Lawrence O’Donnell has trashed Trump’s “demented dream” of accepting a $400 million Boeing jet from Qatar, saying the president is “too stupid” to see that he’s actually being humiliated.
The MSNBC host said Trump is on a “humiliation tour” of the Middle East. On Tuesday’s episode of The Last Word he even suggested that leaders from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates view Trump with contempt.
O’Donnell said they see Trump as “someone who lives beneath them, as someone who takes their secondhand junk, their secondhand toys.”
He went after Trump again on Wednesday’s show, contending that the U.S. president is “too stupid” to realize that he‘s being humiliated.
The veteran host suggested that the 13-year-old Boeing 747-8 is only being given to Trump because it’s been “abandoned by the dictator of Qatar because it’s not good enough for him anymore.”
“But it’s good enough for Donald Trump. Donald Trump is currently the only person in the Middle East too stupid to understand how humiliated he is now by that 13-year-old plane that’s not good enough for a dictator, but is more than good enough for Donald Trump,” O’Donnell blasted.
The host said that Trump already has access to the “most sophisticated” 747s in the world, the two Air Force One Boeings. Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity earlier this week aboard one of them, the president suggested that they are too old. He has told aides that they are “humiliating” to fly in and other world leaders laugh at him, The Atlantic reported.
“But Donald Trump wants to spend billions of dollars converting a 13-year-old 747-8 to serve as Air Force One, maybe in the last year of his presidency, like around that time, that’s how long it would take, at least,” O’Donnell added.
Aviation experts told NBC News that converting the 747-8 into Air Force One could take years, and cost $1 billion, more than twice its book value.
Trump has long been frustrated by delays in Boeing’s construction of two new Air Force One planes. “We’re very disappointed that it’s taking Boeing so long to build a new Air Force One,” he told reporters Monday, before departing for his Middle East tour.
The company expects them to be ready in 2027, one year before the end of Trump’s second term.
This made him the perfect target for the royal family of Qatar, which owns one of the largest private jet fleets in the world, to dump one of their old jumbos.
“Donald’s not going to get his toy, but he’s too stupid to know that yet,” O’Donnell continued.
“Donald Trump will be the last one to realize that the dictator 747 is never going to be converted to Air Force One. Donald Trump’s desperate public attempt to take this biggest payoff in history is a perfect way of illuminating to voters who Donald Trump really is,” he added.
He suggested that Trump wants to keep the plane for use post-presidency. An anonymous White House official told The Atlantic that this is the president’s plan.
“At the end of Donald Trump’s presidency, the defense department will simply give the plane to Donald Trump’s presidential library, which means Donald Trump will decide just who gets to fly on that plane after he is president. And we know who’s going to fly in that plane,” he said.
While presidents cannot accept gifts over a certain value, their presidential libraries can.
Closing the segment, O’Donnell said that Trump’s desire to own the jet “will remain but a demented dream.”
The White House has been contacted for comment.
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