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Trump has bought $100 million in bonds since taking office. His portfolio is poised to get a boost if the Fed cuts rates.


By William Edwards

Aug 26, 2025, 4:45 AM CT

New disclosures show that President Trump has bought roughly $100 million of bonds since starting his term.

These purchases could gain from Fed rate cuts, benefiting Trump’s portfolio value.

The president has been pressuring the Fed for months to lower interest rates.

While President Donald Trump has grabbed headlines for his meme-stock holdings and forays into crypto, he’s also been steadily amassing a large stake in good, old-fashioned bonds.

This is according to a US Office of Government Ethics filing from August 19, which showed that Trump has made more than $100 million in bond purchases since starting his second term. The purchases span state, municipal, and corporate bonds with a wide range of maturity dates and yields.

While administration officials have said the transactions are managed completely independent of Trump, it’s still relatively unprecedented for an active president to be making these types of moves at all. He’s the first commander-in-chief in more than 50 years to not at least have personal holdings put into a blind trust while in office.

Given that bond prices normally rise when yields fall, any decline in the latter would increase the overall value of the president’s portfolio. Those yields are likely to decline if the Federal Reserve cuts rates — something Trump has not-so-subtly been imploring it to do for months.

A few caveats: The purchases make up a small portion of Trump’s net worth, which Forbes estimates at around $6 billion. It’s also unclear how Trump’s bond-purchase activity compares to previous periods when he wasn’t in office.

Overall, it’s difficult to know the exact degree to which Trump would benefit from reductions in the fed funds rate. The benchmark rate impacts short-duration yields the most, while factors like inflation impact longer-duration bonds more. Price action on long-duration bonds specifically in response to rate cuts can also be hard to measure because long-term rates can move in advance of cuts.

Trump has called for the central bank to slash rates by 300 basis points, to the 1.25%-to-1.5% range. He has repeatedly pressured Fed Chair Jerome Powell to cut rates. But Powell has run his own race and stuck to the Fed’s internal calculus, even going as far as to say the potentially inflationary effect of Trump’s tariffs was part of the FOMC’s decision to keep rates unchanged at recent meetings.

Trump’s bonds — and the bond market overall — may not have much longer to wait for another rate cut. Investors are currently pricing in an 84% chance of a 25-basis-point reduction at the September Fed meeting, following a weak July jobs report that saw large downward revisions.

For his part, Powell appeared to open the door to a September rate cut during remarks at last week’s Jackson Hole Symposium. Upon the release of his prepared statement, stocks soared instantly, while government bond yields tumbled.

Trumplestilskin:Dollymop!


I am hoping the many people who reelected the current oval office resident are paying attention since they are most responsible for the extreme changes in our Democracy! The notion that he would make America Great Again is more like making America “Grate”. since he was played by the Russian strongman that he so wanted to emulate, the silence is deafening except for his sycophantic mouthpieces who in many cases shoot from the lip. If we are to survive this abominable administration, we must show up during the next election and get some real representatives who are brave enough to hold the line against his eccentricities.

There is no greater power than the power of a well-informed voter. Party is not a factor in these elections as all politicians lie! We can only determine who to elect by what they do. e.g. Ted Cruz who leaves town when crucial votes are needed- definitive no reelection!

The current atmosphere is reminiscent of the reconstruction era and the resulting mismanagement afterwards. Gold paint does not impart value to the object painted it just covers the dirt! Lest we forget the events of 1939 when one man convinced his countrymen that they were the superior race and we should govern all others. This brought about a massive buildup of war material which enriched the lives of the then downtrodden German populace while the “leader” plotted war plans on his neighbors. During that time a Russian dictator was busily committing pogroms and other crimes on their populace, these two menaces joined forces and began their “conquest” of the rest of Europe but notably the Russians did not actively join the “war” against Europe immediately but eagerly participated (against Germany) when the German warlord attacked his country.

All of this to show that we have a weak leader whose rhetoric is stronger (albeit) irrational than his abilities to deliver while having his every random thought published and often acted upon by his Cadre of staffers lead by the modern version of Joseph Goebbels (aka) Stephen Miller. It is within our power (voters) to make a correction in the upcoming election.

They’re worried’: Texas Republicans ‘They’re worried’: Texas Republicans admit they may have screwed up redistricting plan.


