It’s been far too long since our favorite rock kicker, Byron King, has written for the Rude. Byron’s got his new, regular gig at the Daily Reckoning every Tuesday morning. I can’t encourage you enough to read his great articles over there.

And this Memorial Day weekend, we’ve got a Byron Doubleheader! On Monday, he’s returning to the Rude to explain the origin of the debt ceiling. Like all bad things that happened to America in the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson had something to do with it.

In the meantime, in his Rude return, Byron dissects Qatar’s jet gift, Trump’s Boeing bromance, and the bureaucratic black hole that keeps America grounded.

Enjoy! And have a wonderful weekend!

From Qatar, With Love: MAGA Missile or Trojan Jet?

Let’s discuss that big, beautiful Boeing 747-800 that the government of Qatar just gifted to the government of the United States. According to news accounts, the Air Force accepted the title this week. 

America’s new Boeing 747-800, a token of Qatari affection. Courtesy Washington Post.

But first, let’s discuss how Donald J. Trump would not be President of the United States without his long, strong relationship with The Boeing Company (BA). 

It’s axiomatic that anyone who wants to be President has to be famous. Anyone seeking the nation’s highest office must get out, campaign, shake hands, give speeches, pound the podium, and otherwise convince tens of millions that it’s worth the effort to mark their ballot a certain way. The trick is quickly making those myriad political and personal connections during the election cycle. In other words, every candidate confronts the tyranny of time and distance. (Except for Joe Biden in 2020; another story entirely.)

With Trump, it’s fair to say he was famous long before he entered the White House. But it wasn’t exactly President of the United States fame. Pre-politics, the civilian version of Mr. Trump was well known as a dynamic businessman who famously experienced ups and downs. He was a bigshot real estate tycoon in New York, America’s biggest city. And over several decades, he wrote and published numerous bestselling books. 

By the mid-2010s, Trump was a nationally known television star from his fifteen-season run on the very successful show The Apprentice. In his way, Trump was a meaningful part of American culture—a (literally) sober celebrity continuously highlighted in social and business news, and much more. 

As you know, by June 2015, Trump became a presidential candidate. He built his campaign around gut-level, heartland-America issues like “close the border” and “bring back jobs,” and he talked like he meant it. 

Trump presented issues that strongly appealed to middle—and working-class voters, who elected him in 2016, turned out in force in 2020, but not enough to win, and then re-elected him in 2024. It’s all very historic. 

Definitely and deliberately, Trump positioned himself in the right way at the right time. He caught the wave, so to speak. 

But the point I want to emphasize here is that one key element of Trump’s political success, which in no small part literally carried him to the White House, was his relationship with Boeing. And here’s why…

Up In the Sky… It’s Trump Force-1

During his 2016 and 2024 campaigns, Trump extensively used his personal Boeing 757-200, aka “Trump Force-1.” Indeed, Trump and his airplane were joined at the hip for his political journey, and the red, white, and blue aircraft all but defined the man.

Trump’s Boeing 757-200. (How can you tell?) Courtesy PlaneSpotters.net.

For example, during the primaries, while other candidates were cooling their heels at regional airports, awaiting their connector flights to Minneapolis or Charlotte, Trump was zooming in and out of campaign venues. This alone was a major logistical advantage.

Boeing in the background; a familiar format for a Trump Rally. Courtesy BusinessInsider.com.

On any given day, Trump’s big, colorful jet would roar out of the sky to fly past one town or another and land at a nearby airport. Trump would exit the plane like a Boss. He’d smile, wave a lot, and deliver a rousing address to the crowd. Then Trump and his entourage would board the plane, taxi out, and be wheels-up on the way to the next event. 

Ah, the smell of burnt jet fuel! And those engines were the sound of freedom! Again and again, day after day, week after week, this was the Trump method. Jump in the Boeing and head off to an event. He’d wow the crowd with his stump speech, a mix of well-rehearsed lines, innumerable ad-lib comments, and oft-amusing wisecracks. 

Then, Trump would shake hands with voters, sign hats, slap some backs, and always remember to say great things about the nearby cops, EMTs, firefighters, and other organizers and staff. 

Rolls-Royce engines on Trump Force-1, a pre-Presidential Trump thing. Courtesy HauteLiving.com.

Later, and safely airborne, Trump would head to the next event or home to New York or Mar-a-Lago in his Boeing, powered by no less than Rolls-Royce engines. This was suitable for Trump as pre-President then, but as we’ll see in a moment, he now leans toward General Electric Aerospace (GE).

Candidate Trump became President Trump and gained four years’ title to the real Air Force-1 airplanes. These are two fancy but highly militarized Boeing 747-200s dating from the early 1990s. 

I worked at the Pentagon then and recall that the jets originated in the late 1980s when Boeing built them in Everett, Washington. It took several more years to outfit the birds with nuclear-hardened electronics, communications, air defenses, and more. So, in that sense, these two airplanes are almost 40 years old, although they’re very well maintained.

And you may recall how, during his first term, Trump made a big deal out of “negotiating” a buy for two new 747s from Boeing, the advanced model 800s, which are larger, stronger, with way more powerful GE engines, and improved navigation systems, flight controls, and much else. All that, and he insisted on a Trump-looking paint job to boot, such as we see here, in a model on display in the living room of Trump’s hacienda at Mar-a-Lago:

Trump’s future presidential big bird. BWK photo.

In the first term, Boeing was supposed to deliver these two new airplanes in time for Trump to fly in them. But that was overly ambitious, even in the best of circumstances. Then came all of Boeing’s internal troubles with its 737MAX program, numerous other company issues, and the 2020 Pandemic. 

