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During Aviation Crisis Trump Is Shopping for Used Luxury Jet to Replace Air Force One

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When President Donald Trump travels to the Middle East next week, he hopes to finalize a deal for Qatar to purchase 100 Boeing widebody jets—and for the U.S. to buy a used luxury jetliner, described as one of the most lavish in the world, previously owned by that nation’s former prime minister, to replace an aging presidential Air Force One.

President Trump has said little about the mounting aviation crisis America is facing. As NCRM reported on Tuesday, the Trump administration has seen nearly double the number of aviation-related deaths in the U.S. during the first 105 days of his administration, compared to the same time period during President Joe Biden’s first year in office.

There is an immediate crisis as well: a “communications breakdown last week that resulted in air traffic controllers losing radar and radio contact with the pilots of planes they were guiding into Newark Liberty International Airport,” which “has happened at least two other times since August, a current veteran controller told NBC News,” the network reported. “And at least eight or nine times in recent months, controllers lost radio contact with pilots flying into one of the nation’s busiest airports, said the Newark airspace controller who asked not to be identified.”

READ MORE: ‘Barely Literate’: Education Secretary’s ‘Deranged’ Letter Gets Major Red Ink Corrections

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates are looking to use “their aviation and defense industries to turn commercial deals into political capital,” in negotiations that could be worth nearly $3 trillion, according to Bloomberg News.

“For the Middle East governments, the commitments are a tool to show their allegiance to the White House and curry favor with Trump. For his part, the US president wants to burnish his credentials as a consummate dealmaker, while allaying concerns about the robustness of global alliances after Trump’s drastic tariff announcements last month spooked international governments and investors.”

Bloomberg also reports that an Air Force One “upgrade may figure into the proceedings in Doha. A private Boeing 747 jumbo that Trump toured in February, originally owned by a former Qatari prime minister, has emerged as an interim solution to the new Air Force One presidential planes whose nose-to-tail makeover by Boeing is years behind schedule.”

It is unclear if the jets that carry the President of the United States are unsafe, or merely old and in need of an upgrade, or where President Trump is getting the funds to purchase and upgrade the Qatari jet, which once reportedly listed for $400 million. Also unclear is whether there would be any national security issues.

RELATED: ‘Where Is Duffy?’: Aviation System in Crisis, Transportation Secretary Blames Biden

The Wall Street Journal reports that a Florida-based defense contractor has been named “to ready an interim presidential plane by year’s end, said people with knowledge of the situation.”

The Daily Mail posted photos of the proposed Air Force One replacement, noting that the Qatari-owned luxury jet boasts “leather furniture along with glimmering floors and ceilings,” which match “perfectly with Trump’s famously opulent taste in décor.”

“The conference room has gorgeous tan and cream chairs with deep cushions that are adjustable with the push of a button. The corridors of the plane are lined with reflective, gold-colored walls that are reminiscent of Trump’s design choices at his own properties such as Trump Tower in Midtown Manhattan,” and more recently, the Oval Office as well.

On board is a “conference room with deep cushioned chairs that are adjustable with the push of a button,” and a “glimmering corridor inside the plane that jives with Trump’s famous love for anything and everything gold.”

READ MORE: ‘Backward, Bigoted and Bad’: SCOTUS Slammed Over Trump’s Trans Troop Ban Ruling 

 

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Trump: Democrats Are Plotting ‘Total Obliteration’ of Supreme Court

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President Donald Trump is claiming that the top priority of Democrats is the “total obliteration” of the U.S. Supreme Court. His remarks came just hours after SCOTUS gave Republicans a 6-3 win along partisan lines, in the form of approving Texas’s redrawn mid-decade congressional maps that could help add five GOP-held seats to the U.S. House of Representatives. A lower court had ruled the redrawn Texas maps were likely racially biased.

Although there are different ways to measure, one study by Court Accountability this fall found that the Supreme Court has ruled in Trump’s favor 90% of the time.

“Most of these wins for the president came from the court’s ‘shadow docket’ slate of opinions — where the court has typically, in the past, only ruled on administrative measures,” according to Truthout. “However, in recent years, the Supreme Court has been making announcements on cases, issuing injunctions or allowances of actions to remain in place, that have the same effect, essentially, as a final decision.”

READ MORE: White House Touts Trump’s ‘Track Record’ on Affordability

On Friday, the president declared that the “Democrats number one policy push is the complete and total OBLITERATION of our great United States Supreme Court.”

“They will do this on their very first day in office, through the simple Termination of the Filibuster, SHOULD THEY WIN THE UPCOMING ELECTIONS,” he wrote.

Trump has strongly advocated for Republicans to eliminate the Senate filibuster.

“The Radical Left Democrats are looking at 21 Justices, with immediate ascension,” he wrote, claiming that Democrats would more than double the current size of the court.

“This would be terrible for our Country. Fear not, however, Republicans will not let it, or any of their other catastrophic policies, happen. Our Country is now in very good hands. MAGA!!!”

Some court reform advocates have suggested the Supreme Court be expanded to 13 justices, one for each of the thirteen U.S. Courts of Appeals.

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

 

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White House Touts Trump’s ‘Track Record’ on Affordability

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As President Donald Trump calls Democrats’ push for affordability a “con job,” a “hoax,” and a “scam,” the White House continues to try to promote his focus on that very word — a focus many Americans say is, at best, insufficient.

“It’s a con job. I think affordability is the greatest con job,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Tuesday, as CNN reported. The news network noted that “for Trump, calling affordability a scam is doubly strange because it’s the very issue that helped propel him back to the White House.”

“Candidate Trump,” CNN added, “used remarkably similar language to what President Trump now dismisses as a hoax.”

