Trump seems to think that turning an existing production 747-800 into an AF1 plane is simply a matter of changing the seating layout and the paint scheme.
The AF1 747s are built with vastly different communications and avionics so they can serve as secure flying command posts during emergencies. They can be refueled in mid-air (a tanker plane follows it around when the president is on board, just in case).
They're also used in pairs, with the other plane on standby at a nearby airport.
So in other words, this whole scheme
- is likely illegal, and certainly unseemly, given the plane is a gift from a foreign government.
- would be extremely expensive for the taxpayers
- probably won't actually accomplish what Trump wants.
trump can't even afford to maintain his 757. It disappeared from campaign photos after the wingtip got clipped at a campaign stop and would have needed millions in repairs.
The Qatari's are also shedding storage and maintenance costs for plane they haven't used in 5 years, nor have been able to sell.
trump also wouldn't be able to use it much. Only one runway in West Palm Beach airport is long enough for a 747-8, and the airport in NJ that he uses for golf is too short.
Pics of trump at the NJ airport show Air Force "2" - the 757 that the vice-president normally uses in NJ.
(and for those who forgot AF-1 is any US airforce plane the President is flying on - so if the president were flying a Cesna-172 - its call sign would be AF-1 while the president was on board)
@maya_b @quinn They use the "AF2" 757s (I think there are 4 in the fleet) fairly often - when they're flying to smaller airports, and also when one of the 747s is out of service.
They normally use those for VP flights (AF2) and other senior executives/VIPs (I believe they sent one of them to pick up Zelensky last year).
iirc when Biden did his surprise visit in Kiev, they flew in one of the 757s with a regular military call sign (not AF-1) in and out of Poland, from where he travelled overland by train for the visit.
The point about the size though, other than to service his vanity, what could trump do with the "gift" later on? He can't use it for golf.
The Qatari's have had it on the market for 5 years now - not much market for a blinged out used 747-8i. They've already given one the 3 747s they had away.
and all its sit around and do nothing costs. good write-down for the Qatari's.
(though should anyone be able to afford a write-off like that?!)
Eventually it'll rot in West Palm Beach. Unless the airforce keeps it and adds it to the rotation with the other 747-8s being converted. Or kept as a parts donor for non-special parts. The engines alone are worth keeping it for.
It is a white elephant in the truest diplomatic tradition.
'Hey, this is cool. Argentina is offering to buy 10B worth of my meme-coin. Maybe I should fly down there in #EmolumnentsForceOne and get that money."
*But on the way back to #MagaLardo *
"Attention! You in the plane! This is #IceBarbie. You are under "arrest" for flying a plane from the Southern Hemisphere. You will be abducted and sentenced to life in a torture dungeon."
Soooo.... I'm just saying there's bigger problems than just how expensive #KingShart 's hand-me-down flying palace bribe will be.
Sorry. Not trying to overstep. Just adding my 2-Cents worth to the thread. With all the things wrong with Trump, we can all chime in.
Try posting in plain english without your cutesy hashtags next time and maybe your intentions won’t be misread.
He's trolling the right wingers pretty hard too. Many are not cool with Muslims bribing their dear leader.
@mattblaze Actually it absolutely accomplishes what Trump wants.
Realistically he knows this will not replace AF1. Trump's current "Trump Force One" is an obsolete, expensive, and difficult-to-maintain 757 that is on its last legs. He wants a replacement for that and this is a way to get one paid for (as usual) by others. The U.S. will upgrade, store, and maintain it for the next 3 years, to be followed by a Secret Service staffed personal mega-luxury jet after he leaves office.
@mattblaze Why do you say "likely" illegal? It's clearly illegal. If you watch a guy walk up to someone & shoot them in the back of the head, or even just park in front of a goddamn hydrant, you would't say it was "likely" illegal - at least i hope not.
We need to stop acting like the improbability of a perpetrator ever going on the stand, let alone getting convicted, has anything to do with whether an obviously, blatantly illegal thing is in fact illegal, because it fucking still is.
@mattblaze What you're saying is the guy - who, in this scenario, was already found guilty of a slew of similar murders - walking up to somebody & shooting them in the back of the head might be self-defense this time.
You're treating this extremely obvious crime differently because the perpetrators are rich enough that we can expect them to throw lawyers at the situation - I say again: Just because someone might evade a "guilty" verdict does NOT in itself mean the thing they did wasn't a crime.
@jwcph Under the rule of law, the way we figure out if something is illegal is by analyzing the conduct in question against the law. (And both the facts about this airplane scheme and the law itself aren’t completely clear here; there’s not enough information to categorically say it’s illegal. I do think it PROBABLY is, as I said).
We don’t just declare “that guy is a criminal, so this must be a crime”. That’s what fascists do.
@mattblaze @jwcph I think there’s also a category of “not a crime but should be” (especially when the law is unclear, as you say).
I think it’s reasonable to say this should be a crime, but it’s meaningful to distinguish between things that are actually crimes and things that aren’t but should be. But insisting that something *is* a crime when it actually isn’t, or is ambiguous, seems like it would get in the way of ever reforming the law.
@benjamineskola @mattblaze I don't know where either of you guys live, but if your're in the US I hope you're prepared to get the opposite side of this & I wonder how intellectually dithering you're going to be when it's you yourself who is on the receiving end of something being declared a crime when it isn't, or is ambiguous.
I also wonder if you would if you were a direct victim of a crime (again, if you're US you're already indirect victims, which I know still eludes many Americans).
@jwcph @mattblaze I think that’s exactly the point that Matt is trying to make though? That arbitrarily declaring something to be a crime when it isn’t is a bad thing, even if we don’t like the person who did the thing.
I don’t think we can successfully respond to fascism by adopting the same tactics as fascists.
@mattblaze I don't know what you're getting out of over-simplifying in favor of this particular criminal - pretty sure you know that, even for this guy in particular, there are cases when the court says "Yes, he definitely committed a crime but we can't get a conviction to stick"; it just isn't true that everything you don't get convicted for is legal.
- and we *do* look at criminal history; just not when it's rich white people. If you don't know that, too, it's time you found out.
@jwcph I think it's reasonable for me to conclude at this point that you are nothing more than a tiresome, sad little troll, and that there is nothing to be gained from trying to engage with you. I am done being polite.
My best advice to you is to go fuck yourself.
If you meant this sincerely, @jwcph, you are simply taking a different predisposition and attitude for approaching this. It's whether you choose to call any conclusions premature until further investigation, or you choose to "call out the obvious" at the (assumed very low) risk of being wrong about it.
Flag on the play. 
There is a federal law on the books in the U.S.A. which was already ruled on the first time. 
The court ruling was that the courts didn't have authority to act in that situation because Congress had to impeach first. 
Play through. 
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