Hillary Clinton weighed in with common sense Wednesday on President Donald Trump’s intent to accept a complimentary Air Force One replacement from Qatar.
“No one gives someone a $400 million dollar jet for free without expecting anything in return,” the former secretary of state wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Be serious.”
Since news of the pending deal broke sparking concerns about its ethics, constitutionality and security, Trump has offered myriad justifications for saying yes to the offer.
“Why wouldn’t I accept a free gift?” Trump asked Fox News’ Sean Hannity this week aboard the current Air Force One.
At Hannity’s suggestion, Trump also implied the freebie would be compensation for the United States’ expensive efforts to try to keep the Middle East and elsewhere secure.
Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani dismissed accusations that the lavish gift could be seen as buying influence. “I don’t see any basis for this accusation, unless there are some people who are just trying to select who should be a friend of the U.S. and who should not,” he said on Fox News Wednesday.
The reaction of Clinton, who lost the 2016 presidential election to Trump, echoed that of many Democrats and even some Republicans about the deal. (The aircraft would later be transferred to the Trump presidential library, according to the administration’s plan.)
One of the post prominent GOP lawmakers, Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.), said, “I don’t think it looks good or smells good.”
“It just doesn’t seem right,” Paul told HuffPost. “We make decisions on troops there. I mean, there’s just a lot of foreign policy decisions. And I think people will think that it could possibly sway your decision-making process when you’ve gotten a ride on it every day, and it’s a really nice plane or something.”
