Trump ditches Qatari jet as experts raise equipment concerns

[turbinetree]

By David Edwards
Published July 8, 2026 1:21 PM ET

President Donald Trump will fly his aging Air Force One out of Turkey, ditching the Qatari-gifted jet he calls "the world's most luxurious plane," a decision experts suggest was made based on security equipment concerns.

Trump wrote on Truth Social Wednesday that he'd fly the old plane from Turkey to the UK — sending the new jet ahead separately so U.S. troops could tour it. "For old time's sake," he wrote.

Andrew Feinberg, White House correspondent for The Independent, wrote on X, posited another reason for the switch.

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-abandons-air-force-one/

Hey shit for brains................do you have chafe capabilities how about friend or foe radar capabilities' in your bribe plane..............bet you a fucking donut that you don't................ you brought it over so that you could try to bring people on board to woooo and ahhh........your criminality....then you sat in your chair waving your hands like a lunatic besmirching NATO allies and Zelensky just gave you a fucking cold ass stare...........did you report that to that dictator losing on average 1,300 men , woman and mercenaries and equipment in Ukraine.........what loser...........

[Goonch]

1. ;-{) THIS

[rogue emissary]

2. With him going on and on about Iran trying to kill him.

The Secret Service must have warned him they can't guarantee the safety measures on this plane.

LOL Everything he touches turns to SH! &

[Prairie Gates]

3. Belgium pledged Trump a new jet at the NATO conference as a gesture of goodwill after the World Cup

They're going to call it Air Four One.

Heyoooooo!

[littlemissmartypants]

17. I don't get the joke. Please explain it. TY ❤️

[IcyPeas]

20. Soccer ... world cup... Belgium beat USA 4 to 1

[littlemissmartypants]

22. The score!! Hahaha! TY!

[calimary]

31. Hey, I didn't get it either, til I saw the explanation.

[C_U_L8R]

4. Is the paint peeling already?

Is there anything this clown won’t fuck up?

[DBoon]

6. is algae growing on it?

[C_U_L8R]

45. Apparently, hydrogen peroxide will take care of it.

[Prairie_Seagull]

5. He must think we're all idiots.

Does anyone truly think he would do anything for the troops!

Could he be covering his ass and repairing/or whatever the plane at night.

[eppur_se_muova]

7. Well, there are plenty of *other* concerns already ... like, you know, the whole bribery/grift thing. nt

[yardwork]

8. And the fact that it may be full of bugs.

[eppur_se_muova]

9. Hopefully that includes bedbugs. nt

Maybe that's why the sudden decision to switch.

[littlemissmartypants]

15. 😄😄😄

[Norrrm]

37. His hotels and resorts are known for his bedbugs.

[eppur_se_muova]

39. Maybe he's the carrier. nt

:eww:

[BH liberal]

10. Germany could give Trump another Air Force One...

a free Zeppelin filled with hydrogen gas instead of helium.

[littlemissmartypants]

19. That'd be fun to shoot out of the sky. As long as no children, animals or Democrats were harmed.

[BH liberal]

41. Oh, the humanity!

"Devoutly to be wish'd"...seeing it falling in flames.

[littlemissmartypants]

42. Hear! Hear!

[liberalla]

11. * E T T D *

Everything trump touches DIES

[littlemissmartypants]

21. He needs to touch himself more. As long as it's in private or prison. I don't care.

[liberalla]

26. Yes!

[QueerDuck]

12. I was aware of these vulnerabilities and it made me smile. Now I'm not smiling.

Rats!

[twodogsbarking]

13. The inside of the plane is covered with algae and Trump saw a gremlin on the wing.

[littlemissmartypants]

14. He's just parking it there for his escape plan later.

[slightlv]

16. So, is he going to go back to using the AF1 that was good enough for every other prez before him,

or is he AF1-less right now? Or is he commissioning an entirely new plane to be built just for him (as I suspect is his choice?). On the way to bankruptcy, as Putin declares!

[FakeNoose]

32. He couldn't manage a simple Zoom meeting on a simple tablet

... how would he EVER figure out complex top security software or hardware?

[slightlv]

34. I just saw he switched back to the old AF1... figures. But it surprises me, nonetheless... nt

[Bluetus]

38. There are always multiple "AF1" planes on every trip.

The problem with this one is that Trump insisted on a unique paint job that makes it much more exposed to rockets from the ground or sea.

[sop]

43. When questioned by the press in Ankara, Turkey. Trump said:

"Well, I speak about it a lot because, you know, the life of a president is very dangerous. It's 5.2%. You know what a race car driver is? One-tenth of 1%. A bull rider, that looks pretty dangerous. It's one-tenth of 1%. No, it's 5.2% is you don't make it. You should have told me, you're an excellent reporter. You should have told me that years ago, maybe I wouldn't have run. It's a very dangerous profession. No, I'm number one of the kill list for Iran."