Plus, Trump's contract was so lowball that Boeing immediately began to hemorrhage money on the deal, quite a bit of it. 

Meanwhile, equipping an Air Force-1 type aircraft goes far beyond your typical airliner kit of seats, galleys, and restrooms. We’re talking about a flying national command center, from which the President can speak over secure channels to military and foreign leaders, if not order the launch of bombers and missiles. So the “MilSpec” requirements for a plane like this are monumental. 

In short, building such a flying command and control system masquerading as a presidential transport plane requires a small army of technicians and a related workforce, all with very high security clearances, and that too became a stumbling block for Boeing. Those kinds of people are scarce in the workforce. 

Word in aviation circles is that, during the Biden years, the administration never leaned too hard on Boeing to finish the new airplanes. First, Biden’s people regarded the project as a Trump legacy and didn’t want to spend political capital on it. Second, the new airplanes just weren’t much of a presidential priority, not like solving climate change with the Green New Scam or appointing left-wing judges to federal courts. 

Meanwhile, I recall a conversation I had a couple of years back with a Boeing executive at a military-themed conference. Casually, I asked about the 747-800s then in a conversion program to presidential aircraft, and he explained the company’s tale of industrial and managerial woe. Then he said that it was likely Trump “won’t be around anymore,” so there was no real hurry to bulk up and finish the job. 

Well, well, well…

“Where Are My Jets?”

And along came Trump 2.0, and among his first questions was, “Where are my jets?”

Suddenly, we heard a roaring Niagara waterfall of excuses: the pandemic, labor shortages, security clearances, supply chains, cost creep, and changed tech requirements. Even the Trumpian dark blue paint job on the bottom of the hull is problematic because somehow it isn’t appropriate if there’s a nuclear war. 

Okay, on that last point, here’s something worth knowing: the current presidential paint job, with its ample use of powder blue, was selected in the early 1960s by Jacqueline Kennedy, a noted military technical scholar and the wife of then-President John F. Kennedy. She wanted soft colors, which have stuck for the past 60 years.

U.S. Air Force VC-25, aka “Air Force-1.” Courtesy USAF.

In other words, it’s not like a team of nuclear weapon specialists at Los Alamos or Lawrence Livermore came up with the color of the traditional aircraft paint job. It was Jackie Kennedy’s whim. 

Something else worth knowing is that Trump is remarkably knowledgeable about big airplanes. No, he’s not a pilot. But I’ve met people who have discussed airplanes and aviation with Trump, and apparently, he knows quite a bit. I suppose owning a personal Boeing 757-200 might prompt a person to learn a few things. 

In other words, you can’t bullsh!t Trump about why the new Air Force-1 airplanes are still in the construction shed. He knows when he – and the U.S. government – is being jerked around by both Pentagon procurement bureaucrats and the Boeing people. 

Enter the Qataris

And now we have this odd situation involving the government of Qatar, which offered to donate a fairly new, luxurious airplane (kind of pimped-out, for my taste) to the U.S. government. But it’s also a Trump thing, involving wheeling and dealing, which drives many people crazy.

Thus, we have a problem: our government, its procurement systems, and politicians up and down the line are so used to just spending money that they can’t quite process the idea that a third-party nation is making a grand and courteous gesture. Worse, it’s all quite public and transparent, unlike when politicians quietly accept envelopes of cash, or engage in inside trading, or take “free” trips to some mysterious island in the Caribbean. Hence, the criticism that this new Qatari jet violates the “Emoluments Clause” of the Constitution.

Per news accounts, some years ago, the Qatari plane was valued at $400 million as a new-build unit, with its very fancy interior. That’s nice, but I have contacts in the airplane brokerage biz who say that Qatar has been marketing the airplane for a while, and the best number they’ve seen is in the range of $200 million. 

In other words, this airplane is already a money-loser for Qatar. And if the Qatari government simply gives the bird away to the U.S. government, it’s pocket change to them, while transferring the cost of upkeep to the U.S. Air Force. (Hint: if it’s too hard to make it all work, just fly the plane to the storage boneyard at Davis-Monthan in Arizona.)

Meanwhile, the big question is whether or not this Qatari Boeing 747-800 can serve as Air Force-1 for Trump? 

I suppose Trump can go for a nice ride in the fancy plane. But it lacks nuclear hardening, communication systems, self-defense elements, all the related military-grade electronics, and much else. Indeed, a proper conversion would require stripping the plane down to the ribs and spars and rebuilding it from the inside out. 

So no, turning this Qatari bird into a Trumpian presidential Air Force-1 won’t happen soon, nor will it be cheap, no matter if Boeing does the job, or as rumored, L3Harris Technologies (LHX) gets the nod.

It strikes me that Trump must know all of this. He loves his Boeing 757-200 and enjoys the sweet ride in even the 40-year-old Boeing 747s now serving as Air Force-1. Sure, having a new set of wings would be nicer, but industrial realities are what they are.

All this, while Trump has a love-hate relationship with Boeing. He loves the company’s airplanes, but is dissatisfied with the company’s execution of contracts. Still, he also just awarded Boeing a contract to build a military aircraft called the F-47 (as in “47,” get it?). 

All this, and look at the Boeing share price chart in the past month:

Not bad, eh? And Trump knows that Boeing is important to the American economy. So he’ll deal with whatever happens because, deep down, Trump loves his Boeings.

That’s all for now. Thank you for subscribing and reading.