(AFP) – US President Donald Trump said Sunday his new Qatari-gifted Air Force One jet needed to be sent off for a month to be “maxed out,” after reports of security concerns on a trip to Turkey. Trump took his first flight on the retrofitted Boeing 747-8 plane on July 1, but questions swirled after he took an older jet home from a NATO meeting in Ankara on July 10.
The New York Times reported that the new plane lacked the same security countermeasures, including anti-missile defenses. Its reporters were then subpoenaed by the Trump administration. “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 told reporters when asked why he was still flying on a plane without full defensive capabilities. “So they’re going to be sending it, and they’ll have it be maxed out. It’ll take about a month.”
Trump, who was speaking after flying back to Washington from the World Cup final in New Jersey, did not give details about how the plane would be “maxed out.” The 80-year-old Republican has previously played down any suggestion of problems with the new aircraft. He originally said he had sent the plane on ahead from the Turkey summit to an airbase in Britain so that service members could see it.
Qatar’s royal family donated the luxury airliner last year after Trump complained about the state of the two aging jets that have served as the US presidential plane since 1990. Critics have raised a host of ethical, constitutional and security concerns about the gifting of an aircraft worth hundreds of millions of dollars by a foreign power like Qatar.
The aircraft features a new Trump-designed livery in red, white and navy blue, in a change from the previous white and light blue livery. Two brand new Boeing Air Force Ones are due to be delivered later this decade after a series of delays and cost overruns.
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