Former GOP presidential contender Nikki Haley dinged President Trump on Tuesday over his decision to accept a palatial $400 million jet from Qatar to temporarily replace Air Force One.
“Regardless of how beautiful the plane may be, it opens a door and implies the President and US can be bought,” Haley, who served as ambassador to the United Nations during Trump’s first term, wrote in a post on the social media platform X. “If this were [former President] Biden, we would be furious.”
Trump, who is in the Middle East this week, has faced criticism from both sides of the aisle — including from some of his most ardent supporters — over the pricy present from a foreign government, but he defended the move on Monday, telling reporters it would be “stupid” for him to turn down the offer.
“I could be a stupid person and say, ‘No we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane,’ but I thought it was a great gesture,” Trump said.
Under the arrangement, the jet that the Qatari royal family previously used will be given to the U.S. Defense Department to replace the aging Air Force One fleet while Trump is in office. The new aircraft will be transferred to Trump’s eventual presidential library after he leaves the White House.
Haley, the former governor of South Carolina who unsuccessfully challenged Trump for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, joined a chorus of detractors who highlighted questions about the gift’s implications and Qatar’s ties to Hamas.
“Accepting gifts from foreign nations is never a good practice. It threatens intelligence and national security,” she wrote. “Especially when that nation supports a terrorist organization and allows those terrorist regimes to live on its soil.”
Doug Heye, a Republican strategist who previously worked for the Republican National Committee (RNC), also pointed out how Republicans would have reacted if a Democratic president had done the same thing.
“If Obama had done this when I was at the RNC, I know what our statement would have said,” he wrote on X.
