--- title: "Trump Takes First Flight on the Qatar-Gifted Air Force One, Reviving a Constitutional Fight" description: "President Trump flew for the first time aboard a retrofitted Boeing 747 that Qatar gave to the U.S. government, putting the aircraft into service as Air Force One and reopening a months-long dispute over foreign gifts, the Constitution and the security of the president's plane." category: "U.S." category_url: https://herald.la/category/us author: "Julian Mercado" published: 2026-07-02T02:59:00.000Z updated: 2026-07-02T02:59:00.000Z canonical: https://herald.la/article/trump-takes-first-flight-on-the-qatar-gifted-air-force-one-reviving-a-constituti tags: ["Trump", "Air Force One", "Qatar", "Boeing 747", "emoluments", "national security", "us"] --- # Trump Takes First Flight on the Qatar-Gifted Air Force One, Reviving a Constitutional Fight President Trump flew for the first time aboard a retrofitted Boeing 747 that Qatar gave to the U.S. government, putting the aircraft into service as Air Force One and reopening a months-long dispute over foreign gifts, the Constitution and the security of the president's plane. The most recognizable plane in the world flew a president for the first time on Tuesday — and it arrived trailing a legal and security fight that has followed it since it was a gift. ## The flight President Trump departed Joint Base Andrews in Maryland and flew to Medora, North Dakota, for the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, in the debut of the Qatari-origin Boeing 747-8 as Air Force One, [ABC News reported](https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-takes-1st-flight-new-air-force-gifted/story?id=134373911). Trump called it "maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built" and said acquiring it had saved taxpayers money "relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way." ## A gift with a history Qatar gave the jet to the U.S. government in 2025, and the Pentagon valued it at about $400 million, [CBS News reported](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-air-force-one-new-plane-qatar/), though Bloomberg has reported its open-market value was likely far lower, around $100 million to $125 million. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth formally accepted the aircraft in May 2025, and the contractor L3Harris then retrofitted it in Texas with secure communications and defensive systems. Air Force officials told Congress the conversion would cost less than $400 million; the exact figure is classified. The New York Times reported that roughly $934 million was shifted from a nuclear-missile modernization program to help pay for the work — a figure the Herald could not independently confirm and that the administration has not detailed. Under the terms of the deal, the plane is set to transfer to Trump's presidential library foundation by 2029. ## The constitutional and security objections Critics have argued for months that accepting a costly aircraft from a foreign government, without a vote by Congress, runs against the Constitution's Foreign Emoluments Clause, which bars U.S. officials from taking gifts from foreign states without congressional consent. No such vote occurred. Sen. Patty Murray, a Washington Democrat, called it "brazen corruption," and 27 senators led by Brian Schatz of Hawaii and Chris Coons of Delaware introduced a resolution condemning the gift. Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, warned that the plane "would pose immense counterintelligence risks by granting a foreign nation potential access to sensitive systems," [The Hill reported](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5296641-jack-reed-trump-qatar-plane-counterintelligence-risks/). Security specialists have similarly flagged the need to scrub a foreign-owned jet for hidden technology before trusting it with the president. ## The administration's case The White House rejects the criticism. "This is the same tired narrative that Democrats have pushed against President Trump," Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said, adding there were "no conflicts of interest." Officials argue the aircraft was accepted by the U.S. government rather than by Trump personally, placing it, in their reading, outside the reach of the Emoluments Clause; Attorney General Pam Bondi issued a legal memorandum calling the arrangement permissible, though it has not been publicly released. Trump has framed the jet as a practical fix, saying the government "wouldn't be willing to spend the kind of money necessary" to build an equivalent plane. ## Why there was a gap to fill The episode is inseparable from a long-delayed procurement. Boeing won a $3.9 billion contract in 2018 to build two new VC-25B presidential jets, originally due in 2024, but the program has slipped repeatedly amid pandemic disruptions, supply and labor problems and a subcontractor bankruptcy; the Air Force now expects the first aircraft around 2028. The Qatari-origin plane — designated the VC-25B Bridge — is meant to serve until then, with the decades-old current Air Force One jets kept as backups. For now, a plane that began as a foreign government's gift is carrying the president of the United States, its provenance still contested in Congress and the courts. ## Sources - [Trump takes 1st flight on Air Force One gifted by Qatar, retrofitted with taxpayer dollars](https://abcnews.com/Politics/trump-takes-1st-flight-new-air-force-gifted/story?id=134373911) - [Trump takes first trip on Qatari-gifted Air Force One](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-air-force-one-new-plane-qatar/) - [Reed: Trump's Qatar plane would 'pose immense counterintelligence risks'](https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5296641-jack-reed-trump-qatar-plane-counterintelligence-risks/)