Star NYT Reporter Calls Out Trump’s Weird Air Force One Claim

A star White House reporter is not sold on President Donald Trump‘s explanation for why he swapped Air Force Ones to return from this week’s NATO summit.

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Reporter Maggie Haberman told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins that she found Trump’s explanation for abruptly ditching his shiny new jet gifted to him by the Qatari government “a little hard to believe.”

Like Haberman, former CIA Director Leon Panetta said Wednesday that Trump’s claim that he wanted to show off the jet to American troops was a “cover story.” In reality, he theorized that the swap was due to security concerns.

Haberman said her colleagues are reporting the same thing—that the Secret Service flagged serious safety concerns about flying the new jet, which taxpayers spent $400 million to retrofit, though specifics about a potential threat have not been released.

“This [Qatari] plane was rushed into circulation because President Trump wanted to fly on a new Air Force One, because the two that he had commissioned during his first term weren’t going to be ready for a variety of reasons, some Boeing’s fault, some an issue with how contracts were renegotiated,” Haberman told Collins.

She continued, “But when you rush something, I mean, you know, when Jonathan [Swan] and I reported in The Times that they were looking at this Qatari plane, lots of people told us they could not imagine a scenario where it could properly be fitted with its defense capabilities in time to protect a president, to do what Air Force One has to do.

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“And so my question is, despite the hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars that were already spent to retrofit this plane for security, what remains?”

Trump is telling an entirely different story, claiming the switch was to honor American troops abroad.

“To honor our brave men and women of the Military, we are sending the brand new, and truly spectacular, Air Force One to Mildenhall Air Force Base, in the United Kingdom, to give them a chance to tour the Aircraft,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

He added, “Everybody is so excited, and we thought that they should be the first. For old time’s sake, we’ll be taking the former Air Force One, from Turkey to Mildenhall, a short trip that is totally worth doing in order to give our Great Military Heroes a chance to appreciate our beautiful new addition to the Air Force Fleet!”

The Qatari jet gifted to the president is not equipped with the same defense systems found on previous Air Force Ones, including protection against electromagnetic pulse attacks, missile-warning sensors, and secure communications.