Tom Boggioni-Raw Story

State Representative Matt Morgan (R-TX) holds a map of the new proposed congressional districts in Texas, during a legislative session as Democratic lawmakers, who left the state to deny Republicans the opportunity to redraw the state’s 38 congressional districts, begin returning to the Texas State Capitol in Austin, Texas, U.S. August 20, 2025. REUTERS/Sergio Flores

Less than 24 hours after Texas Republicans shoved the redistricting plan across the finish line over Democratic objections, some GOP lawmakers are having a bit of buyer’s remorse that they may have gained some seats in U.S. House of Representatives but put others in play.

According to conservative journalist David Drucker, the plan was to give Republicans a shot at picking up an expected five House seats in the 2026 midterms, but the map, as now written, may put some other districts in play.

During an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” the Dispatch journalist was prompted by host Joe Scarborough with, “One of the main consequences I see from gerrymandering is you get the people in the safe seats, and I won’t even mention their names, but you get people in the safest seats, they say the most, especially in the Republican side, they say the most outrageous things, and they raise a ton of money. The more insulting, the more outrageous, the more vulgar, the crazier, the more insane they sound, because they’re safe in their district, the more money they raise nationwide, the more their profile goes up.”

According to Drucker, “Well, we’ve seen that over the past decade and a half, at least, because all the action, Joe is in the primaries, right? I mean, how often are we discussing a topic here? And you guys ask me, what do Republicans think, and my answer is usually they don’t want to rock the boat ahead of primary season, because the only place they’re going to have a competitive race is in a Republican primary.” After discussing the dilemma Democrats are facing, he added,” Look what’s happening now with the gerrymandering of seats … on the one hand, we could, in the short term have some more competitive districts, right? If you look at that Texas map, some is dark red, a lot of it is shaded light red. And that means if this atmosphere goes against the president and his party next year, I’ve had Republicans in Texas tell me they’re worried [that] instead of gaining five seats, you can have ten competitive seats, and you could end up losing seats

Trump bought more than $100 million in bonds since January, filings show


NBC News

Steve Kopack

1.7k

President Donald Trump has purchased at least $103 million worth of corporate and municipal bonds since he took office in January, according to new filings from the Office of Government Ethics.

The documents, released late Tuesday, show that Trump began the bond-buying spree one day after he was sworn in on Jan. 20 and that it includes debt sold by companies, local governments and entities that could be directly affected by his sweeping agenda. All told, Trump made about 690 purchases from Jan. 21 through Aug. 1.

The active trading by a president of the United States is unprecedented, and it puts Trump in a direct position to benefit — or lose out — if any of the entities that own the bonds he has purchased succeed or fail. It’s also another example of Trump’s pursuing business endeavors and transactions to increase his wealth in office.

“Ultimately, the president is not involved in these transactions,” a senior administration official told NBC News. “They’re managed completely independently of him.”

On Jan. 21, Trump purchased a bond belonging to the New York Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. A week later, he purchased another handful of bonds over consecutive days. Those bonds belong to various municipal hospital facilities, airports, regional development funds and school districts from Florida to Alaska.

The filings do not provide exact purchase amounts but instead show a broad dollar range for each transaction. The filings did not show any sales by Trump.

Trump’s buying continued at a steady clip for months, including bonds from megabanks Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Citigroup worth at least $100,000 apiece.

Trump’s direct ownership of bonds from three of the country’s banking giants also comes as he considers an eventual replacement of Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and weeks after he nominated one of his top aides, Stephen Miran, to a seat on the Fed’s board. The Fed can directly affect a bank’s profit by lowering or raising interest rates, along with myriad regulatory actions. As a Fed governor, Miran would have a direct say in many of those actions.

Trump purchases also included at least $500,000 of bonds apiece from chipmaker Qualcomm, mobile provider T-Mobile USA, Home Depot and UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest private health insurance company.

The filings also show that Trump bought at least $250,001 of Meta’s bonds. CEO Mark Zuckerberg attended Trump’s inauguration and donated $1 million to the event.

Likewise, Trump’s ownership in hundreds of municipal bonds puts him in line to benefit when those municipal entities pay back the debt, and it comes when the administration has been tightly controlling the distribution of funds from the federal government to local and regional governments.

Trump’s net worth is around $5.5 billion, according to the Forbes Billionaires List, up a staggering $3.2 billion since last year.