[Bluetus]

47. Was that comment in response to a Q about the plane?

As far as probability of not surviving 8 years of the Presidency, that is mostly a function of presidents being old when they take office.

The only presidents in about the last 125 years who didn't survive to the end of term were FDR (who had FOUR TERMS) and JFK.

It sounds like Trump is getting ready to stage another assassination drama.

[iluvtennis]

18. Did no one in his administration educate him on all of the security and protection features that were engineered into

the existing Air Force One jet. If he wanted to accept a gift of a plane from Qatar, let them replace his private trump plane. Why bring the federal government owned AF One plane into the mix.

Stupid orange thug

[patphil]

23. Trump always believes he knows it all, but, in reality, he knows very little.

An Air Force 1 capable aircraft has to be constructed for that mission from the ground up. Retrofitting it on some billionaires luxury toy isn't really going to work.
So far, his whole 2nd term has been an exercise in ignorance, arrogance, and stupidity. He isn't smart enough to let experts make the big decisions that would insure things get done right, so he awards no-bid contracts to companies that aren't able to perform at the level needed for the contracts they've been given.
And, of course, it always have to be someone else's fault when the whole thing is one big garbage in - garbage out mess.
He's not a leader, he's a dictator.
He never picks good people to support his Administration. He always picks partisan yes men and women who are more interested in using their position to make money while exercising the power their position allots them, without any clue as to what they should be doing.
The only thing they are really good at is kissing up to Trump, and looking like fools in the process.
Under trump's "leadership", we've become a shit hole country with a leader the whole world laughs at and shakes their heads at in disgust.

The big question is, can we survive his term, take our country back, and begin the long arduous task of fixing what he, and the republicans broke?

[wnylib]

36. It's not about governing with with Trump so he

doesn't give damn about having good people in government.

For Trump it is all about feeling powerful and getting rich. Nothing else matters. All his talk about America getting cheated by other nations and looking out for American security is BS. Greenland is a good example. He claims that the US needs Greenland for US security and that the rest of the world also needs to have the US in control of Greenland for their safety. But it is actually all about Trump and his cronies having control of Greenland's minerals and getting rich from them.

[Blumancru]

24. Farewell, Hair Farce One

We hardly knew ye…..

[jmowreader]

25. Everyone's seen "Up in Smoke," right?

Remember the scene where the drug dog sniffed the green van and passed out on the pavement?

The government has a program called Technical Surveillance Countermeasures (TSCM). The slang term for it is Bug Sweeping. It is a program using complex devices and old-fashioned inspection to find and neutralize bugs before they can cause damage.

I figure what happened is, the National Security Agency sent a TSCM crew to Trump Force One, had it take flight in case there are bugs on it that only start working after a certain altitude (this to defeat doing TSCM on the ground - if it's not transmitting you can't find it) and the TSCM operators passed out from listening to all the surveillance crap the Qataris, Russians, North Koreans, Iranians, people living on the street Mar-a-Lago's on and anyone else who doesn't like us loaded onto the plane before they gave it to us.

[Lovie777]

27. ALREADY...................

[sop]

28. We paid $1 billion for a rush job to convert this flying palace so Trump could brag about it.

[newdeal2]

30. It's just going to end up in his "museum" / hotel / casino

Another attraction he will charge us for.

[AllaN01Bear]

29. ding. ding. ding. ding ding. ding

hem, you whined at them , gimme a jet, they gave you a jet and it was a lemon. FAIL9 sad trumpet.)

[WarGamer]

33. You'd lose that donut

The plane was refitted by L3Harris to top condition including all security and anti-missile/anti-drone capacity

[ProfessorGAC]

40. That Being The Case...

...what do you surmise as to his reason for ditching it?
I know he's a dope, but there has to be some reason his giving up his grifted toy.

[WarGamer]

44. I'm sure whatever the reason... he's still an idiot.

My theory? The new jet is still in a "break in period" and they haven't had time to test defensive capabilities and being in hostile airspace the SS says stick with the proven platform?

[ProfessorGAC]

49. I Suppose

Seems a little off, though, that a state-of-the-art upgrade would require break-in.
Also, when the shooting occurred, he defied SS by standing up with his defiant fist pump in spite of their protocols.. So, now he's listening to SS?

[Norrrm]

35. This must be a very serious security threat for Trump to give up his shiny toy.

This must be a very serious security threat for Trump to give up his shiny toy.
He bypassed necessary features so he could look good in his eyes.

[purr-rat beauty]

46. Guess who made some cash

You think every penny of tax payers money went into retrofitting that thing?

I'm guessing a small % and the rest up in smoke.

[Blue Owl]

48. What a waste of jet fuel hauling that fat fuck around in two 747s