President Donald Trump’s new, Qatari-donated Air Force One is set to be taken out of service for at least a month to be “maxed out,” he said on Sunday when asked about concerns over the jet’s security measures.
He rode on the $400 million jet from New Jersey, where he attended the World Cup final, to Washington Sunday evening and addressed reporters on the tarmac at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
“It has a lot of capability, but as I understand it, in about a month or so, they’re going to send it to have it be maxed out,” Trump said, adding: “It’ll take about a month.”
It remains unclear what upgrades Trump was referring to.
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President Trump said that the Qatari-donated jet that serves as an Air Force One plane will soon be sent away for upgrades, following questions about the plane's security features https://t.co/Tx7NCAbsY0 pic.twitter.com/xk7plB8SPi
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The jet’s security has become a matter of contention in recent weeks. The Trump administration subpoenaed several journalists with The New York Times after the newspaper reported on security concerns with the 14-year-old plane, which was given to him by the government of Qatar last year.
The Times subsequently filed a motion to quash the subpoenas, while vowing to fight the administration’s efforts to interfere with its reporting.
“They violate the constitutional rights of The Times and its journalists,” David McCraw, a lawyer for the Times, wrote in a statement last week. “We are going to court to defend our journalists’ rights to report freely on the administration and to provide the public with stories that matter.”
Trump took the plane on its maiden voyage to Turkey for a NATO summit earlier this month, but scuttled his plans to return on the jet, which was instead sent to the United States’ Mildenhall Air Force Base in England to be toured by soldiers. The president wrote on social media that he was taking the older aircraft “for old times’ sake” and he repeatedly denied that the switch was made due to security concerns.
“The new Air Force One is a state-of-the-art aircraft that has been fitted with high-level security protocols that ensure the safety of the president and his staff,” White House communications director Steven Cheung said at the time.
“As the president has said recently, there are many enemies of America who have their sights on him, and we use every tool at our disposal — including distraction and misdirection — to address those threats,” he added.
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