Typically, presidents divest their financial assets before or shortly after they enter office, but Trump has rejected that precedent and retained most of his empire since his first term.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com

The Mystery of the Strong Economy Has Finally Been Solved


The Atlantic

Story by Rogé Karma • 14h • 5 min read

The Trump economy doesn’t look so hot after all. This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released revised data showing that, over the past three months, the U.S. labor market experienced its worst quarter since 2010, other than during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic. The timing was awkward. Hours earlier, President Donald Trump had announced a huge new slate of tariffs, set to take effect next week. He’d been emboldened by the fact that the economy had remained strong until now despite economists’ warnings—a fact that turned out not to be a fact at all.

After Trump announced his first sweeping round of “Liberation Day” tariffs, in April, the country appeared to be on the verge of economic catastrophe. The stock market plunged, the bond market nearly melted down, expectations of future inflation skyrocketed, and experts predicted a recession.

But the crisis never came. Trump walked back or delayed his most extreme threats, and those that he kept didn’t seem to inflict much economic damage. Month after month, economists predicted that evidence of the negative impact of tariffs in the economic data was just around the corner. Instead, according to the available numbers, inflation remained stable, job growth remained strong, and the stock market set new records.

The Trump administration took the opportunity to run a victory lap. “Lots of folks predicted that it would end the world; there would be some sort of disastrous outcome,” Stephen Miran, the chair of Trump’s council of economic advisers, said of Trump’s tariffs in an interview with ABC News early last month. “And once again, tariff revenue is pouring in. There’s no sign of any economically significant inflation whatsoever, and job creation remains healthy.” A July 9 White House press release declared, “President Trump was right (again),” touting strong jobs numbers and mild inflation. “President Trump is overseeing another economic boom,” it concluded.

The seemingly strong data spurred soul-searching among journalists and economists. “The Economy Seems Healthy. Were the Warnings About Tariffs Overblown?” read a representative New York Times headline. Commentators scrambled to explain how the experts could have gotten things so wrong. Maybe it was because companies had stocked up on imported goods before the tariffs had come into effect; maybe the economy was simply so strong that it was impervious to Trump’s machinations; maybe economists were suffering from “tariff derangement syndrome.” Either way, the possibility that Trump had been right, and the economists wrong, had to be taken seriously.

The sky’s refusal to fall likely influenced the Trump administration’s decision to press ahead with more tariffs. In recent months, Trump has imposed 25 percent tariffs on car parts and 50 percent tariffs on copper, steel, and aluminum. He has threatened 200 percent tariffs on pharmaceuticals. Over the past week, Trump announced trade deals under which the European Union, Japan, and South Korea agreed to accept a 15 percent tariff on exports to the United States. Finally, this morning, he announced a sweeping set of new tariffs, a sort of Liberation Day redux, including a 39 percent levy on Switzerland, 25 percent on India, and 20 percent on Vietnam. These are scheduled to take effect on August 7 unless those countries can negotiate a deal.

Then came the new economic data. This morning, the BLS released its monthly jobs report, showing that the economy added just 73,000 new jobs last month—well below the 104,000 that forecasters had expected—and that unemployment rose slightly, to 4.2 percent. More important, the new report showed that jobs numbers for the previous two months had been revised down considerably after the agency received a more complete set of responses from the businesses it surveys monthly. What had been reported as a strong two-month gain of 291,000 jobs was revised down to a paltry 33,000. What had once looked like a massive jobs boom ended up being a historically weak quarter of growth. 

Even that might be too rosy a picture. All the net gains of the past three months came from a single sector, health care, without which the labor market would have lost nearly 100,000 jobs. That’s concerning because health care is one of the few sectors that is mostly insulated from broader economic conditions: People always need it, even during bad times. (The manufacturing sector, which tariffs are supposed to be boosting, has shed jobs for three straight months.) Moreover, the new numbers followed an inflation report released by the Commerce Department yesterday that found that the Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of price growth had picked up in June and remained well above the central bank’s 2 percent target. (The prior month’s inflation report was also revised upward to show a slight increase in May.) Economic growth and consumer spending also turned out to have fallen considerably compared with the first half of 2024. Taken together, these economic reports are consistent with the stagflationary environment that economists were predicting a few months ago: mediocre growth, a weakening labor market, and rising prices.

The striking thing about these trends is how heavily they diverge from how the economy was projected to perform before Trump took office. As the economist Jason Furman recently pointed out, the actual economic growth rate in the first six months of 2025 was barely more than half what the Bureau of Economic Analysis had projected in November 2024, while core inflation came in at about a third higher than projections.

