The bribe in the sky
The Qataris make Trump an offer he refuses to refuse.
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Donald Trump devised yet another way to be corrupt this week when he announced that Qatar’s royal family is gifting him a $400 million, tricked-out 747 Boeing jet he described as a “palace in the sky.”
Trump boasted on social media that he’d receive the jet, which he envisions as a temporary Air Force One replacement, “FREE OF CHARGE.”
"It's a great gesture from Qatar,” Trump told reporters. “I appreciate it very much. I would never be one to turn down that kind of an offer."
So, a foreign government made the president an offer he couldn’t refuse, even if the the emoluments clause of the Constitution says he must:
No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.
Unlike Trump, past presidents haven’t treated this part of the Constitution as a mere suggestion. George W. Bush, for instance, didn’t even keep a puppy given to him by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov.
Qatari officials have claimed that reports describing the jet as an outright gift are “inaccurate.” It’s unclear if that’s just cover for a brazen bribe, but it’s important to put this spectacle in the larger context of Trump’s attacks on democratic norms.
Qatar, which has helped fund Hamas, has a lot to gain from making the skies friendlier for Trump. The State Department approved a $2 billion arms sale to Qatar just this March, a marked shift in policy for the US. Qatar hosts 13,000 U.S. troops at Al-Udeid Air Base, which is the largest US military facility in the Middle East, and benefits diplomatically from a longterm US presence in the country.
Trump himself all but said the quiet “pro quo” part out loud when he told reporters that Qatar’s grand gesture is because the US “kept them safe.”
“If it wasn’t for us,” he added, “they probably wouldn’t exist right now.”
That’s Trump’s Doctrine in action — we’ll keep you safe, for the right price.
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Defending the indefensible
When an ABC News reporter asked Trump about accepting Qatar’s gift, he angrily responded with a rambling metaphor about golf that was quite revealing.
They’re giving us a free jet. I could say, No, no, no, don’t give us. I want to pay you a billion or $400 million or whatever it is. Or I can say, Thank you very much. There was an old golfer named Sam Snead. Did you ever hear of him? He won 82 tournaments. He was a great golfer. And he had a motto: “When they give you a putt, you say, ‘Thank you very much,’ you pick up your ball, and you walk to the next hole.” A lot of people are stupid. They say, No, no, I insist on putting it. Then they putt it and they miss it, and their partner gets angry at them. You know what? Remember that. Sam Snead. When they give you a putt, you pick it up and you walk to the next hole and you say, “Thank you very much.”
It’s not easy to defend this level of egregiously corruption, but that isn’t stopping right-wingers from trying. Ann Coulter and actual Senators John Kennedy and Markwayne Mullin each compared Qatar gifting Trump a jet with France giving the US the Statue of Liberty. Speaker Mike Johnson’s excuse-making for Trump was even more absurd.
"The reason many people refer to the Bidens as the 'Biden crime family' is because they were doing all this stuff behind curtains … in the back rooms,” Johnson said. “Whatever President Trump is doing is out in the open. They're not trying to conceal anything ... Trump has had nothing to hide."
Johnson’s argument boils down to the claim that transparent corruption is somehow OK, a silly idea on its face but one that New York Times reporter Eric Lipton bolstered in a Bluesky post about Trump’s latest crypto scam.
“Corruption requires explict quid pro quo,” he wrote. “It is not corrupt to take an action that aligns with the interest of a person who gives you a gift, unless the official action was in direct response to that gift — a bribe.”
This is a strained definition of “corruption.” It suggests that a crooked cop on the take isn’t technically “corrupt” if their own interests truly align with the mob’s. It also misses a vital point about how Trump governs and conducts foreign policy. As Kamala Harris noted in their only presidential debate, Trump is easily manipulated by “favors and flattery.” Our democratic allies grudgingly accept this grim state of affairs, and bad actors eagerly exploit it.
Normally, alliances are formed through shared goals, but Trump lacks a consistent ideology beyond his personal enrichment. Fox News host Brian Kilmeade nodded toward this reality when he asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, “Do you worry that if the Qataris give us something like [the $400 million jet] that they’ll want something in return?”
“Absolutely not,” Leavitt said without an ounce of shame, “because they know President Trump and they know he only work in the interests of the American public in mind.” (Watch below.)
Qatar definitely knows who Trump is and safely presumes that he only acts in the best interest of a single American — himself.
Too much even for (some) Republicans
The emoluments clause requires congressional approval before a government official can accept gifts from a foreign nation. This includes the president, but Trump is trying to rule like a autocrat and bypass Congress whenever possible.
Republicans like Josh Hawley facilitate Trump’s dictatorial ambitions by playing dumb and abdicating all oversight responsibilities.
"Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought,” Hawley claimed this week on CNN. “I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
Republicans just spent the past four years claiming that Joe Biden, who was never that wealthy, could be bought for the price of a cup of coffee, but they now insist Trump, who has actively profited from the presidency, is too rich to bribe.
Rep. Ryan Zinke, former secretary of the interior under Trump, suggested during his own CNN interview that Qatar’s gift is very legal and very cool because Attorney General Pam Bondi, who acts like Trump’s PR flak, had “stepped in and looked at it from a legal point of view. That was helpful.”
Indeed, Bondi released a legal memo declaring the jet gift legally permissible because it would go to Trump’s presidential library before the end of his term. But what she didn’t mention is that she was a registered lobbyist for Ballard Partners, where she represented Qatar and other foreign governments. In short, Bondi’s legal analysis is worth about as much as a degree from Trump University.
Notably, however, a number of Republicans have been willingly to publicly rebuke the bribe in the sky.
“The Constitution specifically says you can't take gifts from foreign leaders,” Rand Paul pointed out on Fox News. “I’m not for it.”
“There's a reason that people can't even buy me a steak dinner,” added Rep. Dusty Johnson on CNN. “It's not necessarily that you can prove I have an ethical problem, it's that the appearance of it doesn't look great."
Both former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley and Ted Cruz brought up the obvious national security issues of the president traveling on a jet he received from a foreign government.
"I also think the plane poses significant espionage and surveillance problems,” Cruz said. “I certainly have concerns."
Republican “concerns” about Trump’s actions are usually worth as much their “thoughts and prayers” after gun massacres. Still, it’s good to see some of them acknowledging that the president shouldn’t be in the business of accepting extremely expensive gifts from foreign governments.
During the same week that the Trump administration has threatened to suspend habeas corpus if Trump can’t defy judicial rulings that displease him, it’s tempting to respond to his naked corruption with a resigned shrug. But that’s a mistake.
Trump fancies himself a ruling monarch accountable to no one and treats the presidency not as an elected office he temporarily holds but his divine right. He flouts the rule of law and basic ethics because he believes no one will stop him, and a leader’s brazen self-enrichment is a hallmark of authoritarian regimes. The grifting isn’t a distraction. It’s part of the fascist package.
That’s it for this week
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I've said "I can't even . . ." so often that I can't even say it anymore. The rationalizations these people come up with -- I can understand thinking them in private or muttering them among close friends and associates, but saying them out loud for a national audience? whereupon much of the mainstream media reports it all with a straight face? I can't even . . .
I read elsewhere that Quatar has been trying to offload this white elephant for years - too ostentatious, too big a target, completely out of style with the leaner meaner trend in private jets for royalty and the filthy rich. They finally found the perfect mark. But as alway, when trump makes a bad decision, its the rest of us that have to pay.