“They’re making cuts to people’s health care. They’re saying investing in people’s health is wasteful, it’s abusive, but no, getting a third Air Force One, that’s a good investment.”
View the full interview here.
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) joined MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to discuss the Department of Defense’s announcement that they had accepted a $400 million plane from the Qatari government and the contrast between the president’s demands for a luxury plane while he cuts essential programs for Americans.
Key Excerpts:
On the corruption of Trump’s acceptance of a foreign plane for personal use:
[…] The Emoluments Clause in the Constitution is quite clear. Presidents of the United States, like any other person in public office, are prohibited from getting any present from any foreign state unless Congress approves. And obviously we haven’t approved, we will not approve. There’s nothing to approve here. It is all to be shunned. And the reason that’s in the Constitution is we want the American president to be looking out for the American people. We don’t want them paying back favors to foreign leaders or foreign dictators or foreign kings or princes or emirs. Now you can imagine in the future Lawrence, if there is some decision the president of the United States makes that is beneficial to the nation of Qatar, the American people are going to have to wonder, why is he doing this? Is this really in our interest, or is this payback for that plane?
And there are other problems as well. This gets to your Marie Antoinette metaphor, and that is, while Americans are facing higher and higher fares to get on a plane to visit their family or for work. While Americans are having smaller and smaller space for their legs on an airplane. While Americans are having to pay more and more for their luggage fees. While you’re required to take less and less onto an airplane for your overhead compartment. While Americans are dealing with those problems, Donald Trump is dissatisfied with the appointments on his Air Force One. That’s what he’s focused on while there are crashes at airports, while there are near misses, while radar is going down, while there are blackouts, your president, the president of the United States, fellow Americans, is focused on getting a $400 million gift from Qatar that he can use once it’s laundered through the Defense Department. So much wrong with all of this.
On Trump’s demands for a luxury plane while he cuts Americans’ health care:
[…] It is really a challenge to be only a two-Air Force One president. I mean, we need to have a little sympathy here. He’s used to all the gold finishings and whatever, and to have a plane that doesn’t have that is really quite an imposition on the president. When he’s not out playing golf, as he does just about one out of every four days. He likes to ride around on a nice aircraft.
But on a serious note, as you were just discussing, they’re making cuts to people’s health care. They’re saying investing in people’s health is wasteful, it’s abusive, but no, getting a third Air Force One, that’s a good investment. If they were really an entity, as DOGE pretends to be, trying to cut out waste and abuse in the federal government, they would start with this airplane. There would be no question that this is a terrible investment for the United States. There are far cheaper ways to move the president around, more secure ways than having to retrofit, debug, essentially dismantle this aircraft and reassemble it. But of course, what this is all about Lawrence is not about what aircraft he’s going to use while president. It’s about what aircraft he’s going to own when he’s the former president.
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