US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he was delighted to take his first flight aboard his new Air Force One plane, thanking Qatar for the controversial gift of the luxury jet.
Trump said the United States “couldn’t build a plane like this” – despite the fact that the heavily modified Boeing 747-8 was made there.
“To be honest with you, I’m excited about the first flight. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this,” Trump told accompanying reporters, including an AFP photographer, before his trip to North Dakota.
The 80-year-old president is scheduled to attend an event at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library as part of celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of American independence.
“They just finished it. They made it appropriate for a president, that means security and all the different bells and whistles that they put in place. Very complex things, but it’s really quite something,” Trump said at Joint Base Andrews, near Washington.
Critics have raised numerous ethical, constitutional and security concerns over the donation of a plane worth hundreds of millions of dollars from a foreign power like Qatar.
The wealthy Gulf emirate, which also plays a key mediating role in negotiations between the United States and Iran, donated the plane last year. Since then, it has undergone major modifications and testing.
The first theft also comes just a day after Trump faced increased ethics scrutiny over documents showing he made about $1.2 billion from his family’s cryptocurrency businesses during his first year back in office.
But Trump rejected any suggestion of impropriety, saying the cost to American taxpayers of adapting the Qatari plane was “very minimal compared to what it would cost if we did it a different way.”
“Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money that would be necessary. They spent a considerable amount of money,” Trump told reporters.
Trump said he asked Qatar’s emir if he could use the plane, but “he said ‘no, no, I’d like to make a contribution to the country, so that was very nice.’
The plane will serve as a stopgap until Boeing delivers two new purpose-built Air Force Ones, which are expected to be delivered in two years after a series of delays and cost overruns.
Trump has long been obsessed with replacing the current aging Air Force One fleet, although one appeared to be traveling as a backup for him on Wednesday.