The worst might be yet to come. Many companies did in fact stock up on imported goods before the tariffs kicked in; others have been eating the cost of tariffs to avoid raising prices in the hopes that the duties would soon go away. Now that tariffs seem to be here to stay, more and more companies will likely be forced to either raise prices or slash their costs—including labor costs. A return to the 1970s-style combination of rising inflation and unemployment is looking a lot more likely.

The Trump administration has found itself caught between deflecting blame for the weak economic numbers and denying the numbers’ validity. In an interview with CNN this morning, Miran admitted that the new jobs report “isn’t ideal” but went on to attribute it to various “anomalous factors,” including data quirks and reduced immigration. (Someone should ask Miran why immigration is down.) And this afternoon, Trump posted a rant on Truth Social accusing the BLS commissioner of cooking the books to make him look bad. “I have directed my Team to fire this Biden Political Appointee, IMMEDIATELY,” he wrote. “She will be replaced with someone much more competent and qualified.” He then went on to argue, not for the first time, that Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell should be fired for hamstringing the economy with high interest rates. These defenses are, of course, mutually exclusive: If the bad numbers are fake, why should Trump be mad at Powell?

In these confused denials, one detects a shade of desperation on Trump’s part. Of course, everything could end up being fine. Maybe economists will be wrong, and the economy will rebound with newfound strength in the second half of the year. But that’s looking like a far worse bet than it did just 24 hours ago.

Buried in Trump’s beautiful bill is a new $250 fee on travelers to the U.S. Estimates project it could cut the federal deficit by nearly $30 billion


Nino Paoli-Fortune

Sat, July 19, 2025 at 7:44 AM CDT

3 min read4.1k

Travelers on nonimmigrant visas will fork over $250 in a security deposit-like transaction when coming to the U.S.
  • A provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act states all visitors who need nonimmigrant visas to enter the U.S.—tourists, business travelers and international students, to name a few—must pay a “visa integrity fee,” currently priced at $250. Travelers who comply with their visa conditions will be eligible for reimbursement. The provision is estimated to bring in $28.9 billion over the next decade.

Visitors to the United States will need to pay a new fee to enter the country, according to the Trump administration’s recently enacted bill.

A provision in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act states all visitors who need nonimmigrant visas to enter the U.S.—tourists, business travelers and international students, to name a few—must pay a “visa integrity fee,” currently priced at $250. The fee cannot be waived or reduced, but travelers are able to get their fees reimbursed, the provision states.

All told, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the new fee could cut the federal deficit by $28.9 billion over the next ten years. During the same period, the CBO expects the Department of the State to issue about 120 million nonimmigrant visas.

In 2023 alone, more than 10.4 million nonimmigrants were issued visas, according to DOS data. CBO expects a “small number” of people will seek reimbursement, as many nonimmigrant visas are valid for several years.

CBO also expects the Department of State would need several years to implement a process for providing reimbursements. Still, the fee could generate billions, the agency estimates.

The fee is set at $250 during the U.S. fiscal year 2025, which ends Sept. 30, and must be paid when the visa is issued, according to the provision. The secretary of Homeland Security can set the current fee higher, the provision states. During each subsequent fiscal year, the fee will be adjusted for inflation.

Those eligible for reimbursement are visa holders who comply with conditions of the visa, which include not accepting unauthorized employment or not overstaying their visa validity date by more than five days, according to the provision.

Senior Equity Analyst at CFRA Research Ana Garcia told Fortune in an email she expects the “vast majority” of affected travelers to be eligible for reimbursement, as historical U.S. Congressional Research Service data indicates that only 1% to 2% of nonimmigrant visitors overstayed their visas between 2016 and 2022.

“The fee’s design as a refundable security deposit, contingent upon visa compliance, should mitigate concerns among legitimate travelers.” Garcia wrote.

Reimbursements will be made after the travel visa expires, the provision said. Any fees not reimbursed will be deposited into America’s Checkbook, or the General Fund of the Government.

Discovery: When Trump touts, its bad!


Or illegal.

Without any in depth analysis, I have noticed that anytime the Resident tout anything with his regular hyperlatives, it mostly turns out to be the opposite. Near time iteration: “tariffs will make America rich”. Tariffs are a tax on goods coming into the country ergo a tax on goods we consume so whenever we (consumers) purchase these goods we pay a portion or all of these “Tariffs” aka “taxes”. By the facts: the Resident is taxing the people above our normal state and local taxes. He and his supporters are really good at gouging the public and smearing superlatives on them to distract us. Solution become educated voters-aka “all that glitters is not gold”!

