Qatar welcomes President Donald Trump with luxury
President Donald Trump touched the warm welcome of fighter jets, cybertracks and dancers in Doha, Qatar.
WASHINGTON – Former Vice President Mike Pence said it was a “bad idea” for President Donald Trump to receive a gorgeous jet from Qatar, arguing that accepting gifts is unconstitutional and could put national security at risk.
“There’s a deep problem: the possibility of a gathering of intelligence, the need to ensure that the US president is safe and secure when traveling around the world,” Pence told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview released on May 16th.
Accepting planes “contradicts our security and intelligence needs,” he added. “My hope is for the president to rethink it.”
Trump has said he plans to accept Boeing 747-8 from the Qatar government. Then, when Trump does not become president, it is handed over to Trump’s foundation.
The $400 million value of the plane itself is the biggest foreign gift ever to the President of the United States.
“Why should our taxpayers be forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars when our military, and therefore taxpayers, can freely get it from a country that wants to reward us for well-documented work,” Trump wrote about the True Society on May 14th.
Pence, who served as vice president in Trump’s first term, told NBC that Qatar “has a long history of playing both sides.”
“They support Hamas. They supported al-Qaeda,” he said.
He added that there are “very realistic constitutional issues.” This includes direct bans from foreign governments from “any kind of… all kinds of things” by federal governments.
“I think it’s just a bad idea, and my hope is that the president will think about it better,” Pence said.
Pence and Trump’s relationship collapsed in January 2021 after refusing to suspend the Congressional process that formalized the outcome of the 2020 presidential election. On January 6th that year, a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol building, explicitly sought violence against Pence as the process was underway.
Pence, a former governor of Indiana, faced Trump in the 2023 presidential primary. However, he dropped out early in the race due to difficulties in voting and raising funds.
