.

Finally and most egregiously, as Boeing knows, most of the cost of a new Air Force One is not building the jet itself. Instead, the cost comes from outfitting the plane to be able to refuel midair, communicate securely with the military — even in a worst-case scenario — and protect the president from attack.

Therefore, outfitting this new plane could cost the American taxpayers $1 billion. If the overrun costs on the earlier contract with Boeing are any indication, the final cost could be much higher. Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina acknowledged this when speaking to NBC News.

“Air Force One is not like every other Boeing, and it’s going to have to be put through a lot of paces and every square inch analyzed before the president should consider it his primary means of transportation,” Tillis said.

He further questioned whether outfitting the jet was even worth it.

“You have to work through the cost benefit of it; I mean we’re in a world of DOGE, so we’ve got to figure out whether it’s worth upfitting or selling it and writing a check to the Treasury and help us with our debt reduction,” Tillis said.

Most of the responsibility for the ethical and practical concerns surrounding the jet falls on the shoulders of the president, and his decision to accept it without Congress’ approval.

Nevertheless, Boeing must accept responsibility for failing to deliver the original Air Force Ones on time and within budget. To prevent taxpayers from funding a billion-dollar fantasy that this secondhand, security-compromised Qatari jet could be fit to carry the president of the United States, Boeing should finally finish what it started back in 2016. For the sake of itself and the nation, it must complete work and meet the latest deadline on the two original Air Force Ones.

Voters must remove Congressional representatives who refuse to end gun violence

Weapons of War: 

Three echo opinion letters published in The News&Observer in Raleigh, North Carolina.

How many more innocent men, women and children must die because a certain group of people are fixated on having unlimited access to assault weapons? 

Granted, it is partially a mental health issue. However, those who commit mass murders would have a much more difficult time committing these atrocities without unlimited availability of weapons of war. Congress is to blame for the continuation of this easy access to assault weapons. One day of congressional action could potentially save thousands of lives. Our votes to oust supposed “representatives of the people “ could stimulate action. We are supposedly a country that is envied across the world. Let’s start acting like it. Stop the killing of innocent people. 

From Mel Sage, in Garner, North Carolina

A memorial for Joshua Barrick on display Monday, April 10, 2023 at Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Louisville, Ky. Barrick, a senior vice president at Old National Bank in Louisville, was one of five people killed Monday in a mass shooting at the bank. It was the 146th mass shooting in the U.S. this year. CLAIRE GALOFARO AP

Stand up against the National Rifle Association- Dear Editor,

I appreciate the work Senator Thom Tillis has done to get the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act passed, but much more can be done. As the father of two students and the husband of a teacher, I worry about my family’s safety every day. Along with the BSCA, there must be gun reform — universal background checks, red flag laws, outlawing weapons of war in civilian hands.

As my representative, I expect Tillis to do what he knows is right and help stop the senseless slaughter of our innocent children, teachers and civilians. I do not believe the senator, one of the top 5 recipients of NRA donations, can represent the needs of his constituents while still accepting NRA money. It’s an inherent conflict of interest that even the uneducated can understand. 

From Michael P. Trew, Boone 

SEN. TED BUDD In a letter, I urged Sen. Ted Budd to support an assault weapons ban. He said such a ban is overly broad. Please, senator, propose something that will keep our citizens, particularly our children, safe. Your silence is deafening. 

From Janice Woychik, Chapel Hill

BUT! As if #sharpiegate were not "bad enough"!....now this: North Carolina stupidity

Echo! Published in The Denver Post, I read this opinion after the stupid #Sharpiegate incident was plastered all over the world's media. Donald Trump violated the tenets for supporting the National Weather Service (NWS) forecast that predicted hurricane Dorian's path, while the devastating storm skipped up the US east coast. 

He warned people living in Alabama about the storm, but (!) it was never predicted to affect that state. So, the #sharpiegate fiasco happened after this opinion essay was published, and before Trump's deliberately stupid and illegal weather blunder.

Blake echo: Donald Trump’s transparent and petty pre-hurricane politicking

He said whaaaa?  "Thank you, Mr. President"?  Senator Thom Tillis, R-NC #SIASD (Thank you for what? For being stupid!)