When Incompetence Goes to War!


Bombing was the easy part
Dan Rather and Team Steady Jun 23    

    Watching Donald Trump deliver the news of an American attack on Iran Saturday night, I wondered how many viewers had the same reaction I did: How can the United States be going to war — and that’s exactly what it is — with advisers whose collective experience managing international conflict is see-through thin? There was Trump, a draft dodger who has long derided the military, surrounded by his war cabinet of second-rate choices, who owe their professional and political souls to him. Will any of them ever question Trump’s decisions? We know the answer to that. Trump did not have solid evidence Iran was building a nuclear bomb. Nearing the time when they might be able to build one is the best that can be said. Similar, although not identical, to the situation when George W. Bush didn’t have hard evidence that Iraq was building weapons of mass destruction. Bad intel back then led to a war that lasted eight years and killed nearly 5,000 Americans and reportedly 200,000 Iraqis. No WMDs were ever found. Lessons learned? Hardly. Bombing Iran was easy enough. Did anyone at the White House think about what would happen on Day 2? Forty-eight hours after the United States launched bunker-busting bombs and dozens of cruise missiles at Iran, the Iranian regime retaliated. Iran launched missiles at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military base in the Middle East. The Defense Department said there were no injuries because Qatari air defenses were able to intercept the Iranian attack. Also, the Iranians gave advance warning to minimize casualties. No one should be surprised by this escalation. And no one should think this is the end of hostilities. Forty thousand U.S. troops are stationed in the region. It is a consequence of going to war, which is exactly what Donald Trump did when he called for strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites. Even if Vice President JD Vance says otherwise. “We’re not at war with Iran. We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program,” he said on “Meet the Press” Sunday. The Iranian people likely quibble with Vance’s semantics. Iran has other retaliatory options from which to choose. In an internal FBI email obtained by The New York Times, American officials warn that Iran and its allies have “historically targeted U.S. interests in response to geopolitical events, and they are likely to increase their efforts in the near term.” The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow strip of water between the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, is one of the world’s most important strategic choke points. And Iran controls the north side of it. The 20 million barrels of oil produced daily in the region — a fifth of global output — must travel through the strait. Some influential Iranians are calling for Hormuz to be closed, including Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor-in-chief of a popular hard-line Iranian newspaper, who has the ear of the supreme leader. “It is now our turn to act without delay. As a first step, we must launch a missile strike on the US naval fleet in Bahrain and simultaneously close the Strait of Hormuz to American, British, German, and French ships,” Shariatmadari wrote in his newspaper. Mohammad Ali Shabani, an expert on Iran, told CNN that Iran’s control of global shipping lanes gives the government the “capacity to cause a shock in oil markets, drive up oil prices, drive inflation, [and] collapse Trump’s economic agenda.” If Hormuz is closed, oil prices will skyrocket. But perhaps the ayatollah will put his pocketbook before payback. China is the No. 1 buyer of Iranian oil. The money Iran earns from Chinese oil sales accounts for 50% of government spending, according to The Times. It has allowed the Iranian regime to fund terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. By the way, need we remind ourselves that China, not Iran, is the most potent foreign threat to American security? Also that Iran, along with China and Russia, has the ability to launch destructive cyber attacks. But now back to the strikes themselves. Trump claimed victory, saying the U.S. bombings “completely and totally obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program. No evidence has been given, and a bomb damage assessment has yet to be released. This administration is not known for truth-telling, so a wait-and-see approach is justified. Using satellite imagery, the Israeli military’s initial assessment is that Fordo, the main nuclear site, where the U.S. dropped at least six bunker busters, was damaged but not destroyed. Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved equipment and uranium from the site prior to the bombing. All this means that Saturday’s attack was not a one-and-done as the president would have us believe. Add to that Trump’s changing tune on regime change. Initially he said the goal of the bombing was “destruction of Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity.” Vance, Pete Hegseth, and Marco Rubio were reading from the same script as they made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows. The administration’s view “has been very clear that we don’t want a regime change,” Vance said. Perhaps the president didn’t get a copy of the talking points. Not four hours later, Trump took to social media. “It’s not politically correct to use the term, ‘Regime Change’ but if the current Iranian Regime is unable to MAKE IRAN GREAT AGAIN, why wouldn’t there be a Regime change??? MIGA!!” he posted. No one thinks the Iranian government is made up of good guys. It has an abysmal human rights record and is the poster child for state-sponsored terrorism. These leaders have a long record of hating America and all for which we stand. They have been known to subvert our Arab allies in the region. But regime change seldom if ever works out the way the changers intend. See: Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan.   But calling for regime change versus seeking to destroy a country’s nuclear capabilities — no matter how spurious the intelligence — are very different goals with very different long-term prospects. It’s been widely reported that the U.S. defense secretary was not included in planning the Iran mission. Perhaps Hegseth’s Signalgate scandal has finally caught up with him. At least he was by Trump’s side as the president delivered his version of the war news. Meanwhile, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has been put on ice by Trump for testifying to Congress — in March — that the intelligence community did not believe Iran was close to building a nuclear weapon. So Trump needs advisers who will guide him by telling him the truth, rather than what he wants to hear; because they are beholden to him for jobs they aren’t qualified for, they never will. Trump learned from his first administration: Don’t hire the smart people, elevate the sycophants. A few closing notes from your reporter, who has spent a fair portion of his life covering wars: Truth IS the first casualty of war. The first things you hear often are untrue, and so are many of the things you hear later. Wars are by their very nature chaotic and unpredictable. What you most expect frequently does not happen; what you least expect often does. Up close and personal, wars are almost unbelievably savage. The television screen and the printed word do not come close to conveying their harsh realities. Stay Steady,
Dan

