Bulwark Takes - This $400M Plane Is a Bribe—And Everyone Knows It

Episode Date: May 11, 2025

Sam Stein and Bill Kristol break down one of the most jaw-dropping stories of potential political corruption in recent memory. According to new reporting from ABC News, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a $400 million Boeing 747-8 luxury jet—a "gift" from the royal family of Qatar—that would serve as a new Air Force One and later be handed over to Trump’s presidential foundation

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bulwark, and I am joined by Bill Kristol. Who would I not rather talk to on Mother's Day than Bill Kristol, the grand poobah of The Bulwark. We're hoping your wife and mother are not watching this. I'm sure they watch everything on The Bulwark, certainly everything you'd host on The Bulwark. So he was joking. He was really joking there. That was not serious.

Let me assure you. Happy Mother's Day to my mom and my wife, of course. Bill, thanks for joining us. We're going to talk about what I think is one of the more corrupt acts, potentially, of an administration I've ever seen. And I've covered stuff for about two decades now. I'm curious what Bill's thoughts are. Before we get into it, please do subscribe to the feed.

Really appreciate your support here. Tell people about the feed because we think it's a great resource for news and coverage of the Trump administration. All right, so here's the setup. This morning, ABC News comes out with an exclusive. I'm just going to read a little bit of it, and then I'm going to ask Bill for his reaction. Then I'm going to get into what I really think about it. But here's the story. It goes like this. In what may be the most valuable gift ever extended to the United States from a foreign government, the Trump administration is preparing to accept a super luxury Boeing 7047-8 jumbo jet from the royal family of Qatar, a gift that is to be available for use by President Donald Trump as a new Air Force One until shortly before he leaves office,

at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation. So a foreign government, just to be clear, is going to extend a private palace, a private flying palace, as they call it, that Trump will use officially. And then when he leaves office, we presume after this term, it will be transferred to his presidential library. We won't just sit there. I'm assuming it's just going to be used by Trump. I have never in my life seen a more brazen act of a foreign government trying to influence a president than this. And I will say what's shocking is the story says that, of course,

the DOJ and the White House counsel's office looked at into this made sure it was ethically above board and they determined that everything was kosher because the plan would be given for official use before it's given for private use um bill yeah the quote the private uses this foundation which he totally controls and we'll use it for his personal use yeah it is unbelievable. I mean, a couple of points. You know, when I first saw the story break, I didn't realize that he was going to get it back after the official,

you know, after the four years. Even so, I was kind of disgusted by it. It's such a kind of decadent late empire sort of the wealthy, you know, country gives you this gold-plated, you know, thing to try to win favor as if we can't build our own, you know, thing to try to win favor, as if we can't build our own, you know, Air Force One, the greatest. I know, right? So that part disgusted me, sort of, you know, annoyed me, and just, I thought it was sort of embarrassing. Then, of course, I, yeah, then I saw the degree of just pure corruption, as you say. You know, it's funny, I thought of,

so I've been in, I've been in Air Force One a couple times when I was Vice President, Chief of Staff. I was in Air Force Two many, many, many times. And so I have some feel for, A, I mean, these are command centers, certainly Air Force One in particular, but even Air Force Two. Obviously, confidential phone calls, business, you know, crises happen, you're in the air. This happened in 9-11 famously with Bush and so forth. And the idea that we're going to use some plane that's been supplied to us, even if our guys have to go over it. But if our guys have to go over it and rip out the innards and make sure there's nothing in there, what's the point of taking it, right? I mean, so it's ridiculous.

I know. We're just going to retrofit it. Yeah. So we're going to end up spending so much money. So Trump could have something that looks really garish and grotesque. But so I was thinking a little. So we went to Saudi Arabia. I went with Quahal.

I mean, he went. I was chief of staff. In Christmas of 1990, just before the first Gulf War launched, we went to visit our troops, also visit the kingdom. And, you know, it was a pretty, for a vice president, a pretty high profile and a pretty, you know, kind of important visit. I mean, this is the center of action in the world. We were put up by the Saudis, as you are, by the House government. And we were given gifts. And they were, I don't, I hear, I just, I can't quite remember. It was some kind of thing.

I mean, like a little statuette or a vase or something. A snow globe? Yeah, yeah. Not in Saudi. No, it's like, and it was, I had no idea if it was worth, you know, $10 or $10,000. It was, you know, it could look nice, but it could be fake, forced letter, whatever.

Needless to say, there were total guidelines, strict guidelines on this. We all promptly, we didn't even personally take it. I gave it to one of the staff guys, forced or whatever. Needless to say, there were total strict guidelines on this. We all promptly, we didn't even personally take it. I gave it to one of the staff guys, one of them who took care of things like this, the advanced guys. They immediately shipped it over to the State Department. It was registered. Now, we don't want to offend the Saudis. We didn't say, we can't take this, but it went to the State Department. And then the State Department had a protocol for they could offer to give it back to the Saudis. They could give it to a museum or something. They could use it for decorating U.S. government facilities. The idea that we could not, and I think if the gift was less than $100 or $200, I can't remember, we could keep it. We could ask for it to have it back as a personal memento.

If it was over $30, no question you couldn't do it. And that was pretty strictly enforced. I remember there was no messing around. Everyone understood this is what you have to do to keep your job, really, in the White House. Just to be clear, this gift is estimated to be $400 million. And there's nothing in this story. This is what kind of tickled me in a way. There's nothing in this story where they report, well, why don't say it's debated whether or not it would be wise to accept the gift, even if it were legal to accept?