For example, at an August North Carolina rally, Trump vowed, “We will target everything from car affordability to housing affordability to insurance costs to supply chain issues.”

READ MORE: Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

“Starting on day one, we will end inflation and make America affordable again,” Trump said in a late September rally in Pennsylvania.

A new Politico poll released on Thursday shows that many Americans blame President Trump for the affordability crisis they are experiencing on a daily basis.

“Almost half — 46 percent — say the cost of living in the U.S. is the worst they can ever remember it being, a view held by 37 percent of 2024 Trump voters,” Politico noted. “Americans also say that the affordability crisis is Trump’s responsibility, with 46 percent saying it is his economy now and his administration is responsible for the costs they struggle with.”

While candidate Trump vowed to end inflation “on day one,” the White House now promises that President Trump will “continue to focus on delivering on his Day One priority of ending Joe Biden’s inflation crisis.”

On President Joe Biden’s last day in office, inflation was officially at 2.9%. For the month of January, it came in at 3%. Through September, the last month of the official Labor Department reports, inflation stood at 3%.

Kevin Hassett is the Director of the White House’s National Economic Council, a senior advisor to the President on economic issues, and rumored to be a top Trump pick to run the Federal Reserve.

On Friday, he spoke with Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, who decried Democrats’ ability to “rally around” the affordability crisis.

READ MORE: Inside Trump’s ‘Golden Age’: Troubling New Trends Emerge

“I just think, all of a sudden, the Democrats have found a way to get affordability to stick to their brand,” Bartiromo lamented. “And, Kevin, President Trump came into office with this priority of getting inflation down.”

“How is it possible that the Democrats have been able to rally around this word, ‘affordability,’ and make people think that that’s what they’re focused on and not what the Republicans are focused on, going into an election year?” she asked.

“You know,” Hassett replied, “it’s just what happens sometimes when, you know, one political party has a lot of the media echoing what they’re saying.”

Promising that “there’s lots and lots of things that we could do to reduce the problem of affordability,” Hassett declared that “the affordability problem is 100% created by the Biden administration, with their runaway regulation and their runaway inflation.”

He then touted Trump’s “track record” on the issue, referencing a topic from the first Trump administration.

“The thing I want to remind you is that the President has a proven track record on affordability in healthcare, and it’s this,” he insisted. “If you go back and look at our first term, when we came in and we started to negotiate with the drug companies and make sure that the FDA was approving generic drugs, we had two years in a row where the consumer price index for drugs went negative.”

“We had declining drug prices,” Hassett said. “The only two years that that happened, going all the way back to World War II, we did it then. We’ll do it again.”

READ MORE: Trump Urges Judge Aileen Cannon to Keep Jack Smith Report Secret

 

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Trump’s Ballroom Seen as ‘Key Evidence’ He’s Out of Touch as Cost of Living Spikes

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The White House reportedly will be submitting plans for President Donald Trump’s $300 million ballroom to a federal planning commission later this month, after the East Wing of the White House has already been demolished and as the president replaces the project’s top architect.

“The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the White House itself, at nearly double the size, and President Donald Trump has said it will accommodate 999 people,” the Associated Press reported on Thursday.

Critics blasted the latest news.

“Let me get this straight,” wrote U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), in response to the news. “Trump has a plan for a new ballroom, but barely has a concept of a plan to lower the cost of health care?”

READ MORE: Inside Trump’s ‘Golden Age’: Troubling New Trends Emerge

“Millions are losing health care, but hey, a ballroom! Unbelievable,” declared U.S. Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA).

“It seems like the Trump White House is working harder on constructing a new White House Ballroom than averting huge spikes in monthly premiums for 20 million Americans next year,” observed Brendan Duke of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Those sentiments align with a new study from Navigator Research about how some Americans in six Senate battleground states feel about President Donald Trump’s focus.

“The wealthy are seen as benefitting from a rigged system,” Navigator reported on its findings, “and politicians are seen as not getting it. Many view President Trump as particularly out of touch, with his ballroom project as key evidence.”

“Trump is seen as out of touch with working class people, with several citing his ballroom project as a proofpoint,” Navigator added.

READ MORE: Trump Urges Judge Aileen Cannon to Keep Jack Smith Report Secret

The study noted that focus group participants “are struggling mightily to afford the basics – like dog food or energy bills – and see no real sign of the situation improving.”

Navigator also cited comments from focus group participants who shared a variety of concerns, including about the cost of living — and the president’s ballroom.

“I see the president building a ballroom when there’s people that can’t feed their families,” said a Michigan woman, described as a “weak Democrat.”

A woman in New Hampshire, also a weak Democrat, shared, “I blame Trump. He’s greedy, he wants to make money for him and his rich friends. They are throwing Americans aside, cutting, SNAP,” she said of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. “Everything’s gone to the wayside so that the rich can get richer.”

“I’m scared,” said a New Hampshire woman, an independent. “I’m scared. I’m scared of us losing our healthcare, of him not getting the care that he needs, and me not being able to provide for my family, even though I went to school and got a career to do so.”

A New Hampshire woman described as a weak Democrat said, “I think the economy’s going to tank because when we all lose healthcare starting in January, or most of us like me, I’m going to lose it in January, what is that going to do to the economy? People can’t afford to buy anything now. It’s going to just kill it.”

“How about a ballroom?” asked a Maine woman who was described as an independent. “A billion dollars. How much was it? $5 billion, $3 billion or something? Do we really need a ballroom, ladies? Are we going to go to a f – – dance?…They’re all out for themselves. ‘Let’s do the ballroom. Let’s do stuff that don’t need to be done and screw the American people.’”

READ MORE: Student’s Bible-Based Essay Grade Leads University to Put Instructor on Leave

 

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