Movie Reminders


Looking at the Movie “Iron Man” today and was reminded of the past year of the Gaza “conflict?”. Much of the action that occurs in the Middle east shows natives being rounded up and killed, sent packing or enslaved. Meanwhile the political classes (asses)  discuss and guess as to what should be done. And in America the new “Sheriff” has begun to dismantle the government agencies because either they can or because they don’t understand how Government works. The policy of “nuevo Trump 2.0 is to get even at all costs with the overt and tacit approval of the GOP. It is unfortunate that the DEMs are so weak as to present a meager objection even though they do not have control of Congress. All political change starts with small voices that build with facts as the foundation. This political weakness appears to voters as the weakness that it is. If the status quo is to shift, then the political winds need to shift also. It is bad enough that the public is apathetic, complacent or just doesn’t care but  the public servants need to take  the heat and do their jobs with as much honesty as they can muster or just because it is what they were elected to do.

I could quote numerous warnings from the past and near past about the rise of populists and the results thereof but until the public at large learns to or start to learn what information history has shown we will continue down the road to a “kingship” for an extremely incompetent leader and his suck up minions!

Turns Out, Trump’s Qatar Private Jet Wasn’t Even a Gift


The New Republic

Opinion

Edith Olmsted

Tue, May 20, 2025 at 9:15 AM CDT2 min read

There’s no such thing as a free plane.

Donald Trump’s administration specifically sought out the luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet from Qatar’s government to replace Air Force One, despite the president’s insistence that the plane was a gift, sources informed CNN.

A senior White House official told CNN that Trump tasked Steve Witkoff, the president’s special envoy to the Middle East (and shady crypto partner), with tracking down a replacement for Air Force One, after Trump learned that Boeing would not have new jets ready for another two years. Witkoff ended up leading initial conversations with the Qatari government, according to the White House official.

Boeing provided the Pentagon with a list of other clients who might be able to help with America’s search for a new plane, three sources told CNN. One of those sources said that Qatar was included on that list of clients and that the U.S. reached out about purchasing the luxury plane from the Qatari Defense Ministry, which indicated it was willing to sell. There were also discussions about leasing the plane, said another source.

Legal negotiations over the plane’s transfer are still ongoing, and it’s unclear how the plane went from being a potential purchase to a $400 million gift. Trump and his administration have repeatedly stressed that the plane will be free of charge, a gift of goodwill from a foreign government—sparking major backlash on both sides of the aisle over concerns of foreign corruption.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the potential transfer a “donation to our country” on Monday, but the plane is much more of a personal gift to Trump himself than to the people of the United States, whose tax-paying dollars could end up funding the costly rebuild for the president’s supposedly free gift.

Trump reportedly toured a Qatari plane with aides in February and began lamenting how luxurious the plane was compared to his own transportation options. Last week, Trump whined that the current Air Force One is a “much less impressive” plane than the lavish ones dictators use.