There's no consideration of the fact that it might look improper or that it would be a form of bribery or that they would be indebted to Qatar after this because of the gift or that Trump would incur political damage if he were to accept such a gift. That never seemed to cross their mind. It was just strictly a question of can we get away? Can we rationalize this is legal uh and it's just open in the air corruption and and you know i know it's we say well he'll get away with it and and yeah i think he probably will get away with it because he just goes about it brazenly it is it is extraordinary and didn't he tour this plane back in february when it was down in Florida or something like that? So he sort of liked it.

I mean, it's not really a surprise gift. It's like, I kind of like that. I kind of like that plane. That plane looks nicer than the one I have. Oh, Bill, I had a question for you. I had a question for you. In the back of my mind, I was wondering, why did this story come out? Yes.

Why did it come out? And I can't help but think maybe someone on staff or maybe a few people on staff think this is a bad look. And maybe we should float it and try to get it killed. Totally. Either on staff or, look, if they went through even the pretense of a review, there would be people down in the White House Ethics Office, people in DO in doj who probably were aware of this i don't think bondi personally just said it's fine they probably was a fake kind of review so maybe some career person decided this is so outrageous i'm going to let people but also they're going to announce it aren't they in a week and a half is it a week and a half i think next week yeah i think in qatar when he visits the middle east so right this is it's not like this is something he's toying with and that might happen.

Well, it's either a trial balloon or they're kind of laying the foundation for everyone to understand. Well, yeah, both. I mean, it's obviously on the prelim, you know, how these trips are. You've covered that. I mean, there's already a preliminary schedule, but also things that could be announced. And obviously, this is one of the things that's on one of the preliminary schedules. It's been distributed to 100 people in the White House and 50 people in the state department and the embassy and so forth and so yes someone saw from 3 p.m to 4 p.m take garish 400 million it's not going to happen secretly i

is he gonna oh you can't i mean you think he'll fly back i mean i guess not but no it is i mean also not even i mean it would be terrible if it were happening with France or something. I mean, it wouldn't be appropriate. But, of course, Qatar is an ally of Iran's, the home, not sponsor, but the refuge of Hamas. Yeah, this is what's rankling some Trumpites, really. Well, what do you think? Do you think, finally, a lot of this, so so that A, it does slightly cross pressure as coalition, B, the corruption is so out of sight.

Does all this stuff add up to some cracks in elite? I had this conversation with Daniel Ziblatt, very, very good at stuff I could say a couple hours ago, a big scholar, how democracies die and so forth. I mean, the elites need to break. The public may have a road. So I have a few thoughts. Could the elites who have been accommodating to Trump, whether it's the Republican Party, congressional leaders, just outside civic and business elites, could they begin to crack over some of this stuff?

So let me throw it back to you. There's three things that could break here. Three things. I don't think any of them are going to, but there's three potential pressure points here. And I want you to figure out, I want your opinion on which one is the more likely to break. One is the MAGA faithful. So we have in one case, Laura Loomer, loves Trump, which she said, take a bullet for him in a tweet, but she's not happy with it. She said, I have to call a spade a spade. We cannot accept a $400 million gift from what she calls, not me, jihadists in suits. All right. So she's upset. So that's one plank where it's

like, this is not a good look. Like, what is he doing here? Don't like this. This is not, you know, this is not the Trump I know. The other thing that could break is the elites. And so you have like, you know, of course the wall street types, the business types, you think it's totally garish and gross and they kind of are embarrassed by it. And they think it's what kind of individual would possibly do this i put in that camp maybe some members of congress now i don't think james comer after investigating hunter biden's art dealings is going to suddenly turn around be like you know what this is actually 20 times worse like we should invest now but i'm talking about like lawmakers who actually have a pulse and think you know this is actually

ethically dubious and presents really problematic national security stuff. That's the other one. Then the final one is just sort of every average day Republican voters who look at Trump and say, wait a second, you're telling me that I can only get a handful of dollars for my kid and I should be fine with it while you're taking a $400 million plane from Qatar. And I'll note just one other story and then I'll turn it over to you for your guests. There was a great Washington Post piece about the Trump meme coin. And I think they estimated 67,000 people bought into it based on the publicity it was getting from Trump himself,

most likely. And in their estimation, 80% of those people saw the value of their purchase nosedive. These are not big investors. These are small-time people putting in $10,000, $5,000 and saw it go to shit. Those are people who I think could also turn on Trump over this type of behavior. That's three camps. What is your sense of which camp is the most vulnerable for Trump? I guess I do think the garish, oligarchic, out-of-control, grift, and self-indulgence stuff can hit. As you were speaking, I was thinking Marie Antoinette, the famous let them eat cake. Let them eat cake, yeah. You were the one who wrote the headline for the Morning Shots this week, let them eat dolls, right?

Let them eat dolls. Yeah. But think about this. I mean, in a a way that's famous but then you think for a second that was the french revolution there were like there are a lot of reasons to have a revolution against the old regime presumably you know injustice and inequality and i'm not saying that those were of course those are the real reasons the deeper reasons but somehow that's what we answered etc is alleged to have said did obviously catch on as it were as an

example of you know grotesque smug self-satisfied out of touchness yeah could there be some of that here i think that's possible yeah well we'll wait and see um all right bill thank you for doing this another day i do appreciate it um i know this is a busy day for us husbands um the real people who should be celebrated no i'm just joking to my wife to my mom we love you very much thank you so much and bill thank you for doing this really appreciate it thank you guys for tuning in on youtube we really appreciate that too subscribe to the feed and we will talk later