Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina said the Trump administration’s rushed conversion of a Qatari-donated jet into a temporary Air Force One amounts to corruption and a security threat, citing a New York Times investigation into the project’s ballooning costs and missing safety features.
“This whole ordeal with the luxury Qatari-gifted jet Trump is using as his presidential plane would be laughable if it weren’t so serious,” Clyburn wrote on X. “This is corruption, a waste of millions of taxpayer dollars, and poses a massive national security risk.” Clyburn noted that despite two new Air Force One planes already under construction, the administration spent $400 million retrofitting the Qatari jet, plus another roughly $400 million to buy two additional 747s for pilot training and spare parts, all funded through what he called a “classified” account exempt from normal disclosure requirements.
Clyburn linked a New York Times investigation that found Trump personally approved the plane’s security features and interior design during a compressed eight-month retrofit, far short of the several years experts said would normally be required. The investigation found the retrofitted jet lacks several features present on the existing Air Force One fleet, including a lower-level exit door for high-risk situations, a second auxiliary power unit, and an infrared missile countermeasure system, based on public Air Force records and photographs.
Frank Kendall, who oversaw the Air Force One modernization program as both Pentagon acquisition chief and Air Force secretary under President Biden, told the Times the omissions carried real risk. “People need to be aware it has a lot of shortfalls compared to Air Force One; they do add a measure of risk,” Kendall said.
The security trade-offs became public after Trump was forced to fly out of Turkey on a different aircraft earlier this month, a swap made at the Secret Service’s urging after officials identified a credible threat from Iranian proxy forces. Trump made no mention of the threat in his own account, writing on Truth Social that he would fly the old Air Force One out of Ankara “for old time’s sake.”
Air Force Secretary Troy Meink testified in June 2025 that the retrofit would cost less than $400 million and could be completed in less than a year, using funds from the LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program that Meink said were “excess to need” following a cost overrun review. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, called that estimate “wildly rosy” at the time and has continued pressing for details since. “We routinely discuss the cost of the existing Air Force One modifications,” Murphy said. “But they have declared this work to be a national security secret that cannot be divulged even to appropriators. That is absolutely unacceptable.”
Murphy led 12 Senate colleagues in a formal letter to Meink and L3Harris CEO Chris Kubasik demanding transparency on the program, writing that “for over a year, the administration has stonewalled congressional requests for information about Qatar’s luxury jet gift to President Trump,” according to an official statement from his office. The senators estimated the total taxpayer cost at roughly $1 billion.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Duckworth, Ed Markey and Adam Schiff raised similar concerns in an earlier letter to Meink, writing that “it appears that funds for programs that the Air Force has continually claimed are among its top national security priorities are now being used as accounts for presidential whims,” according to an official release from Warren’s office, which also raised concerns the arrangement could violate the Constitution’s emoluments clause.
The jet is set to be transferred to Trump’s presidential library once he leaves office, an arrangement Murphy has previously tried and failed to block through a Senate amendment. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has defended the plane’s safety, calling it “fully mission-ready and safe for presidential travel today” and saying planned fall upgrades would “ensure it remains the most advanced, secure and capable aircraft in the world.”
Trump has said the upgraded jet reflects the stature he believes the presidency should project. “When you land and you see Saudi Arabia, and you see U.A.E., and you see Qatar and you see all these, and they have these brand-new Boeing 747s mostly, and you see ours next to it, this is like a totally different plane,” Trump told Sean Hannity in a May 2025 interview. “And we’re the United States of America. I believe that we should have the most impressive plane.”
The jet also required a separate Federal Aviation Administration safety approval due to its sideways-facing seats, an unusual configuration that normally requires special crash-test certification. That approval was granted just days before Trump’s first flight on the plane on July 1, according to the Times’ review of FAA records.
Neither the White House nor the Air Force has issued a direct public response to Clyburn’s statement.