CNN’s reporting upends a recent claim from Senator Markwayne Mullin—which was then repeated by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent—that negotiations to receive a plane from Qatar began under Joe Biden’s administration.

Giving Trump $400m Boeing jet was his team’s idea not Qatar’s, report claims

Joe Sommerlad

Tue, May 20, 2025 at 8:39 AM CDT

President Donald Trump’s administration originally approached Qatar about the possibility of acquiring one of its Boeing 747 jumbo jets, according to a report.

The new claim reported in CNN contradicts Trump’s insistence that the controversial plane lined up to replace Air Force One was simply offered as a “gift.”

The $400m aircraft that the Qatari royal family intends to present to the United States, described as a “flying palace” due to its luxurious interior, has inspired a number of ethics complaints at home that cast a long shadow over the president’s visit to the Middle East last week.

Now administration sources cited by CNN claim it was the U.S. that first sought out the plane, rather than Qatar coming forward to offer it as a friendly gesture.

The network’s sources claim that, shortly after Trump returned to the White House in January, the Pentagon contacted Boeing for an update on the two new jets it is building as replacements for the current presidential plane.

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, as he departs the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha on May 15 2025 (Win McNamee/Getty)

U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with the Emir of Qatar, Tamim bin Hamad al Thani, as he departs the Al Udeid Air Base in Doha on May 15 2025 (Win McNamee/Getty)

It was told that their construction would take another two years to complete, prompting a frustrated Trump to task his Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff with drawing up a list of potential alternatives already in service.

Boeing reportedly supplied Department of Defense officials with the names of its clients around the world. “Qatar was one of the clients,” one of the sources said, adding that the Pentagon then approached Doha, with introductions from Witkoff, offering to buy the plane. Qatar responded by indicating it would be willing to sell, it is claimed.

Another source, however, suggested those discussions were originally about leasing the Boeing, not buying it outright.

The account stands at odds with Trump’s own version of events after the president insisted throughout his trip to the Gulf that the plane was a present from one of America’s key regional allies, describing it as “A GIFT, FREE OF CHARGE” on Truth Social and saying that only a “stupid person” would have refused it.

His position was reiterated by Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday. She described the jet as a “donation to our country,” saying that Qatar’s royal family “has offered to donate this plane to the United States Air Force, where that donation will be accepted according to all legal and ethical obligations.”

A White House official has since told The Independent that CNN’s reporting is accurate.

Trump griped about the age of the current presidential plane repeatedly last week, boarding it at Abu Dhabi International Airport on Friday with the resentful words: “I leave now and get into a 42-year-old Boeing. The new ones are coming, new ones are coming.”

Amid a furor in Congress over the jet potentially violating the U.S. Constitution’s emoluments clause, Trump’s own Department of Justice lawyers moved quickly to rule that accepting it would break no laws.

Attorney General Pam Bondi and White House lawyer David Warrington said the donation of the aircraft would be “legally permissible,” given that its ownership would be transferred to the Trump Presidential Library Foundation before the end of his term.

But Columbia Law School Professor Richard Briffault questioned that assessment when he told NPR that if Trump retains ownership of the plane after leaving office, in spite of his claim that it will ultimately be given to the Department of Defense, “then it’s not really a gift to the United States at all” and instead amounts to a “pretty textbook case of a violation of the emoluments clause.”

A Boeing 747 bearing the color scheme of planes used by the Qatari royal family seen at San Antonio International Airport in San Antonio, Texas, earlier this month (Brandon Lingle/The San Antonio Express-News/AP)

A Boeing 747 bearing the color scheme of planes used by the Qatari royal family seen at San Antonio International Airport in San Antonio, Texas, earlier this month (Brandon Lingle/The San Antonio Express-News/AP)

Professor Briffault further warned that accepting any present leaves the recipient beholden to the gift-giver, an argument also made by Trump nemesis Hillary Clinton, saying that gestures like Qatar’s are “designed to create good feelings for the recipient and to get some kind of reciprocity.”

Another cause of concern is the eye-watering cost of retrofitting the jet to make it an acceptable substitute for the presidential plane.

Experts warn that it would take several years and require billions of dollars in further investment from the American taxpayer to ensure it meets the necessary security standards.

It would require secure communications, electromagnetic shielding, and in-flight refueling capabilities, to name just three necessary upgrades.