DENVER POST- On the list of Donald Trump’s political sins, wrongly crediting a GOP ally for getting him to declare a pre-hurricane Dorian federal emergency in North Carolina doesn’t rank particularly high.

But!

This is a remarkably transparent political gambit even for Trump, to whom so little is holy, coming as it does on the eve of a natural disaster that has threatened the southeastern United States and devastated the Bahamas.

On Tuesday night September 3, Trump credited Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., for his decision to declare a federal emergency in the state ahead of Hurricane Dorian’s arrival. “At the request of Senator Thom Tillis, I am getting the North Carolina Emergency Declaration completed and signed tonight,” Trump tweeted. “Hope you won’t need it!”

The first problem with that is that senators don’t formally request states of emergency. Under federal law, that’s left to governors.

In North Carolina’s case, that governor is Roy Cooper, a Democrat. Cooper declared a state emergency Friday and formally requested the federal one Monday. Trump didn’t mention him in the tweet.

The second problem is that it’s clear that this was political payback, and there’s virtually nothing subtle about it. Tillis, as Wagner notes, is up for reelection in 2020, and he faces a difficult general-election contest and a well-funded primary foe, businessman Garland Tucker. He appears to have earned plenty of goodwill from Trump after his flip-flop on Trump’s border-wall national emergency, which he eventually supported after writing a Washington Post commentary against it.

And Tillis was clearly angling for some credit here, repeatedly tweeting about his talks with Trump about the federal emergency.

“Just got off the phone with President @realDonaldTrump,” Tillis tweeted Monday evening, saying Trump would be issuing the federal emergency. “Just spoke with President @realDonaldTrump again & he said an emergency declaration for NC would be made later tonight,” he tweeted Tuesday. When Trump tweeted his credit to Tillis, the senator retweeted it without correcting Trump or mentioning Cooper’s role.

“Thank you, Mr. President!” he said.

Fine. Tillis can certainly play a role in that process, too — even if he doesn’t formally make the request. 

And there’s nothing wrong with letting people you work for know you’re engaged and talking to the president.

But !

Even if we set aside all of that: Was Trump really not going to declare a federal emergency in one of two states that are most directly in Dorian’s path, along with South Carolina? 

That state had already gotten one, as had Florida, Georgia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, which appear to have escaped the worst effects of the hurricane. As you can see from this long list of hurricane-related federal emergency declarations, this is a matter of course. Many recent declarations were for storms whose names you’ve probably already forgotten.

Whether someone is politicizing a natural disaster is difficult to pin down; one person’s politicization is another’s raising of an important issue. Republicans accuse Democrats of politicizing hurricanes by citing climate change, for example, when Democrats and climate scientists think that’s pretty important.

Orange man Trumpzi stupidity!

But! Even accounting for that subjectivity, Trump’s pre-hurricane gambits have been pretty obvious.

There was the time he pardoned Joe Arpaio, a former sheriff in Arizona, as Hurricane Harvey was hitting Texas — and acknowledged that he did so with the hurricane in mind. “A lot of people think it was the right thing to do,” Trump said. “Actually, in the middle of a hurricane, even though it was a Friday evening, I assumed the ratings would be far higher than they were normally.”There was the time he lodged a conspiracy theory that Democrats had inflated the Hurricane Maria death toll in Puerto Rico . . . less than 24 hours before Hurricane Florence was set to hit the Carolinas. (Even Florida Republicans disowned that Trump theory.)

Just last week, Trump called Puerto Rico corrupt and wrongly inflated the amount of Maria-related aid the U.S. territory received, even as it faced another blow from Dorian.

And before he was president, Trump previewed Hurricane Sandy in 2012 by arguing that President Barack Obama would use it to his advantage for his reelection bid.

“Hurricane is good luck for Obama again- he will buy the election by handing out billions of dollars,” Trump tweeted.

Trump even used the occasion to extend the deadline for his offer of $5 million for Obama’s birth certificate.

“Because of the hurricane, I am extending my 5 million dollar offer for President Obama’s favorite charity until 12PM on Thursday,” Trump said.  (Cruel, OMG!)

It has become pretty clear what’s on Trump’s mind when a hurricane is about to hit.

Aaron Blake is senior political reporter, writing for The Fix. A Minnesota native, he has also written about politics for the Minneapolis Star Tribune and The Hill newspaper.