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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Marina Hyde

Poor Trump: you can’t even accept a luxury jet from Qatar without being called corrupt these days

Donald Trump exiting Air Force One.
Donald Trump arrives in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Air Force One, 13 May 2025. Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP

If you’re familiar with your folklore, you’ll know the story of The Emperor’s New Plane, in which some barely-even-wily out-of-towners turn up with an offer to give a vain and selfish leader a new $400m Boeing 747-8. The merits of accepting this “flying palace” are invisible only to those who are stupid or incompetent, which means the emperor would literally be an idiot not to take it, right?

Right? And so it is that Donald Trump is STUNNED that anyone could be so dumb as to not think he should accept the offer of a state-of-the-art griftliner from the Qatari royal family. This will supposedly become Air Force One, with that other candelabra-free dumpster presumably pensioned off to ferry someone tasteless and irrelevant. (Eric Trump?)

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