During an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Mike Pence expressed concern over President Trump’s decision to accept a state-of-the-art airplane from Qatar, calling the move incompatible with U.S. national interests. He argued that such a gesture from a controversial ally raises serious red flags.
“Well, I think first we got to remember who Qatar is. We’ve got a military base there. I have members of our immediate family that have deployed to the region, but Qatar has a long history of playing both sides. They support Hamas. They supported al-Qaeda. Qatar has actually financed pro-Hamas protests on American campuses across the United States. And so the very idea that we would accept an Air Force One from Qatar, I think is inconsistent with our security, with our intelligence needs,” Pence said during the interview.
Pence urged the president to reconsider, suggesting that any generosity from Qatar would be better directed toward bolstering their own facilities. “And my hope is the president reconsiders it,” Pence told anchor Kristen Welker, adding that if Qatar wants to give a gift to the U.S., they “ought to take that $400 million and plow it into infrastructure on their military base.”
President Trump, for his part, dismissed the backlash, defending the decision to accept the $400 million Boeing 747-8 and brushing aside bipartisan concerns raised on Capitol Hill. “I just want to say, it was a radical left story,” Trump said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. “The people here, to show you how crazy it is, they would like me to pay a billion dollars.”
According to the plan, the aircraft will first be delivered to the Department of Defense, where it will temporarily serve as a new model of Air Force One. Eventually, it will be handed over to Trump’s presidential library. “This goes to the United States Air Force for whoever is president, and at some point, it’ll be like Ronald Reagan. It’ll be decommissioned, because they won’t want it,” Trump told Baier.
Trump further explained that the current fleet needs interim support, given the delays in production. “We need a plane for a couple of years before we get the other ones, because Boeing is very late,” the president added. “They should be able to knock them off in no time.”
Pence, however, emphasized that accepting the jet could pose national security and legal challenges. He cited worries about surveillance potential and a possible breach of constitutional limits. “The Constitution prohibits public officials from accepting a present, in the words of the Constitution, a present from a foreign state,” Pence told Welker. “Now, they may have some basis through chain of title, through avoiding that. But, I think it’s just a bad idea. And my hope is the president will think better of it.”
{Matzav.com}